WorldWideScience

Sample records for anonyms and pseudonyms

  1. HOP: Achieving Efficient Anonymity in MANETs by Combining HIP, OLSR, and Pseudonyms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Campos Javier

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Offering secure and anonymous communications in mobile ad hoc networking environments is essential to achieve confidence and privacy, thus promoting widespread adoption of this kind of networks. In addition, some minimum performance levels must be achieved for any solution to be practical and become widely adopted. In this paper, we propose and implement HOP, a novel solution based on cryptographic Host Identity Protocol (HIP that offers security and user-level anonymity in MANET environments while maintaining good performance levels. In particular, we introduce enhancements to the authentication process to achieve Host Identity Tag (HIT relationship anonymity, along with source/destination HIT anonymity when combined with multihoming. Afterward we detail how we integrate our improved version of HIP with the OLSR routing protocol to achieve efficient support for pseudonyms. We implemented our proposal in an experimental testbed, and the results obtained show that performance levels achieved are quite good, and that the integration with OLSR is achieved with a low overhead.

  2. The Policy Debate on Pseudonymous Health Registers in Norway

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andresen, Herbjørn

    Patient health data has a valuable potential for secondary use, such as decision support on a national level, reimbursement settlements, and research on public health or on the effects of various treatment methods. Unfortunately, extensive secondary use of data has disproportionate negative impact on the patients' privacy. The Norwegian health data processing regulation prescribes four different ways of organizing health registers (anonymous, de-identified, pseudonymous or fully identified data subjects). Pseudonymity is the most innovative of these methods, and it has been available as a legitimate means to achieve extensive secondary use of accurate and detailed data since 2001. Up to now, two different national health registers have been organized this way. The evidence from these experiences should be encouraging: Pseudonymity works as intended. Yet, there is still discernible reluctance against extending the pseudonymity principle to encompass other national health registers as well.

  3. The Pseudonym on the Internet: Identity Creation and Space of Freedom

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcienne Martin

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available New Technologies of Information and Communication (TIC are located out of time and out of space. Indeed, the permanent connectivity of people through digital interfaces (binary type is at the origin of the implementation of completely new paradigms. Anonymity and privacy are two phenomena that oppose one another with respect to both the social practices and their concepts involved; they have a huge impact on the organizational structure of the various civil societies in the world. In addition, if the digital society is rooted in civil society, it does not duplicate. Moreover, on Internet users identify themselves by creating their pseudonymous and by the use of pseudonyms in a relationship without any hierarchy, while in civil society nomination is subject to the law.

  4. Implementing Pseudonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miranda Mowbray

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available I will give an overview of some technologies that enable pseudonymity - allowing individuals to reveal or prove information about themselves to others without revealing their full identity. I will describe some functionalities relating to pseudonymity that can be implemented, and some that cannot. My intention is to present enough of the mathematics that underlies technology for pseudonymity to show that it is indeed possible to implement some functionalities that at first glance may appear impossible. In particular, I will show that several of the intended functions of the UK national ID could be provided in a pseudonymous fashion, allowing greater privacy. I will also outline some technology developed at HP Labs which ensures that users’ personal data is released only to software that has been checked to conform to their preferred privacy policies.

  5. PUCA: A Pseudonym Scheme with User-Controlled Anonymity for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANET)

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Förster, David; Kargl, Frank; Löhr, Hans

    2014-01-01

    Envisioned vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) standards use pseudonym certificates to provide secure and privacy-friendly message authentication. Revocation of long-term credentials is required to remove participants from the system, e.g. in case of vehicle theft. However, the current approach to

  6. Anonymously Productive and Socially Engaged While Learning at Work

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magni, Luca

    2016-01-01

    Many concurrent variables appear to influence people when they interact anonymously, either face-to-face (F2F) or in computer-mediated communications (CMC).This paper presents the results of a small exploratory research, conducted in a medical company in Italy, to investigate how the use of pseudonyms influences CMC behaviours. The study involved…

  7. Privacy through pseudonymity in mobile telephony systems

    OpenAIRE

    Arapinis, Myrto; Mancini, Loretta Ilaria; Ritter, Eike; Ryan, Mark

    2014-01-01

    To protect mobile phone from tracking by third parties, mobile telephony systems rely on periodically changing pseudonyms. We experimentally and formally analyse the mechanism adopted to update these pseudonyms and point out design and implementation weaknesses that defeat its purpose by allowing the identification and/or tracking of mobile telephony users. In particular, the experiments show that the pseudonym changing mechanism as implemented by real networks does not achieve the intended p...

  8. Secondary Analysis of Audio Data. Technical Procedures for Virtual Anonymization and Pseudonymization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henning Pätzold

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available Qualitative material presented as audio data requires a greater degree of protecting of anonymity than for example textual data. Apart from the verbal content, it carries paraverbal aspects including voice characteristics, thus making it easier to identify the speaker. This complicates secondary analysis or reanalysis conducted by researchers who were not involved in the data collection. Difficulties increase if the chances are high that the researcher and the interviewee come in contact for example through a meeting. This paper describes the technical procedures that are used to modify the sound of the audio source in a way that it reduces the possibility of recognition (i.e. similar to that of a carefully written transcript. A discussion of the technical possibilities of this procedure along with an exploration of the boundaries of anonymization is presented. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501249

  9. Decision Level Fusion of Fingerprint Minutiae Based Pseudonymous Identifiers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yang, Bian; Busch, Christoph; de Groot, Koen; Xu, H.; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.

    2011-01-01

    In a biometric template protected authentication system, a pseudonymous identifier is the part of a protected biometric template that can be compared directly against other pseudonymous identifiers. Each compared pair of pseudonymous identifiers results in a verification decision testing whether

  10. V-Tokens for Conditional Pseudonymity in VANETs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schaub, Florian; Kargl, Frank; Ma, Zhendong; Weber, M.

    Privacy is an important requirement in vehicle networks, because vehicles broadcast detailed location information. Also of importance is accountability due to safety critical applications. Conditional pseudonymity, i.e., usage of resolvable pseudonyms, is a common approach to address both. Often,

  11. A RESTful interface to pseudonymization services in modern web applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lablans, Martin; Borg, Andreas; Ückert, Frank

    2015-02-07

    Medical research networks rely on record linkage and pseudonymization to determine which records from different sources relate to the same patient. To establish informational separation of powers, the required identifying data are redirected to a trusted third party that has, in turn, no access to medical data. This pseudonymization service receives identifying data, compares them with a list of already reported patient records and replies with a (new or existing) pseudonym. We found existing solutions to be technically outdated, complex to implement or not suitable for internet-based research infrastructures. In this article, we propose a new RESTful pseudonymization interface tailored for use in web applications accessed by modern web browsers. The interface is modelled as a resource-oriented architecture, which is based on the representational state transfer (REST) architectural style. We translated typical use-cases into resources to be manipulated with well-known HTTP verbs. Patients can be re-identified in real-time by authorized users' web browsers using temporary identifiers. We encourage the use of PID strings for pseudonyms and the EpiLink algorithm for record linkage. As a proof of concept, we developed a Java Servlet as reference implementation. The following resources have been identified: Sessions allow data associated with a client to be stored beyond a single request while still maintaining statelessness. Tokens authorize for a specified action and thus allow the delegation of authentication. Patients are identified by one or more pseudonyms and carry identifying fields. Relying on HTTP calls alone, the interface is firewall-friendly. The reference implementation has proven to be production stable. The RESTful pseudonymization interface fits the requirements of web-based scenarios and allows building applications that make pseudonymization transparent to the user using ordinary web technology. The open-source reference implementation implements the

  12. On the Potential of PUF for Pseudonym Generation in Vehicular Networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Petit, Jonathan; Bösch, C.T.; Feiri, Michael; Kargl, Frank

    2012-01-01

    Most proposals for security of vehicular networks foresee the generation of a comparatively large number of changing pseudonyms to prevent vehicles from being identified or tracked. Most proposals rely on communication with backend pseudonym providers to refill a vehicle’s pseudonym pool which

  13. What Does Anonymization Mean? DataSHIELD and the Need for Consensus on Anonymization Terminology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallace, Susan E

    2016-06-01

    Anonymization is a recognized process by which identifiers can be removed from identifiable data to protect an individual's confidentiality and is used as a standard practice when sharing data in biomedical research. However, a plethora of terms, such as coding, pseudonymization, unlinked, and deidentified, have been and continue to be used, leading to confusion and uncertainty. This article shows that this is a historic problem and argues that such continuing uncertainty regarding the levels of protection given to data risks damaging initiatives designed to assist researchers conducting cross-national studies and sharing data internationally. DataSHIELD and the creation of a legal template are used as examples of initiatives that rely on anonymization, but where the inconsistency in terminology could hinder progress. More broadly, this article argues that there is a real possibility that there could be possible damage to the public's trust in research and the institutions that carry it out by relying on vague notions of the anonymization process. Research participants whose lack of clear understanding of the research process is compensated for by trusting those carrying out the research may have that trust damaged if the level of protection given to their data does not match their expectations. One step toward ensuring understanding between parties would be consistent use of clearly defined terminology used internationally, so that all those involved are clear on the level of identifiability of any particular set of data and, therefore, how that data can be accessed and shared.

  14. Two Poets with One Pseudonym

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmadreza Yalameha

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Mir Mohammad Mom'en with Arshi pseudonym and name of Nader ol-Asr was mystic and calligrapher of 16th century AD in India SubContinent. His father Mir Abd ol-Lah Meshkin Ghalam with Vasfi Pseudonym was poet and Calligrapher of Kerman who was son of Shah Ne'mat ol-Lah. Shah Ne'mat ol-Lah immigrated to India during Jalal ed-Din Akbar Gurkani. Jalal ed-Din named Shah Ne'mat ol-Lah as Meshkin Ghalam. In addition to Complete Poetical Works consisting of ghazals, refrains, stanzas, quatrains and singles, there are many works of Arshi in verse and prose. He is versifier of a Mathnavi in imitation of Mathnavi Ma'navi in 3000 stichos which is composed in 1069 AH and remained unknown up to now. He had also another Mathnavi with the name of Mehr and Vafa in imitation of Khosrow and Shirin. In addition to his verse works, it has remained a work by the name of Shekarestan which he has composed in imitation of Saadi's Golestan and Jami's Baharestan. Contemporaneous with him, another poet with a short interval was living. He was one of Isma'eel Mirza's daughter's children, the son of Shah Tahmasb Safavi, with the name of Tahmasb Gholi Beigi. Tahmas Gholi Beigi has Pseudonym of Arshi too. Arshi Yazdi had a Poetical worksconsisting of odes, refrains and stanzas. This Poetical workswas written in 16th century AD and had been available in Malek National Library with number of 5568. Poetical works of mentioned poets including Mehr and Vafa has been misrecognized in many resources and attributed to each other.

