Design and Evaluation of Anonymity Solutions for Mobile Networks

Abstract: Internet and mobile communications have had a profound effect on today's society. New services are constantly being deployed, in which personal data are being processed in return for personally tailored services. While mobile networks lay the groundwork for new innovative services, at the same time they pose numerous privacy challenges. There is the risk that honest citizens participating in mobile communications will have their privacy invaded for "the greater good". We argue that it is highly important that individuals are empowered to retain control over their personal spheres. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to design and evaluate anonymous overlay networks} adapted for mobile networks that allow users to control which information leaves their personal spheres in a mobile communication.Technically, by using an anonymous overlay network, users can communicate with their communication partners without disclosing their network identities. In this thesis, we propose three different anonymous overlay networks tailored for mobile networks. First, two approaches are proposed for anonymous browsing on the mobile Internet, namely mCrowds and a Tor-based approach. By applying theoretical analysis and,/,or practical experiments, we show that these approaches offer an appropriate trade-off between the offered degree of anonymity and performance loss. Second, an anonymous overlay network for use in mobile ad hoc networks - Chameleon - is suggested.Besides the actual design of these anonymous overlay networks, this thesis provides novel contributions in other essential areas of privacy protection and anonymous communication. First, also non-technical aspects of privacy protection are thoroughly discussed, including legal, social, and user interface aspects. Second, we survey existing metrics for quantifying anonymity and also propose new ideas regarding anonymity metrics. Third, we review and classify existing mechanisms for anonymous communication in mobile ad hoc networks. Lastly, we also propose a cryptographic technique for building up the user base of an anonymous overlay network in a secure and privacy-friendly manner.