51 research outputs found
Identity management policy and unlinkability: a comparative case study of the US and Germany
This study compares the privacy policies of Germany and the US in the field of identity management. It analyses the emergence of unlinkability within the countries’ electronic citizen identity initiatives. The study used qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interview and document analysis, to analyse the policy-making processes surrounding the issue of unlinkability. The study found that unlinkability is emerging in different ways in each country. Germany’s data protection and privacy regimes are more coherent than the US, and unlinkability was an incremental policy change. US unlinkability policies are a more significant departure from its data protection and policy regimes. New institutionalism is used to help explain the similarities and differences between the two countries’ policies. Scholars have long been calling for the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in policy-making, and unlinkability falls into this category. By employing PETs in this way, German and US identity management policies are in the vanguard of their respective privacy regimes. Through these policies, the US comes closer to German and European data protection policies, doing so non-legislatively. The digital citizen identities appearing in both countries must be construed as commercial products inasmuch as official identities. Lack of attendance to the commercial properties of these identities frustrates policy goals. As national governments embark on further identity management initiatives, commercial and design imperatives, such as value to the citizen and usability, must be considered for policy to be successful
Privacidade em redes de próxima geração
Doutoramento em Engenharia InformáticaIn the modern society, communications and digital transactions are becoming
the norm rather than the exception. As we allow networked computing devices
into our every-day actions, we build a digital lifestyle where networks and
devices enrich our interactions. However, as we move our information towards
a connected digital environment, privacy becomes extremely important as most
of our personal information can be found in the network. This is especially
relevant as we design and adopt next generation networks that provide
ubiquitous access to services and content, increasing the impact and pervasiveness
of existing networks.
The environments that provide widespread connectivity and services usually
rely on network protocols that have few privacy considerations, compromising
user privacy. The presented work focuses on the network aspects of privacy,
considering how network protocols threaten user privacy, especially on next
generation networks scenarios. We target the identifiers that are present in
each network protocol and support its designed function. By studying how the
network identifiers can compromise user privacy, we explore how these threats
can stem from the identifier itself and from relationships established between
several protocol identifiers.
Following the study focused on identifiers, we show that privacy in the network
can be explored along two dimensions: a vertical dimension that establishes
privacy relationships across several layers and protocols, reaching the user,
and a horizontal dimension that highlights the threats exposed by individual
protocols, usually confined to a single layer. With these concepts, we outline an
integrated perspective on privacy in the network, embracing both vertical and
horizontal interactions of privacy. This approach enables the discussion of several
mechanisms to address privacy threats on individual layers, leading to
architectural instantiations focused on user privacy. We also show how the
different dimensions of privacy can provide insight into the relationships that
exist in a layered network stack, providing a potential path towards designing
and implementing future privacy-aware network architectures.Na sociedade moderna, as comunicações e transacções digitais estão a
tornar-se a regra e não a excepção. À medida que permitimos a intromissão de
dispositivos electrĂłnicos de rede no nosso quotidiano, vamos construĂndo um
estilo de vida digital onde redes e dispositivos enrirquecem as nossas interacções.
Contudo, ao caminharmos para um ambiente digital em rede, a nossa
privacidade vai-se revestindo de maior importãncia, pois a nossa informação
pessoal passa a encontrar-se cada vez mais na rede. Isto torna-se particularmente
relevante ao adoptarmos redes de próxima geração, que permitem
acesso ubĂquo a redes, serviços e conteĂşdos, aumentando o impacte e
pervasividade das redes actuais.
Os ambientes onde a conectividade e os serviços se tornam uma constante,
assentam em protocolos de rede que normalmente contemplam poucas
considerações sobre privacidade, comprometendo desta forma o utlizador. O
presente trabalho centra-se nos aspectos de privacidade que dizem respeito Ă
rede devido Ă forma como os protocolos sĂŁo utilizados nas diferentes camadas,
e que resultando em ameaças à privacidade do utilizador. Abordamos especificamente
os identificadores presentes nos protocolos de rede, e que sĂŁo
essenciais à sua função. Neste contexto exploramos a possibilidade destes
identificadores comprometerem a privacidade do utilizador através da
informação neles contida, bem como das relações que podem ser estabelecidas
entre identificadores de diferentes protocolos.