  15. Call me ‘Top in Dar’ : the role of pseudonyms in Bongo Fleva music

    OpenAIRE

    Omari, Shani

    2012-01-01

    Over the last two decades Bongo Fleva music has become a popular form of entertainment as well as a key cultural element among Tanzanian urban youth. The objective of this paper is to examine the role of pseudonyms in this musical genre in Tanzania. It focuses on how Bongo Fleva artists adopt their pseudonyms and discusses their role in identity formation among urban youths in contemporary Tanzania. The paper argues that pseudonyms in Bongo Fleva, as in various other fields, have an important...

  16. Can anonymous posters on medical forums be reidentified?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bobicev, Victoria; Sokolova, Marina; El Emam, Khaled; Jafer, Yasser; Dewar, Brian; Jonker, Elizabeth; Matwin, Stan

    2013-10-03

    Participants in medical forums often reveal personal health information about themselves in their online postings. To feel comfortable revealing sensitive personal health information, some participants may hide their identity by posting anonymously. They can do this by using fake identities, nicknames, or pseudonyms that cannot readily be traced back to them. However, individual writing styles have unique features and it may be possible to determine the true identity of an anonymous user through author attribution analysis. Although there has been previous work on the authorship attribution problem, there has been a dearth of research on automated authorship attribution on medical forums. The focus of the paper is to demonstrate that character-based author attribution works better than word-based methods in medical forums. The goal was to build a system that accurately attributes authorship of messages posted on medical forums. The Authorship Attributor system uses text analysis techniques to crawl medical forums and automatically correlate messages written by the same authors. Authorship Attributor processes unstructured texts regardless of the document type, context, and content. The messages were labeled by nicknames of the forum participants. We evaluated the system's performance through its accuracy on 6000 messages gathered from 2 medical forums on an in vitro fertilization (IVF) support website. Given 2 lists of candidate authors (30 and 50 candidates, respectively), we obtained an F score accuracy in detecting authors of 75% to 80% on messages containing 100 to 150 words on average, and 97.9% on longer messages containing at least 300 words. Authorship can be successfully detected in short free-form messages posted on medical forums. This raises a concern about the meaningfulness of anonymous posting on such medical forums. Authorship attribution tools can be used to warn consumers wishing to post anonymously about the likelihood of their identity being

  17. Anonymous authentication and location privacy preserving schemes for LTE-A networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zaher Jabr Haddad

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Long Term Evaluation Advanced (LTE-A is the third generation partnership project for cellular network that allows subscribers to roam into networks (i.e., the Internet and wireless connections using spacial purpose base-stations, such as wireless access points and home node B. In such LTE-A based networks, neither base-stations, nor the Internet and wireless connections are trusted because base-stations are operated by un-trusted subscribers. Attackers may exploit these vulnerabilities to violate the privacy of the LTE-A subscribers. On the other hand, the tradeoff between privacy and authentication is another challenge in such networks. Therefore, in this paper, we propose two anonymous authentication schemes based on one-time pseudonymes and Schnorr Zero Knowledge Protocols. Instead of the international mobile subscriber identity, these schemes enable the user equipment, base-stations and mobility management entity to mutually authenticate each others and update the location of the user equipment without evolving the home subscriber server. The security analysis demonstrate that the proposed schemes thwart security and privacy attacks, such as malicious, international mobile subscriber identity catching, and tracking attacks. Additionally, our proposed schemes preserve the location privacy of user equipment since no entity except the mobility management entity and Gate-Way Mobile Location Center can link between the pseudonymes and the international mobile subscriber identity. Also attackers have no knowledge about international mobile subscriber identity. Hence, the proposed schemes achieve backward/forward secrecy. Furthermore, the performance evaluation shows that the proposed handover schemes impose a small overhead on the mobile nodes and it has smaller computation and communication overheads than those in other schemes.

  18. «Nomen est omen»: pseudonyms in actor society of Dnieper Ukraine late XIX – early XX century

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. V. Yeremeyeva

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available In the article on the memoirs and archival material basis of Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kyiv and State Archives of Kharkiv Region the etymology of some actor’s pseudonyms on the Dnieper Ukraine territory in late XIX – early XX century was analysed. The pseudonyms’ place and role in desired professional actor image formation were determined. In particular the fact that pseudonyms borrowed or transformed from the famous literary character names used to transfer the character’s moral qualities and exterior to the artist was defined. The stage name creation specificity depending on the affiliation of the actor to the Russian or Ukrainian repertoire was shown. Also the basic motives for fictional anthroponym using in actors’ society were depicted. The main reason for the actor’s name-change among ones originated from the nobility and clergy was shown. Besides the recognition of pseudonym as the important part of professional success not only among the actors, but also among entrepreneurs of Dnieper Ukraine in late XIX – early XX century was explored.

  19. An overview of anonymity and anonymous communication

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koot, M.

    2008-01-01

    Privacy is becoming an increasingly important aspect in distributed systems. In anonymous communication, privacy is provided to communicating parties by hiding their identities from each other and/or from others. This paper discusses the problem of anonymous communication and clarifies the notion of

  20. Comparison of the Personality Profiles of Inmate Anonymous and Non-Anonymous Male Addicts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nasrolah Erfani

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Aim: This study compared the personality profiles of inmate anonymous and non-anonymous male addicts. Method: The participants of study were anonymous and non-anonymous male addicts of the prisons of the Hamadan province in 1391. The population was 3130 addicts, including 627 anonymous and 2503 non-anonymous addicts. The 310 addicts were selected by stratified random sampling the sample size was determined by Cochran formula.The short-form NEO Five Factor personality questionnaire administered among selected sample. Data analyzed by descriptive statistic as frequency and percentage, also, inferential statistic as multivariate analysis of variance was run. Results: The results showed that personality profiles of anonymous and non-anonymous addicts were significantly different. That is, mean score of neuroticism in anonymous addicts was less than non anonymous. Also, mean score of extraversion was higher in anonymous addicts. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the anonymous male addicts are differ with non-anonymous male addicts in personality traits.

  1. Anonymous steps: gender and Gamblers Anonymous

    OpenAIRE

    Rogers, Jim

    2015-01-01

    The biggest source of help for problem gamblers remains gamblers anonymous (GA) in terms of accessibility and availability. GA has traditionally been very much a male preserve. This paper reports on a literature review of Gamblers Anonymous together with data from observations of a contemporary open GA meeting over a one year period. Whilst some studies from North America suggest a changing culture and gender balance within GA programmes observations from the North of England, supported b...

  2. Comments on ``Anonymous Reviews'' An Editor's View of Anonymous Reviews

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goff, John A.

    I have read with great interest the recent Forum commentaries in Eos by Myrl Beck, Charles Robinove, Robert Criss, and Anne Hofmeister regarding anonymous reviews. I heartily support their position that anonymous reviews should be avoided. I have not written an anonymous review in ages (and regret the few that I did), and have always appreciated and respected greatly anyone who signs a critical review of one of my own papers. However, I would like to add some perspective from the editorial standpoint. I have served as JGR associate editor for 3 years (never anonymously!), and as Eos editor for seismology and tectonophysics for 4. Over the years, I have rejected a fair number of papers, most of those based on anonymous reviews (fortunately, none of the above commentators was one of them). The vast majority of anonymous reviews I received were well considered. While I would wish that all reviews were signed, I don't think we can summarily dismiss the fear that many would have of enmity and reprisal over a critical review. Some of these fears are likely justified. On more than one occasion, have I witnessed overly aggressive responses on the part of authors to anonymous reviews that I considered to be entirely fair and constructive in their criticisms. I do think we need to do all we can to discourage anonymous reviews, but it will be difficult to completely remove that choice from the process.

  3. The selective adaptation of the alcoholics anonymous program by Gamblers Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Browne, B R

    1991-09-01

    This paper is largely based on a year long observation study of Gamblers Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in northern California. The paper argues, contrary to popular assumption, that Gamblers Anonymous is significantly different from Alcoholics Anonymous. Differences, in members' consciousness for example, are discussed. The paper contends that although there is some12 step consciousness in G.A., the dominant consciousness ispage 17 consciousness. The significant differences are attributed to the selective adaptation of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Several consequences of these differences, such as the central role of a language of the self in A.A. and not in G.A., are highlighted.

  4. Pattern-Guided k-Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rolf Niedermeier

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available We suggest a user-oriented approach to combinatorial data anonymization. A data matrix is called k-anonymous if every row appears at least k times—the goal of the NP-hard k-ANONYMITY problem then is to make a given matrix k-anonymous by suppressing (blanking out as few entries as possible. Building on previous work and coping with corresponding deficiencies, we describe an enhanced k-anonymization problem called PATTERN-GUIDED k-ANONYMITY, where the users specify in which combinations suppressions may occur. In this way, the user of the anonymized data can express the differing importance of various data features. We show that PATTERN-GUIDED k-ANONYMITY is NP-hard. We complement this by a fixed-parameter tractability result based on a “data-driven parameterization” and, based on this, develop an exact integer linear program (ILP-based solution method, as well as a simple, but very effective, greedy heuristic. Experiments on several real-world datasets show that our heuristic easily matches up to the established “Mondrian” algorithm for k-ANONYMITY in terms of the quality of the anonymization and outperforms it in terms of running time.

  5. Purpose-restricted Anonymous Mobile Communications Using Anonymous Signatures in Online Credential Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fathi, Hanane; Shin, SeongHan; Kobara, Kazukuni

    2010-01-01

    To avoid the risk of long-term storage of secrets on a portable device, an online credential system supports the roaming user in retrieving securely at various locations his private key and other material to generate anonymous signatures. The protocol proposed here allows a roaming mobile user...... to access anonymously services such as whistle blowing and net-counselling. Our approach: (1) allows a mobile user, remembering a short password, to anonymously and securely retrieve the credentials necessary for his anonymous communication without assuming a pre-established anonymous channel...

  6. Data anonymization patent landscape

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirjana Pejić Bach

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The omnipresent, unstoppable increase in digital data has led to a greater understanding of the importance of data privacy. Different approaches are used to implement data privacy. The goal of this paper is to develop a data anonymization patent landscape, by determining the following: (i the trend in data anonymization patenting, (ii the type of technical content protected in data anonymization, (iii the organizations and countries most active in patenting data anonymization know-how; and (iv the topics emerging most often in patent titles. Patents from the PatSeer database relating to data anonymization from 2001 to 2015 were analyzed. We used the longitudinal approach in combination with text mining techniques to develop a data anonymization patent landscape. The results indicated the following. The number of single patent families is growing with a high increase after 2010, thus indicating a positive trend in the area of patenting data anonymization solutions. The majority of patenting activities relate to the G Physics section. Organizations from the USA and Japan assigned the majority of patents related to data anonymization. The results of text mining indicate that the most often used word in titles of data anonymization patents are “anonym*, “method”, “data” and “system”. Several additional words that indicated the most frequent topics related to data anonymization were: “equipment”, “software”, “protection”, “identification”, or “encryption”, and specific topics such as “community”, “medical”, or “service”.

