Four short links: 1 February 2018
Tor + Bitcoin = De-anonymization, Classic Papers, 3D Holograms, and Big Data Privacy
- Deanonymizing Tor Hidden Service Users Through Bitcoin Transactions Analysis — This, for example, allows an adversary to link a user with @alice Twitter address to a Tor hidden service with private.onion address by finding at least one past transaction in the blockchain that involves their publicly declared Bitcoin addresses.
- Great Moments in Computing — the reading list for this Princeton course is fascinating! (via Paper a Day)
- Volumetric 3D Images that Float in the Air (Kurzweil AI) — the video is impressive! Trap a particle with a laser, move it around really fast while illuminating it with red, green, and blue lights. Result, thanks to persistence of vision: illusion of 3D object. Brilliant!
- A Precautionary Approach to Big Data Privacy — In Section 3, we discuss the levers that policymakers can use to influence data releases: research funding choices that incentivize collaboration between privacy theorists and practitioners, mandated transparency of re-identification risks, and innovation procurement. Meanwhile, practitioners and policymakers have numerous pragmatic options for narrower releases of data. In Section 4, we present advice for six of the most common use cases for sharing data. Our thesis is that the problem of “what to do about re-identification” unravels once we stop looking for a one-size-fits-all solution, and in each of the six cases we propose a solution that is tailored, yet principled.
