Book Image

An Ethical Guide to Cyber Anonymity

By : Kushantha Gunawardana
Book Image

An Ethical Guide to Cyber Anonymity

By: Kushantha Gunawardana

Overview of this book

As the world becomes more connected through the web, new data collection innovations have opened up more ways to compromise privacy. Your actions on the web are being tracked, information is being stored, and your identity could be stolen. However, there are ways to use the web without risking your privacy. This book will take you on a journey to become invisible and anonymous while using the web. You will start the book by understanding what anonymity is and why it is important. After understanding the objective of cyber anonymity, you will learn to maintain anonymity and perform tasks without disclosing your information. Then, you’ll learn how to configure tools and understand the architectural components of cybereconomy. Finally, you will learn to be safe during intentional and unintentional internet access by taking relevant precautions. By the end of this book, you will be able to work with the internet and internet-connected devices safely by maintaining cyber anonymity.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Basics of Privacy and Cyber Anonymity
4
Part 2: Methods and Artifacts That Attackers and Competitors Can Collect from You
9
Part 3: Concepts and Maintaining Cyber Anonymity

Levels of cyber anonymity

As we discussed earlier, cyber anonymity is trying to hide your identity without hiding the action. The meaning of being anonymous is hiding your identity but your actions still being visible. Back in 1996, there was a paper published in the Journal of Universal Computer Science by Bill Finn and Hermann Maurer, who were from the computer science department at the University of Auckland. It first introduced the levels of anonymity (https://www.jucs.org/jucs_1_1/levels_of_anonymity/Flinn_B.pdf). This paper introduced multiple levels of anonymity. According to the paper, networked computer systems required multiple levels of anonymity. The paper explains five levels of anonymity, but these levels were introduced in 1996, so it does not provide categorization for the techniques and tactics used today. However, it establishes a few points to continue our discussion.

The various levels of cyber anonymity are as follows:

  • Level 5 – Super-identification...