  7. Research on Anonymization and De-anonymization in the Bitcoin System

    OpenAIRE

    ShenTu, QingChun; Yu, JianPing

    2015-01-01

    The Bitcoin system is an anonymous, decentralized crypto-currency. There are some deanonymizating techniques to cluster Bitcoin addresses and to map them to users' identifications in the two research directions of Analysis of Transaction Chain (ATC) and Analysis of Bitcoin Protocol and Network (ABPN). Nowadays, there are also some anonymization methods such as coin-mixing and transaction remote release (TRR) to cover the relationship between Bitcoin address and the user. This paper studies an...

  8. Personalized Pseudonyms for Servers in the Cloud

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiao Qiuyu

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available A considerable and growing fraction of servers, especially of web servers, is hosted in compute clouds. In this paper we opportunistically leverage this trend to improve privacy of clients from network attackers residing between the clients and the cloud: We design a system that can be deployed by the cloud operator to prevent a network adversary from determining which of the cloud’s tenant servers a client is accessing. The core innovation in our design is a PoPSiCl (pronounced “popsicle”, a persistent pseudonym for a tenant server that can be used by a single client to access the server, whose real identity is protected by the cloud from both passive and active network attackers. When instantiated for TLS-based access to web servers, our design works with all major browsers and requires no additional client-side software and minimal changes to the client user experience. Moreover, changes to tenant servers can be hidden in supporting software (operating systems and web-programming frameworks without imposing on web-content development. Perhaps most notably, our system boosts privacy with minimal impact to web-browsing performance, after some initial setup during a user’s first access to each web server.

  9. On Backward-Style Anonymity Verification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawabe, Yoshinobu; Mano, Ken; Sakurada, Hideki; Tsukada, Yasuyuki

    Many Internet services and protocols should guarantee anonymity; for example, an electronic voting system should guarantee to prevent the disclosure of who voted for which candidate. To prove trace anonymity, which is an extension of the formulation of anonymity by Schneider and Sidiropoulos, this paper presents an inductive method based on backward anonymous simulations. We show that the existence of an image-finite backward anonymous simulation implies trace anonymity. We also demonstrate the anonymity verification of an e-voting protocol (the FOO protocol) with our backward anonymous simulation technique. When proving the trace anonymity, this paper employs a computer-assisted verification tool based on a theorem prover.

  10. Delineating social network data anonymization via random edge perturbation

    KAUST Repository

    Xue, Mingqiang

    2012-01-01

    Social network data analysis raises concerns about the privacy of related entities or individuals. To address this issue, organizations can publish data after simply replacing the identities of individuals with pseudonyms, leaving the overall structure of the social network unchanged. However, it has been shown that attacks based on structural identification (e.g., a walk-based attack) enable an adversary to re-identify selected individuals in an anonymized network. In this paper we explore the capacity of techniques based on random edge perturbation to thwart such attacks. We theoretically establish that any kind of structural identification attack can effectively be prevented using random edge perturbation and show that, surprisingly, important properties of the whole network, as well as of subgraphs thereof, can be accurately calculated and hence data analysis tasks performed on the perturbed data, given that the legitimate data recipient knows the perturbation probability as well. Yet we also examine ways to enhance the walk-based attack, proposing a variant we call probabilistic attack. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that such probabilistic attacks can also be prevented under sufficient perturbation. Eventually, we conduct a thorough theoretical study of the probability of success of any}structural attack as a function of the perturbation probability. Our analysis provides a powerful tool for delineating the identification risk of perturbed social network data; our extensive experiments with synthetic and real datasets confirm our expectations. © 2012 ACM.

  11. Anonymous Connections and Onion Routing

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Syverson, Paul F; Goldschlag, David M; Reed, Michael G

    1997-01-01

    .... Unmodified Internet applications can use these anonymous connections by means of proxies. The proxies may also make communication anonymous by removing identifying information from the data stream...

  12. Quantum anonymous voting with anonymity check

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Horoshko, Dmitri; Kilin, Sergei

    2011-01-01

    We propose a new protocol for quantum anonymous voting having serious advantages over the existing protocols: it protects both the voters from a curious tallyman and all the participants from a dishonest voter in unconditional way. The central idea of the protocol is that the ballots are given back to the voters after the voting process, which gives a possibility for two voters to check the anonymity of the vote counting process by preparing a special entangled state of two ballots. Any attempt of cheating from the side of the tallyman results in destroying the entanglement, which can be detected by the voters.

  13. [Anonymous birth and neonaticide in Tyrol].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Danner, C; Pacher, M; Ambach, E; Brezinka, C

    2005-10-01

    In 2001 the Austrian government provided the legal means that formally enabled "anonymous birth": a woman can now give birth in any hospital in Austria without giving her name or insurance number, the baby is taken into care by social services and placed with adoptive parents. The cost of the hospital stay is covered from public funds. These measures were put into effect after some highly publicized cases of infant abandonment and neonaticide in Austria. In the mostly rural and small-town province of Tyrol province in western Austria (687,000 inhabitants, 7000 births per year) four cases of neonaticide were discovered in the years from 1996 to 2004. One child was abandoned inside a hospital. Since 2001 two women have made use of the "anonymous birth" option. Neither had had any pregnancy controls, both showed up at or near term with contractions. They delivered healthy infants that were then taken into care by local adoption services. Both women were extensively counselled by psychologists, social workers, medical and midwifery staff and both insisted on their original decision to remain anonymous. A few weeks later one of the women found herself at the centre of a criminal investigation for infanticide after anonymous letters were sent to family members insinuating she had done away with the child. Police stopped that investigation when hospital staff confirmed that the woman had had an "anonymous" delivery. Despite the option of legal "anonymous" birth free of charge in modern hospitals there are still cases of infant abandonment and neonaticide in Austria. It is proposed that the women who opt for anonymous birth may not be the women who would otherwise kill their babies. Instead, it appears that the women opted for anonymity to escape the probably well-intentioned but overbearing attention of their families and of social services. It is doubtful that the option of anonymous birth will lead to a complete disappearance of infanticide and infant abandonment in

  14. Self-tallying quantum anonymous voting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Qingle; Yu, Chaohua; Gao, Fei; Qi, Haoyu; Wen, Qiaoyan

    2016-08-01

    Anonymous voting is a voting method of hiding the link between a vote and a voter, the context of which ranges from governmental elections to decision making in small groups like councils and companies. In this paper, we propose a quantum anonymous voting protocol assisted by two kinds of entangled quantum states. Particularly, we provide a mechanism of opening and permuting the ordered votes of all the voters in an anonymous manner; any party who is interested in the voting results can acquire a permutation copy and then obtains the voting result through a simple calculation. Unlike all previous quantum works on anonymous voting, our quantum anonymous protocol possesses the properties of privacy, self-tallying, nonreusability, verifiability, and fairness at the same time. In addition, we demonstrate that the entanglement of the quantum states used in our protocol makes an attack from an outside eavesdropper and inside dishonest voters impossible. We also generalize our protocol to execute the task of anonymous multiparty computation, such as anonymous broadcast and anonymous ranking.

  15. PathShuffle: Credit Mixing and Anonymous Payments for Ripple

    OpenAIRE

    Moreno-Sanchez Pedro; Ruffing Tim; Kate Aniket

    2017-01-01

    The I owe you (IOU) credit network Ripple is one of the most prominent alternatives in the burgeoning field of decentralized payment systems. Ripple’s path-based transactions set it apart from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Its pseudonymous nature, while still maintaining some regulatory capabilities, has motivated several financial institutions across the world to use Ripple for processing their daily transactions. Nevertheless, with its public ledger, a credit network such as Ripple is n...

  16. How to Bootstrap Anonymous Communication

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jakobsen, Sune K.; Orlandi, Claudio

    2015-01-01

    formal study in this direction. To solve this problem, we introduce the concept of anonymous steganography: think of a leaker Lea who wants to leak a large document to Joe the journalist. Using anonymous steganography Lea can embed this document in innocent looking communication on some popular website...... anonymous steganography, { A construction showing that anonymous steganography is possible (which uses recent results in circuits obfuscation), { A lower bound on the number of bits which are needed to bootstrap anonymous communication....

  17. How to Bootstrap Anonymous Communication

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jakobsen, Sune K.; Orlandi, Claudio

    2015-01-01

    formal study in this direction. To solve this problem, we introduce the concept of anonymous steganography: think of a leaker Lea who wants to leak a large document to Joe the journalist. Using anonymous steganography Lea can embed this document in innocent looking communication on some popular website...... defining anonymous steganography, - A construction showing that anonymous steganography is possible (which uses recent results in circuits obfuscation), - A lower bound on the number of bits which are needed to bootstrap anonymous communication....

  18. “How Can You Write About a Person Who Does Not Exist?”: Rethinking Pseudonymity and Informed Consent in Life History Research

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kate Mukungu

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available This methodology paper recommends that, when possible, qualitative research on activism should be designed to enable each participant to choose between using a pseudonym and one’s actual name. The stance is informed by life history data collection encounters with women in post-conflict settings whose activism seeks to eliminate violence against women and girls (VAWG. The benefits of accommodating a mix of names make this a viable alternative to the prevalent practice of obscuring all participants’ identities with pseudonyms. Writing about participants in a way that does no harm to them depends on the care and attention with which the researcher ascribes or dissociates data to or from them, regardless of the name used. Process consent is desirable as participants’ consent is not fully informed prior to data collection. One aspect of informed consent worthy of attention is the need to explain the methods of data analysis and presentation of findings to life history participants. The above practices help ensure that negotiating informed consent with participants whilst acting towards the principle of doing no harm are tailored to the particular features of the life history method.

  19. “We are Anonymous.” Anonymity in the Public Sphere – Challenges of Free and Open Communication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saskia Sell

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Anonymity, the stealth mode of public communication, challenges different actors who deal with freedom of communication issues in their day to day life – be it professional journalists, information and communication scientists, technicians or political activists. This article aims to deliver theoretical background on the concept of anonymity on the macro-level, as well as to shed light on how different communicators deal with anonymity on the micro-level. Based on the example of the Anonymous movement, communicative actions are put in relation to media technological artifacts and their surrounding media environment with a focus on journalistic practice and public response to the phenomenon. The analysis concludes with the need for a preservation of options for anonymous public communication as a dimension of freedom of communication after carefully considering both the advantages and the potential risks connected to that mode of private-public communication.

  20. Anonymous women? Gamblers Anonymous and gender

    OpenAIRE

    Rogers, Jim

    2016-01-01

    One of the rapidly changing elements in gambling environments is the increasing participation of women in many forms of gambling, and the growing proportions of problem gamblers who are female. It is known that women who develop gambling problems differ from men in a range of ways:for example they are more likely to have co-morbidities such as anxiety and depression, and to gamble as an 'escape' from such co-occuring problems. Gamblers Anonymous (GA) has a number of meetings across New Zeala...