ApĂłs este estudo centrado nos identificadores, mostramos como a privacidade
em redes pode ser explorada ao longo de duas dimensões: uma dimensão que
acentua as relações verticais de privacidade, cruzando vários protocolos até
chegar ao utilizador, e uma dimensão horizontal que destaca as ameaças
causadas por cada protocolo, de forma individual, normalmente limitadas a
uma única camada. Através destes conceitos, mostramos uma visão integrada
de privacidade em redes, abrangendo tanto as interacçoes de privacidade
verticais como as horizontais. Esta visão permite discutir vários mecanismos
para mitigar ameaças especĂficas a cada camada de rede, resultando em
instânciações arquitecturais orientadas à privacidade do utilizador. Finalmente,
mostramos como as diferentes dimensões de privacidade podem fornecer uma
visão diferente sobre as relações estabelecidas na pilha protocolar que
assenta em camadas, mostrando um caminho possĂvel para o desenvolvimento
de futuras arquitecturas de rede com suporte para privacidade
Identity management policy and unlinkability: a comparative case study of the US and Germany
This study compares the privacy policies of Germany and the US in the field of identity management. It analyses the emergence of unlinkability within the countries’ electronic citizen identity initiatives. The study used qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interview and document analysis, to analyse the policy-making processes surrounding the issue of unlinkability. The study found that unlinkability is emerging in different ways in each country. Germany’s data protection and privacy regimes are more coherent than the US, and unlinkability was an incremental policy change. US unlinkability policies are a more significant departure from its data protection and policy regimes. New institutionalism is used to help explain the similarities and differences between the two countries’ policies. Scholars have long been calling for the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in policy-making, and unlinkability falls into this category. By employing PETs in this way, German and US identity management policies are in the vanguard of their respective privacy regimes. Through these policies, the US comes closer to German and European data protection policies, doing so non-legislatively. The digital citizen identities appearing in both countries must be construed as commercial products inasmuch as official identities. Lack of attendance to the commercial properties of these identities frustrates policy goals. As national governments embark on further identity management initiatives, commercial and design imperatives, such as value to the citizen and usability, must be considered for policy to be successful
A Trust-by-Design Framework for the Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment where interconnected entities can interact and can be identifiable, usable, and controllable via the Internet. However, in order to interact among them, such IoT entities must trust each other. Trust is difficult to define because it concerns different aspects and is strongly dependent on the context. For this reason, a holistic approach allowing developers to consider and implement trust in the IoT is highly desirable. Nevertheless, trust is usually considered among different IoT entities only when they have to interact among them.
In fact, without considering it during the whole System Developmente Life Cycle (SDLC) there is the possibility that security issues will be raised. In fact, without a clear conception of the possible threats during the development of the IoT entity, the lack of planning can be insufficient in order to protect the IoT entity.
For this reason, we believe that it is fundamental to consider trust during the whole SDLC in order to carefully plan how an IoT entity will perform trust decisions and interact with the other IoT entities. To fulfill this goal, in this thesis work, we propose a trust-by-design framework for the IoT that is composed of a K-Model and several transversal activities. On the one hand, the K-Model covers the SDLC from the need phase to the utilization phase. On the other hand, the transversal activities will be implemented differently depending on the phases. A fundamental aspect that we implement in this framework is the relationship that trust has with other related domains such as security and privacy. Thus we will also consider such domains and their characteristics in order to develop a trusted IoT entity
A blockchain based approach for the definition of auditable Access Control systems
This work proposes to exploit blockchain technology to define Access Control systems that guarantee the auditability of access control policies evaluation. The key idea of our proposal is to codify attribute-based Access Control policies as smart contracts and deploy them on a blockchain, hence transforming the policy evaluation process into a completely distributed smart contract execution. Not only the policies, but also the attributes required for their evaluation are managed by smart contracts deployed on the blockchain. The auditability property derives from the immutability and transparency properties of blockchain technology. This paper not only presents the proposed Access Control system in general, but also its application to the innovative reference scenario where the resources to be protected are themselves smart contracts. To prove the feasibility of our approach, we present a reference implementation exploiting XACML policies and Solidity written smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. Finally, we evaluate the system performances through a set of experimental results, and we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of our proposal
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A blockchain based approach for the definition of auditable Access Control systems
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