  1. A Model of Onion Routing With Provable Anonymity

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-08-30

    Lysyanskaya. “A Formal Treatment of Onion Routing.” CRYPTO 2005, pp. 169.187, 2005. [4] David Chaum . “The dining cryptographers problem...1988. [5] David Chaum . “Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms.” Communi- cations of the ACM, 24(2), pp. 84-88, 1981...network layer.” ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 193-206, 2002. [11] David Goldschlag, Michael Reed, and Paul Syverson

  2. Are anonymous evaluations a better assessment of faculty teaching performance? A comparative analysis of open and anonymous evaluation processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Afonso, Nelia M; Cardozo, Lavoisier J; Mascarenhas, Oswald A J; Aranha, Anil N F; Shah, Chirag

    2005-01-01

    We compared teaching performance of medical school faculty using anonymous evaluations and open evaluations (in which the evaluator was not anonymous) and examined barriers to open evaluation. Residents and medical students evaluated faculty using an open evaluation instrument in which their identity was indicated in the evaluation. Following this, they completed anonymous evaluation on the same faculty members. Aggregate outcomes using the two evaluation systems were compared. Outcomes by group of evaluators (residents and students) were analyzed. Trainees were also asked to rate the barriers to the open evaluation process. A statistically significant difference between the open and anonymous evaluations was noted across all items, with faculty receiving lower scores on the anonymous evaluations. The mean score for all the items on the open evaluations was 4.45 +/- 0.65, compared to mean score of 4.07 +/- 0.80 on the anonymous evaluations. There was also a statistically significant difference between open and anonymous evaluations in five clinical teaching domains that were evaluated individually. Residents perceived that the three most common barriers to optimal evaluation were an apprehension of possible encounters with the same attending physician in the future, destruction of working relationships with the attending, and a feeling of frustration with the evaluation system. The evaluation of faculty teaching performance is complex. Most academic medical centers use the open evaluation format. This study supports the case for the use of the anonymous evaluation method as a more accurate reflection of teaching performance.

  3. Digital anonymity on the internet : new rules for anonymous electronic transactions? an exploration of the private law implications of digital anonymity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Grijpink, J.H.A.M.; Prins, C.

    2001-01-01

    This article sets out the most important conclusions of the first stage of a study into the dimensions of digital anonymity. It is intended to set out the problem, make people aware of the intricacies of the problem and thus stimulate the debate on useful legal structures for anonymity. The

  4. Privacy-Preserving Authentication Using a Double Pseudonym for Internet of Vehicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cui, Jie; Xu, Wenyu; Zhong, Hong; Zhang, Jing; Xu, Yan; Liu, Lu

    2018-05-07

    The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) plays an important role in smart transportation to reduce the drivers’s risk of having an accident and help them manage small emergencies. Therefore, security and privacy issues of the message in the tamper proof device (TPD) broadcasted to other vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) have become an important research subject in the field of smart transportation. Many authentication schemes are proposed to tackle the challenges above and most of them are heavy in computation and communication. In this paper, we propose a novel authentication scheme that utilizes the double pseudonym method to hide the real identity of vehicles and adopts the dynamic update technology to periodically update the information (such as member secret, authentication key, internal pseudo-identity) stored in the tamper-proof device to prevent the side-channel attack. Because of not using bilinear pairing, our scheme yields a better performance in terms of computation overhead and communication overhead, and is more suitable to be applied in the Internet of Vehicles.

  5. Privacy-Preserving Authentication Using a Double Pseudonym for Internet of Vehicles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jie Cui

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The Internet of Vehicles (IoV plays an important role in smart transportation to reduce the drivers’s risk of having an accident and help them manage small emergencies. Therefore, security and privacy issues of the message in the tamper proof device (TPD broadcasted to other vehicles and roadside units (RSUs have become an important research subject in the field of smart transportation. Many authentication schemes are proposed to tackle the challenges above and most of them are heavy in computation and communication. In this paper, we propose a novel authentication scheme that utilizes the double pseudonym method to hide the real identity of vehicles and adopts the dynamic update technology to periodically update the information (such as member secret, authentication key, internal pseudo-identity stored in the tamper-proof device to prevent the side-channel attack. Because of not using bilinear pairing, our scheme yields a better performance in terms of computation overhead and communication overhead, and is more suitable to be applied in the Internet of Vehicles.

  6. Privacy-Preserving Authentication Using a Double Pseudonym for Internet of Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Wenyu; Zhang, Jing; Xu, Yan; Liu, Lu

    2018-01-01

    The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) plays an important role in smart transportation to reduce the drivers’s risk of having an accident and help them manage small emergencies. Therefore, security and privacy issues of the message in the tamper proof device (TPD) broadcasted to other vehicles and roadside units (RSUs) have become an important research subject in the field of smart transportation. Many authentication schemes are proposed to tackle the challenges above and most of them are heavy in computation and communication. In this paper, we propose a novel authentication scheme that utilizes the double pseudonym method to hide the real identity of vehicles and adopts the dynamic update technology to periodically update the information (such as member secret, authentication key, internal pseudo-identity) stored in the tamper-proof device to prevent the side-channel attack. Because of not using bilinear pairing, our scheme yields a better performance in terms of computation overhead and communication overhead, and is more suitable to be applied in the Internet of Vehicles. PMID:29735941

  7. Trust in Anonymity Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sassone, Vladimiro; Hamadou, Sardaouna; Yang, Mu

    Anonymity is a security property of paramount importance, as we move steadily towards a wired, online community. Its import touches upon subjects as different as eGovernance, eBusiness and eLeisure, as well as personal freedom of speech in authoritarian societies. Trust metrics are used in anonymity networks to support and enhance reliability in the absence of verifiable identities, and a variety of security attacks currently focus on degrading a user's trustworthiness in the eyes of the other users. In this paper, we analyse the privacy guarantees of the Crowds anonymity protocol, with and without onion forwarding, for standard and adaptive attacks against the trust level of honest users.

  8. Utility-preserving anonymization for health data publishing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Hyukki; Kim, Soohyung; Kim, Jong Wook; Chung, Yon Dohn

    2017-07-11

    Publishing raw electronic health records (EHRs) may be considered as a breach of the privacy of individuals because they usually contain sensitive information. A common practice for the privacy-preserving data publishing is to anonymize the data before publishing, and thus satisfy privacy models such as k-anonymity. Among various anonymization techniques, generalization is the most commonly used in medical/health data processing. Generalization inevitably causes information loss, and thus, various methods have been proposed to reduce information loss. However, existing generalization-based data anonymization methods cannot avoid excessive information loss and preserve data utility. We propose a utility-preserving anonymization for privacy preserving data publishing (PPDP). To preserve data utility, the proposed method comprises three parts: (1) utility-preserving model, (2) counterfeit record insertion, (3) catalog of the counterfeit records. We also propose an anonymization algorithm using the proposed method. Our anonymization algorithm applies full-domain generalization algorithm. We evaluate our method in comparison with existence method on two aspects, information loss measured through various quality metrics and error rate of analysis result. With all different types of quality metrics, our proposed method show the lower information loss than the existing method. In the real-world EHRs analysis, analysis results show small portion of error between the anonymized data through the proposed method and original data. We propose a new utility-preserving anonymization method and an anonymization algorithm using the proposed method. Through experiments on various datasets, we show that the utility of EHRs anonymized by the proposed method is significantly better than those anonymized by previous approaches.

  9. Anonymous Credential Schemes with Encrypted Attributes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Guajardo Merchan, J.; Mennink, B.; Schoenmakers, B.

    2011-01-01

    In anonymous credential schemes, users obtain credentials on certain attributes from an issuer, and later show these credentials to a relying party anonymously and without fully disclosing the attributes. In this paper, we introduce the notion of (anonymous) credential schemes with encrypted

  10. “How Can You Write About a Person Who Does Not Exist?”: Rethinking Pseudonymity and Informed Consent in Life History Research

    OpenAIRE

    Kate Mukungu

    2017-01-01

    This methodology paper recommends that, when possible, qualitative research on activism should be designed to enable each participant to choose between using a pseudonym and one’s actual name. The stance is informed by life history data collection encounters with women in post-conflict settings whose activism seeks to eliminate violence against women and girls (VAWG). The benefits of accommodating a mix of names make this a viable alternative to the prevalent practice of obscuring all partici...

  11. An Extensive Study on Data Anonymization Algorithms Based on K-Anonymity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simi, Ms. M. S.; Sankara Nayaki, Mrs. K.; Sudheep Elayidom, M., Dr.

    2017-08-01

    For business and research oriented works engaging Data Analysis and Cloud services needing qualitative data, many organizations release huge microdata. It excludes an individual’s explicit identity marks like name, address and comprises of specific information like DOB, Pin-code, sex, marital status, which can be combined with other public data to recognize a person. This implication attack can be manipulated to acquire any sensitive information from social network platform, thereby putting the privacy of a person in grave danger. To prevent such attacks by modifying microdata, K-anonymization is used. With potentially increasing data, the effective method to anonymize it stands challenging. After series of trails and systematic comparison, in this paper, we propose three best algorithms along with its efficiency and effectiveness. Studies help researchers to identify the relationship between the values of k, degree of anonymization, choosing a quasi-identifier and focus on execution time.

  12. Revocable Anonymous Access to the Internet?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Claessens, Joris; Diaz, Claudia; Goemans, Caroline; Preneel, Bart; Vandewalle, Joos; Dumortier, Jos

    2003-01-01

    Users of telecommunications networks are concerned about privacy, and desire anonymous access, while some organizations are concerned about how this anonymous access might be abused. Proposes a solution for revocable anonymous access to the Internet. Presents some legal background and motivation for such a solution. Indicates some difficulties and…

  13. Efficient and anonymous two-factor user authentication in wireless sensor networks: achieving user anonymity with lightweight sensor computation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nam, Junghyun; Choo, Kim-Kwang Raymond; Han, Sangchul; Kim, Moonseong; Paik, Juryon; Won, Dongho

    2015-01-01

    A smart-card-based user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks (hereafter referred to as a SCA-WSN scheme) is designed to ensure that only users who possess both a smart card and the corresponding password are allowed to gain access to sensor data and their transmissions. Despite many research efforts in recent years, it remains a challenging task to design an efficient SCA-WSN scheme that achieves user anonymity. The majority of published SCA-WSN schemes use only lightweight cryptographic techniques (rather than public-key cryptographic techniques) for the sake of efficiency, and have been demonstrated to suffer from the inability to provide user anonymity. Some schemes employ elliptic curve cryptography for better security but require sensors with strict resource constraints to perform computationally expensive scalar-point multiplications; despite the increased computational requirements, these schemes do not provide user anonymity. In this paper, we present a new SCA-WSN scheme that not only achieves user anonymity but also is efficient in terms of the computation loads for sensors. Our scheme employs elliptic curve cryptography but restricts its use only to anonymous user-to-gateway authentication, thereby allowing sensors to perform only lightweight cryptographic operations. Our scheme also enjoys provable security in a formal model extended from the widely accepted Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway (2000) model to capture the user anonymity property and various SCA-WSN specific attacks (e.g., stolen smart card attacks, node capture attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen verifier attacks).

  14. Efficient and anonymous two-factor user authentication in wireless sensor networks: achieving user anonymity with lightweight sensor computation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junghyun Nam

    Full Text Available A smart-card-based user authentication scheme for wireless sensor networks (hereafter referred to as a SCA-WSN scheme is designed to ensure that only users who possess both a smart card and the corresponding password are allowed to gain access to sensor data and their transmissions. Despite many research efforts in recent years, it remains a challenging task to design an efficient SCA-WSN scheme that achieves user anonymity. The majority of published SCA-WSN schemes use only lightweight cryptographic techniques (rather than public-key cryptographic techniques for the sake of efficiency, and have been demonstrated to suffer from the inability to provide user anonymity. Some schemes employ elliptic curve cryptography for better security but require sensors with strict resource constraints to perform computationally expensive scalar-point multiplications; despite the increased computational requirements, these schemes do not provide user anonymity. In this paper, we present a new SCA-WSN scheme that not only achieves user anonymity but also is efficient in terms of the computation loads for sensors. Our scheme employs elliptic curve cryptography but restricts its use only to anonymous user-to-gateway authentication, thereby allowing sensors to perform only lightweight cryptographic operations. Our scheme also enjoys provable security in a formal model extended from the widely accepted Bellare-Pointcheval-Rogaway (2000 model to capture the user anonymity property and various SCA-WSN specific attacks (e.g., stolen smart card attacks, node capture attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen verifier attacks.

  15. Anonymous Transactions in Computer Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dolev, Shlomi; Kopeetsky, Marina

    We present schemes for providing anonymous transactions while privacy and anonymity are preserved, providing user anonymous authentication in distributed networks such as the Internet. We first present a practical scheme for anonymous transactions while the transaction resolution is assisted by a Trusted Authority. This practical scheme is extended to a theoretical scheme where a Trusted Authority is not involved in the transaction resolution. Given an authority that generates for each player hard to produce evidence EVID (e. g., problem instance with or without a solution) to each player, the identity of a user U is defined by the ability to prove possession of said evidence. We use Zero-Knowledge proof techniques to repeatedly identify U by providing a proof that U has evidence EVID, without revealing EVID, therefore avoiding identity theft.

  16. Data Retention and Anonymity Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berthold, Stefan; Böhme, Rainer; Köpsell, Stefan

    The recently introduced legislation on data retention to aid prosecuting cyber-related crime in Europe also affects the achievable security of systems for anonymous communication on the Internet. We argue that data retention requires a review of existing security evaluations against a new class of realistic adversary models. In particular, we present theoretical results and first empirical evidence for intersection attacks by law enforcement authorities. The reference architecture for our study is the anonymity service AN.ON, from which we also collect empirical data. Our adversary model reflects an interpretation of the current implementation of the EC Directive on Data Retention in Germany.

  17. Anon-Pass: Practical Anonymous Subscriptions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Michael Z; Dunn, Alan M; Katz, Jonathan; Waters, Brent; Witchel, Emmett

    2013-12-31

    We present the design, security proof, and implementation of an anonymous subscription service. Users register for the service by providing some form of identity, which might or might not be linked to a real-world identity such as a credit card, a web login, or a public key. A user logs on to the system by presenting a credential derived from information received at registration. Each credential allows only a single login in any authentication window, or epoch . Logins are anonymous in the sense that the service cannot distinguish which user is logging in any better than random guessing. This implies unlinkability of a user across different logins. We find that a central tension in an anonymous subscription service is the service provider's desire for a long epoch (to reduce server-side computation) versus users' desire for a short epoch (so they can repeatedly "re-anonymize" their sessions). We balance this tension by having short epochs, but adding an efficient operation for clients who do not need unlinkability to cheaply re-authenticate themselves for the next time period. We measure performance of a research prototype of our protocol that allows an independent service to offer anonymous access to existing services. We implement a music service, an Android-based subway-pass application, and a web proxy, and show that adding anonymity adds minimal client latency and only requires 33 KB of server memory per active user.

  18. Image De-Identification Methods for Clinical Research in the XDS Environment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Aryanto, K. Y. E.; van Kernebeek, G.; Berendsen, B.; Oudkerk, M.; van Ooijen, P. M. A.

    To investigate possible de-identification methodologies within the Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing for imaging (XDS-I) environment in order to provide strengthened support for image data exchange as part of clinical research projects. De-identification, using anonymization or pseudonymization, is

  19. Anonymous communication networks protecting privacy on the web

    CERN Document Server

    Peng, Kun

    2014-01-01

    In today's interactive network environment, where various types of organizations are eager to monitor and track Internet use, anonymity is one of the most powerful resources available to counterbalance the threat of unknown spectators and to ensure Internet privacy.Addressing the demand for authoritative information on anonymous Internet usage, Anonymous Communication Networks: Protecting Privacy on the Web examines anonymous communication networks as a solution to Internet privacy concerns. It explains how anonymous communication networks make it possible for participants to communicate with

  20. Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Krause Hansen, Hans; Schoeneborn, Dennis

    2015-01-01

    Book review of: Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives: rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century, C. R. Scott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. 272 pp. £45.90. ISBN 9780804781381......Book review of: Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses and Covert Collectives: rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century, C. R. Scott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. 272 pp. £45.90. ISBN 9780804781381...

  1. Anonymous Boh avatud kunsti maastikul / Raivo Kelomees

    Index Scriptorium Estoniae

    Kelomees, Raivo, 1960-

    2010-01-01

    Anonymous Bohi näitus Tartu Kunstimajas, avatud 30. juulini 2010. Anonymous Boh on koos Non Grataga läbi viinud performance´id Euroopas, Ameerikas ja Aasias. Anonymous Bohi vastused oma näituse ja loominguga seotud küsimustele

  2. Practical anonymity hiding in plain sight online

    CERN Document Server

    Loshin, Peter

    2013-01-01

    For those with legitimate reason to use the Internet anonymously--diplomats, military and other government agencies, journalists, political activists, IT professionals, law enforcement personnel, political refugees and others--anonymous networking provides an invaluable tool, and many good reasons that anonymity can serve a very important purpose. Anonymous use of the Internet is made difficult by the many websites that know everything about us, by the cookies and ad networks, IP-logging ISPs, even nosy officials may get involved. It is no longer possible to turn off browser cookies to be l

  3. Möbius: Trustless Tumbling for Transaction Privacy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meiklejohn Sarah

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Cryptocurrencies allow users to securely transfer money without relying on a trusted intermediary, and the transparency of their underlying ledgers also enables public verifiability. This openness, however, comes at a cost to privacy, as even though the pseudonyms users go by are not linked to their real-world identities, all movement of money among these pseudonyms is traceable. In this paper, we present Möbius, an Ethereum-based tumbler or mixing service. Möbius achieves strong notions of anonymity, as even malicious senders cannot identify which pseudonyms belong to the recipients to whom they sent money, and is able to resist denial-of-service attacks. It also achieves a much lower off-chain communication complexity than all existing tumblers, with senders and recipients needing to send only two initial messages in order to engage in an arbitrary number of transactions.

  4. Anonymity in Peer-assisted CDNs: Inference Attacks and Mitigation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jia Yaoqi

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The peer-assisted CDN is a new content distribution paradigm supported by CDNs (e.g., Akamai, which enables clients to cache and distribute web content on behalf of a website. Peer-assisted CDNs bring significant bandwidth savings to website operators and reduce network latency for users. In this work, we show that the current designs of peer-assisted CDNs expose clients to privacy-invasive attacks, enabling one client to infer the set of browsed resources of another client. To alleviate this, we propose an anonymous peer-assisted CDN (APAC, which employs content delivery while providing initiator anonymity (i.e., hiding who sends the resource request and responder anonymity (i.e., hiding who responds to the request for peers. APAC can be a web service, compatible with current browsers and requiring no client-side changes. Our anonymity analysis shows that our APAC design can preserve a higher level of anonymity than state-of-the-art peer-assisted CDNs. In addition, our evaluation demonstrates that APAC can achieve desired performance gains.

  5. Really not god: Secularization and pragmatism in Gamblers Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Browne, B R

    1994-09-01

    The paper argues that despite maintaining the image of a twelve-step organization, the central theme of the history of Gamblers Anonymous (GA) in the United States is the increasing secularization of the program of the recovery. The paper documents the increasing secularization and pragmatism of Gamblers Anonymous, as reflected in key documents, despite the spiritual vision of its founding member. The author speculates on why Gamblers Anonymous took a secularized development path. Further research is called for.

  6. Anonymity and Openness in Donor Conception: the New Danish Model

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Herrmann, Janne Rothmar

    2013-01-01

    model in donor conception which offers women/couples a choice of anonymity or openness in donation.This paper is based on my talk on June 20, 2013 at London School of Economics at the conference “New Families and Genetic Identities: Developments in law, policy and research” organised by the Morgan...... bank is based in Denmark and consequently anonymous sperm is also exported abroad, even into jurisdictions where anonymity is banned illegal. This commentary traces the raison d’être of anonymity in Danish law, accounts for the legal framework for the internet sale of sperm and examines the new Danish...

  7. Anonymous quantum communications using the quantum one-time pad

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang, Qing-Le; Gao, Fei-; Liu, Bin; Song, Ting-Ting; Wen, Qiao-Yan

    2015-01-01

    We present the first quantum secure communication protocol for an anonymous receiver without the assistance of anonymous entanglement. In previous works, if a public sender wants to send quantum messages to a chosen receiver while protecting the identity of the receiver from others, all participants should cooperate first to construct the entanglement between the sender and the anonymous receiver. This is the most important process in anonymous quantum communications. With anonymous entanglement, the sender can communicate quantum messages to the anonymous receiver by applying teleportation protocols. In contrast, our protocol is novel and achieves communication of quantum messages directly from the public sender to the anonymous receiver based on the quantum one-time pad and current achievements. Notably, the anonymity of the receiver, as well as the privacy of the quantum messages, is perfectly protected with the exception of an exponentially small probability in our protocol. (paper)

  8. Anonymization of Court Orders

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Povlsen, Claus; Jongejan, Bart; Hansen, Dorte Haltrup

    We describe an anonymization tool that was commissioned by and specified together with Schultz, a publishing company specialized in Danish law related publications. Unavailability of training data and the need to guarantee compliance with pre-existing anonymization guidelines forced us to implement...... a tool using manually crafted rules. We used Bracmat, a programming language that is specialized in transforming tree data structures, to meet the requirement to pass the XML structure of the input document unscathed through the whole workflow. The tool attains a reassuringly good recall, makes almost...

  9. Anonymous birth law saves babies--optimization, sustainability and public awareness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grylli, Chryssa; Brockington, Ian; Fiala, Christian; Huscsava, Mercedes; Waldhoer, Thomas; Klier, Claudia M

    2016-04-01

    The aims of this study are to assess the impact of Austria's anonymous birth law from the time relevant statistical records are available and to evaluate the use of hatches versus anonymous hospital delivery. This study is a complete census of police-reported neonaticides (1975-2012) as well as anonymous births including baby hatches in Austria during 2002-2012. The time trends of neonaticide rates, anonymous births and baby hatches were analysed by means of Poisson and logistic regression model. Predicted and observed rates were derived and compared using a Bayesian Poisson regression model. Predicted numbers of neonaticides for the period of the active awareness campaign, 2002-2004, were more than three times larger than the observed number (p = 0.0067). Of the 365 women who benefitted from this legislation, only 11.5% chose to put their babies in a baby hatch. Since the law was introduced, a significant decreasing tendency of numbers of anonymous births (p = 047) was observed, while there was significant increase of neonaticide rates (p = 0.0001). The implementation of the anonymous delivery law is associated with a decrease in the number of police-reported neonaticides. The subsequent significantly decreasing numbers of anonymous births with an accompanying increase of neonaticides represents additional evidence for the effectiveness of the measure.

  10. Anonymity in P2P Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manzanares-Lopez, Pilar; Muñoz-Gea, Juan Pedro; Malgosa-Sanahuja, Josemaria; Sanchez-Aarnoutse, Juan Carlos

    In the last years, the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications to share and exchange knowledge among people around the world has experienced an exponential growth. Therefore, it is understandable that, like in any successful communication mechanism used by a lot of humans being, the anonymity can be a desirable characteristic in this scenario. Anonymity in P2P networks can be obtained by means of different methods, although the most significant ones are broadcast protocols, dining-cryptographer (DC) nets and multiple-hop paths. Each of these methods can be tunable in order to build a real anonymity P2P application. In addition, there is a mathematical tool called entropy that can be used in some scenarios to quantify anonymity in communication networks. In some cases, it can be calculated analytically but in others it is necessary to use simulation to obtain the network entropy.

  11. PathShuffle: Credit Mixing and Anonymous Payments for Ripple

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moreno-Sanchez Pedro

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The I owe you (IOU credit network Ripple is one of the most prominent alternatives in the burgeoning field of decentralized payment systems. Ripple’s path-based transactions set it apart from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Its pseudonymous nature, while still maintaining some regulatory capabilities, has motivated several financial institutions across the world to use Ripple for processing their daily transactions. Nevertheless, with its public ledger, a credit network such as Ripple is no different from a cryptocurrency in terms of weak privacy; recent demonstrative deanonymization attacks raise important concerns regarding the privacy of the Ripple users and their transactions. However, unlike for cryptocurrencies, there is no known privacy solution compatible with the existing credit networks such as Ripple.

  12. Alcoholics Anonymous and nursing. Lessons in holism and spiritual care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGee, E M

    2000-03-01

    Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) is a worldwide, million-member organization that has assisted countless alcoholics to achieve sobriety through a spiritual program of recovery from alcoholism. Based on spiritual principles known as the "Twelve Steps" and "Twelve Traditions," AA has provided a model for other recovery programs such as Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Gamblers Anonymous (GA), and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA). Recovery in AA appears to involve a process of self-transcendence. In recent years, nursing scholars have increasingly explored the concepts of self-transcendence and spirituality as they apply to nursing theory and practice. This article explores the roots and spiritual dimensions of 12-step recovery programs. It further explores the ways in which theoretical and clinical knowledge about the delivery of spiritual care interventions may be gained from an understanding of AA's spiritual approach to recovery.

  13. Assessing Anonymous Communication on the Internet: Policy Deliberations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kling, Rob; Lee, Yaching; Frankel, Mark S.; Teich, Al

    1999-01-01

    Examines the social character of anonymous online communication and the ways that anonymous communication has played important roles for professionals such as journalists and the police. Explains some of the new technological supports for anonymous communication on the Internet. Discusses some of the nuances behind the controversies and policy…

  14. A Reputation-Based Identity Management Model for Cloud Computing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lifa Wu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In the field of cloud computing, most research on identity management has concentrated on protecting user data. However, users typically leave a trail when they access cloud services, and the resulting user traceability can potentially lead to the leakage of sensitive user information. Meanwhile, malicious users can do harm to cloud providers through the use of pseudonyms. To solve these problems, we introduce a reputation mechanism and design a reputation-based identity management model for cloud computing. In the model, pseudonyms are generated based on a reputation signature so as to guarantee the untraceability of pseudonyms, and a mechanism that calculates user reputation is proposed, which helps cloud service providers to identify malicious users. Analysis verifies that the model can ensure that users access cloud services anonymously and that cloud providers assess the credibility of users effectively without violating user privacy.

  15. Academic freedom, public reactions, and anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Häyry, Matti

    2014-05-01

    Academic freedom can be defined as immunity against adverse reactions from the general public, designed to keep scholars unintimidated and productive even after they have published controversial ideas. Francesca Minerva claims that this notion of strict instrumental academic freedom is supported by Ronald Dworkin, and that anonymity would effectively defend the sphere of immunity implied by it. Against this, I argue that the idea defended by Minerva finds no support in the work by Dworkin referred to; that anonymity would not in most cases effectively protect the kind of immunity sought after; and that in some cases it would not even be desirable to protect scholars from public reactions to their controversial claims. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. Predictors of anonymous cyber aggression: the role of adolescents' beliefs about anonymity, aggression, and the permanency of digital content.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Michelle F

    2014-07-01

    Little attention has been given to whether adolescents' beliefs about anonymity and their normative beliefs about cyber aggression jointly increase their perpetration of cyber aggression. To this end, the present longitudinal study examined the moderating influence of these variables on the relationships among adolescents' attitudes toward the permanency of digital content, confidence with not getting caught, and anonymous cyber aggression (ACA) assessed 1 year later (Time 2). These associations were examined among 274 7th and 8th graders and through five technologies, including social networking sites (SNS), e-mail, instant messenger (IM), mobile phones, and chatrooms. Findings indicated that increases in Time 2 ACA and attitudes toward the permanency of digital content were more strongly related when adolescents reported greater confidence with not getting caught and higher normative beliefs concerning cyber aggression through SNS and mobile phones. In addition, higher levels of attitudes toward the permanency of digital content, confidence with not getting caught, beliefs about anonymity, and normative beliefs regarding cyber aggression were related to greater Time 2 ACA through e-mail, IM, and chatrooms. All findings are discussed in the context of adolescents' positive attitudes toward ACA, and an appeal for additional research is made to understand more about anonymity in cyberspace.

  17. Persona: Network Layer Anonymity and Accountability for Next Generation Internet

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mallios, Yannis; Modi, Sudeep; Agarwala, Aditya; Johns, Christina

    Individual privacy has become a major concern, due to the intrusive nature of the services and websites that collect increasing amounts of private information. One of the notions that can lead towards privacy protection is that of anonymity. Unfortunately, anonymity can also be maliciously exploited by attackers to hide their actions and identity. Thus some sort of accountability is also required. The current Internet has failed to provide both properties, as anonymity techniques are difficult to fully deploy and thus are easily attacked, while the Internet provides limited level of accountability. The Next Generation Internet (NGI) provides us with the opportunity to examine how these conflicting properties could be efficiently applied and thus protect users’ privacy while holding malicious users accountable. In this paper we present the design of a scheme, called Persona that can provide anonymity and accountability in the network layer of NGI. More specifically, our design requirements are to combine these two conflicting desires in a stateless manner within routers. Persona allows users to choose different levels of anonymity, while it allows the discovery of malicious nodes.

  18. Protecting genomic sequence anonymity with generalization lattices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malin, B A

    2005-01-01

    Current genomic privacy technologies assume the identity of genomic sequence data is protected if personal information, such as demographics, are obscured, removed, or encrypted. While demographic features can directly compromise an individual's identity, recent research demonstrates such protections are insufficient because sequence data itself is susceptible to re-identification. To counteract this problem, we introduce an algorithm for anonymizing a collection of person-specific DNA sequences. The technique is termed DNA lattice anonymization (DNALA), and is based upon the formal privacy protection schema of k -anonymity. Under this model, it is impossible to observe or learn features that distinguish one genetic sequence from k-1 other entries in a collection. To maximize information retained in protected sequences, we incorporate a concept generalization lattice to learn the distance between two residues in a single nucleotide region. The lattice provides the most similar generalized concept for two residues (e.g. adenine and guanine are both purines). The method is tested and evaluated with several publicly available human population datasets ranging in size from 30 to 400 sequences. Our findings imply the anonymization schema is feasible for the protection of sequences privacy. The DNALA method is the first computational disclosure control technique for general DNA sequences. Given the computational nature of the method, guarantees of anonymity can be formally proven. There is room for improvement and validation, though this research provides the groundwork from which future researchers can construct genomics anonymization schemas tailored to specific datasharing scenarios.

  19. Structure and Anonymity of the Bitcoin Transaction Graph

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kay Hamacher

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available The Bitcoin network of decentralized payment transactions has attracted a lot of attention from both Internet users and researchers in recent years. Bitcoin utilizes a peer-to-peer network to issue anonymous payment transactions between different users. In the currently used Bitcoin clients, the full transaction history is available at each node of the network to prevent double spending without the need for a central authority, forming a valuable source for empirical research on network structure, network dynamics, and the implied anonymity challenges, as well as guidance on the future evolution of complex payment systems. We found dynamical effects of which some increase anonymity while others decrease it. Most importantly, several parameters of the Bitcoin transaction graph seem to have become stationary over the last 12–18 months. We discuss the implications.

  20. Scalable and Anonymous Group Communication with MTor

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Dong

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents MTor, a low-latency anonymous group communication system. We construct MTor as an extension to Tor, allowing the construction of multi-source multicast trees on top of the existing Tor infrastructure. MTor does not depend on an external service to broker the group communication, and avoids central points of failure and trust. MTor’s substantial bandwidth savings and graceful scalability enable new classes of anonymous applications that are currently too bandwidth-intensive to be viable through traditional unicast Tor communication-e.g., group file transfer, collaborative editing, streaming video, and real-time audio conferencing.

  1. A framework for automatically checking anonymity with μ CRL

    OpenAIRE

    Chothia, T.; Orzan, S.M.; Pang, J.; Torabi Dashti, M.; Montanari, U.; Sannella, D.; Bruni, R.

    2007-01-01

    We present a powerful and flexible method for automatically checking anonymity in a possibilistic general-purpose process algebraic verification toolset. We propose new definitions of a choice anonymity degree and a player anonymity degree, to quantify the precision with which an intruder is able to single out the true originator of a given event or to associate the right event to a given protocol participant. We show how these measures of anonymity can be automatically calculated from a prot...

  2. k-Times Anonymous Authentication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teranishi, Isamu; Furukawa, Jun; Sako, Kazue

    We propose an authentication scheme in which users can be authenticated anonymously so long as times that they are authenticated is within an allowable number. The proposed scheme has two features: 1) no one, not even an authority, can identify users who have been authenticated within the allowable number, 2) anyone can trace, without help from the authority, dishonest users who have been authenticated beyond the allowable number by using the records of these authentications. Our scheme can be applied to e-voting, e-cash, electronic coupons, and trial browsing of content. In these applications, our scheme, unlike the previous one, conceals users' participation from protocols and guarantees that they will remain anonymous to everyone.

  3. Proxies for Anonymous Routing

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Reed, Michael G; Syverson, Paul F; Goldschlag, David M

    1996-01-01

    ...), and file transfers (FTP) have been implemented. Onion routing provides application independent, real-time, and bi-directional anonymous connections that are resistant to both eavesdropping and traffic analysis...

  4. Anonymous living liver donation: donor profiles and outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reichman, T W; Fox, A; Adcock, L; Wright, L; Abbey, S E; Levy, G; Grant, D R

    2010-09-01

    There are no published series of the assessment process, profiles and outcomes of anonymous, directed or nondirected live liver donation. The outcomes of 29 consecutive potential anonymous liver donors at our center were assessed. We used our standard live liver assessment process, augmented with the following additional acceptance criteria: a logical rationale for donation, a history of social altruism, strong social supports and a willingness to maintain confidentiality of patient information. Seventeen potential donors were rejected and 12 donors were ultimately accepted (six male, six female). All donors were strongly motivated by a desire and sense of responsibility to help others. Four donations were directed toward recipients who undertook media appeals. The donor operations included five left lateral segmentectomies and seven right hepatectomies. The overall donor morbidity was 40% with one patient having a transient Clavien level 3 complication (a pneumothorax). All donors are currently well. None expressed regret about their decision to donate, and all volunteered the opinion that donation had improved their lives. The standard live liver donor assessment process plus our additional requirements appears to provide a robust assessment process for the selection of anonymous live liver donors. Acceptance of anonymous donors enlarges the donor liver pool. © 2010 The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

  5. Culture or anonymity? Differences in proposer behaviour in Korea and Germany.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horak, Sven

    2015-10-01

    This study explores the proposer behaviour in an ultimatum game (UG) frame under anonymous and non-anonymous conditions among a Korean and German subject pool (n = 590) in comparison. Whereas the anonymous condition is represented by the standard UG, the non-anonymous condition integrates an aggregate of the Korean cultural context variables university affiliation, regional origin and seniority. The latter, a classic Confucian context variable, is measured by age differentials. The former two are impactful components of so-called Yongo networks, a unique Korean informal institution identical to Chinese Guanxi ties. Yongo networks, yet underrepresented in research, are said to be a central context variable to explain Korean social ties and decision-making behaviour. We observe significant differences between the offer behaviours of Korean and German subjects when exposing selected cultural variables. We argue that the behavioural differences observed are in fact due to culture not anonymity. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

  6. Privacy-preserving digital rights management

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Conrado, C.; Petkovic, M.; Jonker, W.; Jonker, W.; Petkovic, M.

    2004-01-01

    DRM systems provide a means for protecting digital content, but at the same time they violate the privacy of users in a number of ways. This paper addresses privacy issues in DRM systems. The main challenge is how to allow a user to interact with the system in an anonymous/pseudonymous way, while

  7. Is it OK to be an Anonymous?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Serracino Inglott, P.

    2013-01-01

    Do the deviant acts carried out by the collective known as Anonymous qualify as vigilante activity, and if so, can they be justified? Addressing this question helps expose the difficulties of morally evaluating technologically enabled deviance. Anonymous is a complex, fluid actor but not as

  8. Criminal offenses in gamblers anonymous and hospital treated pathological gamblers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blaszczynski, A P; McConaghy, N

    1994-06-01

    The purpose of this study was to compare the nature and prevalence of gambling and non-gambling related offenses in samples of pathological gamblers seeking behavioural treatment from a hospital-based program and those attending Gamblers Anonymous. A semi-structured interview schedule obtaining demographic data and details of the nature, frequency, and consequent legal action of criminal offenses committed was administered to 152 consecutive hospital treated pathological gamblers, and 154 Gamblers Anonymous attendees who volunteered to participate in the study. Of the total sample, 59% admitted a gambling-related offense, and 23% to a conviction. There was no difference in the proportion of hospital treated and Gamblers Anonymous subjects who offended. The most common gambling-related offenses were larceny, embezzlement and misappropriation. Gamblers committed a median of ten offenses over an average ten year period of pathological gambling with a median value of $ A 300(1) per offense. The median value for each non-gambling-related offense was $ A 130. Except for the significantly older mean age of Gamblers Anonymous subjects, hospital treated gamblers did not differ from Gamblers Anonymous attenders on relevant demographic features or parameters of gambling behaviour. Findings were interpreted to suggest a possible causal link between pathological gambling and the commission of non-violent property offenses.

  9. The Effects of Perceived Anonymity on Altruistic Punishment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jared Piazza

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies investigating altruistic punishment have confounded the effects of two independent variables: information transmission (or breach of privacy and personal identification (or breach of anonymity. Here we report findings from a brief study in which participants were asked to respond to a social norm violation (i.e., an anonymous actor had behaved selfishly in an economic game by deciding whether to sacrifice their own endowment to punish this person. A third of the participants were told that their economic decisions would be made known to another player but could not be identified (privacy breach condition, whereas another third were informed that their decision as well as their names would be made known (anonymity breach condition. (The decisions of control participants were completely anonymous and private. Participants also justified their economic decisions and reported their emotional experiences. The results were participants punished most in the privacy and anonymity breach conditions and least in the control condition. These findings have implications for existing evolutionary accounts of altruistic punishment.

  10. A Mechanism for Anonymous Credit Card Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamura, Shinsuke; Yanase, Tatsuro

    This paper proposes a mechanism for anonymous credit card systems, in which each credit card holder can conceal individual transactions from the credit card company, while enabling the credit card company to calculate the total expenditures of transactions of individual card holders during specified periods, and to identify card holders who executed dishonest transactions. Based on three existing mechanisms, i.e. anonymous authentication, blind signature and secure statistical data gathering, together with implicit transaction links proposed here, the proposed mechanism enables development of anonymous credit card systems without assuming any absolutely trustworthy entity like tamper resistant devices or organizations faithful both to the credit card company and card holders.

  11. An Applet-based Anonymous Distributed Computing System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finkel, David; Wills, Craig E.; Ciaraldi, Michael J.; Amorin, Kevin; Covati, Adam; Lee, Michael

    2001-01-01

    Defines anonymous distributed computing systems and focuses on the specifics of a Java, applet-based approach for large-scale, anonymous, distributed computing on the Internet. Explains the possibility of a large number of computers participating in a single computation and describes a test of the functionality of the system. (Author/LRW)

  12. Anonymous Authentication for Smartcards

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Hajny

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents an innovative solution in the field of RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification smartcard authentication. Currently the smartcards are used for many purposes - e.g. employee identification, library cards, student cards or even identity credentials. Personal identity is revealed to untrustworthy entities every time we use these cards. Such information could later be used without our knowledge and for harmful reasons like shopping pattern scanning or even movement tracking. We present a communication scheme for keeping one’s identity private in this paper. Although our system provides anonymity, it does not allow users to abuse this feature. The system is based on strong cryptographic primitives that provide features never available before. Besides theoretical design of the anonymous authentication scheme and its analysis we also provide implementation results.

  13. Security Analysis of Accountable Anonymous Group Communication in Dissent

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-31

    instance, group discussion forums or instant messaging. Misbehaving users may abuse this anonymity to disrupt communication, however, and existing...Abstract Users often wish to communicate anonymously on the Internet using, for instance, group discussion forums or instant messaging. Misbehaving users may...personal reprisal (Stein 2003). Yet anonymity makes it difficult to trace or exclude misbehaving participants (Davenport 2002). Online proto- cols

  14. Anonymous publication of sensitive transactional data

    KAUST Repository

    Ghinita, Gabriel; Kalnis, Panos; Tao, Yufei

    2011-01-01

    Existing research on privacy-preserving data publishing focuses on relational data: in this context, the objective is to enforce privacy-preserving paradigms, such as k-anonymity and ℓ-diversity, while minimizing the information loss incurred in the anonymizing process (i.e., maximize data utility). Existing techniques work well for fixed-schema data, with low dimensionality. Nevertheless, certain applications require privacy-preserving publishing of transactional data (or basket data), which involve hundreds or even thousands of dimensions, rendering existing methods unusable. We propose two categories of novel anonymization methods for sparse high-dimensional data. The first category is based on approximate nearest-neighbor (NN) search in high-dimensional spaces, which is efficiently performed through locality-sensitive hashing (LSH). In the second category, we propose two data transformations that capture the correlation in the underlying data: 1) reduction to a band matrix and 2) Gray encoding-based sorting. These representations facilitate the formation of anonymized groups with low information loss, through an efficient linear-time heuristic. We show experimentally, using real-life data sets, that all our methods clearly outperform existing state of the art. Among the proposed techniques, NN-search yields superior data utility compared to the band matrix transformation, but incurs higher computational overhead. The data transformation based on Gray code sorting performs best in terms of both data utility and execution time. © 2006 IEEE.

  15. Anonymous publication of sensitive transactional data

    KAUST Repository

    Ghinita, Gabriel

    2011-02-01

    Existing research on privacy-preserving data publishing focuses on relational data: in this context, the objective is to enforce privacy-preserving paradigms, such as k-anonymity and ℓ-diversity, while minimizing the information loss incurred in the anonymizing process (i.e., maximize data utility). Existing techniques work well for fixed-schema data, with low dimensionality. Nevertheless, certain applications require privacy-preserving publishing of transactional data (or basket data), which involve hundreds or even thousands of dimensions, rendering existing methods unusable. We propose two categories of novel anonymization methods for sparse high-dimensional data. The first category is based on approximate nearest-neighbor (NN) search in high-dimensional spaces, which is efficiently performed through locality-sensitive hashing (LSH). In the second category, we propose two data transformations that capture the correlation in the underlying data: 1) reduction to a band matrix and 2) Gray encoding-based sorting. These representations facilitate the formation of anonymized groups with low information loss, through an efficient linear-time heuristic. We show experimentally, using real-life data sets, that all our methods clearly outperform existing state of the art. Among the proposed techniques, NN-search yields superior data utility compared to the band matrix transformation, but incurs higher computational overhead. The data transformation based on Gray code sorting performs best in terms of both data utility and execution time. © 2006 IEEE.

  16. Anonymous Authorship Control for User-Generated Content

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suk-Bong LEE

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available User-Generated Content (UGC is opening up new large market in content services, and more and more people are visiting web sites to share and enjoy UGCs. These trends make many authors to move into online. Authors want to conserve their authorship and expect to publish their UGC anonymously in cases. To meet the requirements, we propose a new authorship control model based on watermarking and metadata. Authors can embed their authorship into their UGC with identities or with anonym. Even though an author publishes his UGC anonymously, he can prove his authorship without unveiling his identity via 5 methods utilizing the proposed authorship model. The proposed model and methods need no TTP and are robust even based on fragile underlying watermarking scheme.

  17. System for Anonymous Data Collection Based on Group Signature Scheme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Troják

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper deals with an anonymous data collection in the Internet of Things (IoT. the privacy and anonymity of the data source is important for many IoT applications, such as in agriculture, health, and automotive. the proposed data‑collection system provides anonymity for the data sources by applying a cooperation group scheme. the group scheme also provides a low power consumption. the system is built upon the Tor (The Onion Router anonymous network, which is a part of the Internet darknet. the proposed system was designed for the Android devices on the client side and for Java environment on the server side. We evaluated the anonymous data collection in a real‑use scenario that covers selected data acquisition (e.g. signal strength from smartphones triggered by their geographical location change. the results show that the proposed system provides the sufficient data source anonymity, an effective revocation, a low computational cost and a low overhead.

  18. Reexamination of the Association between Anonymity and Self-Interested Unethical Behavior in Adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nogami, Tatsuya

    2009-01-01

    The well-established notion that the frequency of self-interested unethical behavior increases among anonymous people was reexamined employing a more strict definition of anonymity, voluntary unethical behavior, and adult individuals. Anonymity was defined as nonassociability of the participant's traits with respect to unethical behavior. The…

  19. Vote to link: Recovering from misbehaving anonymous users

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lueks, W.; Everts, M.H.; Hoepman, J.H.

    2016-01-01

    Service providers are often reluctant to support anonymous access, because this makes it hard to deal with misbehaving users. Anonymous blacklisting and reputation systems can help prevent misbehaving users from causing more damage. However, by the time the user is blocked or has lost reputation,

  20. A hidden service model based on HS-HS anonymous network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Yitong; Zhao, Xing; Fei, Jinlong; Zhu, Yuefei

    2017-10-01

    The Hidden Service provided by Tor anonymous network can effectively protect the anonymity and security of the Hidden server, this article through the analysis of the data packet structure of Tor, three jump transmission mechanism and link establishment protocol and Hidden Service communication process, in view of the Hidden node number too much, link building Service for too long and too redundant link problem. An improved hidden service model HS-HS is proposed that incorporating multiple transmission link and reuse, and at the same time will be important transit point for reuse protection link anonymity, through the ExperimenTor simulation environment test, verify the improved model of HS-HS can be more effective in guarantee anonymity and security, improve the overall efficiency of data transmission, to meet the needs of today's anonymous service.

  1. Property-Based Anonymous Attestation in Trusted Cloud Computing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhen-Hu Ning

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In the remote attestation on Trusted Computer (TC computing mode TCCP, the trusted computer TC has an excessive burden, and anonymity and platform configuration information security of computing nodes cannot be guaranteed. To overcome these defects, based on the research on and analysis of current schemes, we propose an anonymous proof protocol based on property certificate. The platform configuration information is converted by the matrix algorithm into the property certificate, and the remote attestation is implemented by trusted ring signature scheme based on Strong RSA Assumption. By the trusted ring signature scheme based on property certificate, we achieve the anonymity of computing nodes and prevent the leakage of platform configuration information. By simulation, we obtain the computational efficiency of the scheme. We also expand the protocol and obtain the anonymous attestation based on ECC. By scenario comparison, we obtain the trusted ring signature scheme based on RSA, which has advantages with the growth of the ring numbers.

  2. [The "secret book" of Dr Friedrich Benjamin Osiander: anonymous births in the Göttingen Accouchierhaus, 1794-1819].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlumbohm, Jürgen

    2014-01-01

    The problem of anonymous or confidential deliveries, a subject of current controversy, has a long history. Some maternity hospitals offered the possibility for "clandestine" births as early as the 18th and 19th century. A recently emerged source about the maternity clinic of Göttingen University allows insight into the motives that led to keeping a birth secret and the consequences of such a clandestine birth for mother, father and child. The director of the institution, a professor of obstetrics, wrote case reports on the women, who paid a handsome sum for his help and the in-patient care they received. In return, these women could be admitted under a pseudonym, and thus falsify their child's birth certificate; moreover they were not used as teaching material for medical students and midwife apprentices, whereas "regular" patients had to give their names and, in return for being treated free of charge, be available for teaching purposes. The ten cases that have been painstakingly investigated reveal that the reasons that led the women and men to opt for an anonymous birth were manifold, that they used this offer in different ways and with different consequences. All of these pregnancies were illegitimate, of course. In one case the expectant mother was married. In several cases it would be the father who was married. Most of the women who gave birth secretly seem to have given the professor their actual details and he kept quiet about them--with the exception of one case where he revealed the contents of the case report many years later in an alimony suit. Only one of the men admitted paternity openly, but many revealed their identity implicitly by registering the pregnant woman or by accompanying her to the clinic. If the birth was to be kept secret the child needed to be handed over to foster parents. By paying a lump sum that covered the usual fourteen years of parenting, one mother was able to avoid any later contact with her son. In most cases contact seems

  3. Social distance and anonymity modulate fairness consideration: An ERP study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Rongjun; Hu, Pan; Zhang, Ping

    2015-01-01

    Previous research indicated that fairness consideration can be influenced by social distance. However, it is not clear whether social distance and anonymity have an interactive impact on fairness evaluation during asset distribution and whether these processes can be documented in brain activity. Using a modified ultimatum game combined with measures of event related potential (ERP), we examined how social distance and anonymity modulate brain response to inequality. At the behavior level, we found that acceptance rate and reaction time can be substantially modified by social distance and anonymity. Feedback-related negativity, an ERP component associated with conflict between cognitive and emotion motives, was more negative in response to unfairness than fairness from strangers; however, it showed an opposite trend for unfair offers provided by friends, suggesting that the influence of social distance on fairness perception is relatively fast. The P300 in response to fair offers was more positive when the proposers made offers when uncertain about partner identity than when certain about partner identity. These results suggest that unfairness is evaluated in a fast conflict detection stage and a slower stage that integrates more complex social contextual factors such as anonymity. PMID:26293456

  4. Secure and Efficient Anonymous Authentication Scheme in Global Mobility Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jun-Sub Kim

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available In 2012, Mun et al. pointed out that Wu et al.’s scheme failed to achieve user anonymity and perfect forward secrecy and disclosed the passwords of legitimate users. And they proposed a new enhancement for anonymous authentication scheme. However, their proposed scheme has vulnerabilities that are susceptible to replay attack and man-in-the-middle attack. It also incurs a high overhead in the database. In this paper, we examine the vulnerabilities in the existing schemes and the computational overhead incurred in the database. We then propose a secure and efficient anonymous authentication scheme for roaming service in global mobility network. Our proposed scheme is secure against various attacks, provides mutual authentication and session key establishment, and incurs less computational overhead in the database than Mun et al.'s scheme.

  5. Anonymous Web Browsing and Hosting

    OpenAIRE

    MANOJ KUMAR; ANUJ RANI

    2013-01-01

    In today’s high tech environment every organization, individual computer users use internet for accessing web data. To maintain high confidentiality and security of the data secure web solutions are required. In this paper we described dedicated anonymous web browsing solutions which makes our browsing faster and secure. Web application which play important role for transferring our secret information including like email need more and more security concerns. This paper also describes that ho...

  6. Securing the anonymity of content providers in the World Wide Web

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demuth, Thomas; Rieke, Andreas

    1999-04-01

    Nowadays the World Wide Web (WWW) is an established service used by people all over the world. Most of them do not recognize the fact that they reveal plenty of information about themselves or their affiliation and computer equipment to the providers of web pages they connect to. As a result, a lot of services offer users to access web pages unrecognized or without risk of being backtracked, respectively. This kind of anonymity is called user or client anonymity. But on the other hand, an equivalent protection for content providers does not exist, although this feature is desirable for many situations in which the identity of a publisher or content provider shall be hidden. We call this property server anonymity. We will introduce the first system with the primary target to offer anonymity for providers of information in the WWW. Beside this property, it provides also client anonymity. Based on David Chaum's idea of mixes and in relation to the context of the WWW, we explain the term 'server anonymity' motivating the system JANUS which offers both client and server anonymity.

  7. Authentic Attributes with Fine-Grained Anonymity Protection

    Science.gov (United States)

    2000-01-01

    registrations and ecommerce trans- Preprint - 2 Stuart G. Stubblebine, and Paul F. Syverson. Authentic Attributes with Fine-Grained Anonymity Protection...driver’s license and birth certi cate. When the registration process is complete, certi cates could be on a smart card that the customer is carrying. The...proof. At least initially, it might not be electronic, e.g., possession of a passport, of a driver’s license and birth certi cate, etc. Anonymous

  8. The anonymity paradox in patient engagement: reputation, risk and web-based public feedback.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Speed, Ewen; Davison, Charlie; Gunnell, Caroline

    2016-06-01

    The UK National Health Service (NHS) has long espoused patient and public engagement. Recent years have seen increasing use of internet-based methods of collecting feedback about patient experience and public and staff views about NHS services and priorities. Often hailed as a means of facilitating participative democratic patient engagement, these processes raise a number of complex issues. A key aspect of it is the opportunity for comment to be made anonymously. Our research reveals an anonymity paradox whereby patients clearly demonstrate a perception that anonymity is a prerequisite for effective use of these feedback processes, whereas professionals demonstrate a perception that patient anonymity is a barrier to effective use. The risks of anonymity are constructed very differently by patients and professionals. Patient concerns around anonymity were not motivated by a general concern about a loss of privacy, but more that a positive identification might compromise future care. For professionals, concerns were voiced more around risks of reputational damage for specific practitioners or practices (in that anyone could say anything) and also that this anonymous feedback was available publicly and that it might go against the medical opinion of the professional. These concerns pointed to important differences in perceptions of patient and professional vulnerability. In the qualitative analysis that follows the key finding was that while anonymity makes service users feel less vulnerable, it can have the opposite effect on managers and clinical staff. This raises important implications for the use and utility of internet-based methods of collecting patient feedback. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

  9. Security Analysis and Improvement of an Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Roaming Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Youngsook Lee

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available An anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services in global mobility networks allows a mobile user visiting a foreign network to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the foreign-network operator in an anonymous manner. In this work, we revisit He et al.’s anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services and present previously unpublished security weaknesses in the scheme: (1 it fails to provide user anonymity against any third party as well as the foreign agent, (2 it cannot protect the passwords of mobile users due to its vulnerability to an offline dictionary attack, and (3 it does not achieve session-key security against a man-in-the-middle attack. We also show how the security weaknesses of He et al.’s scheme can be addressed without degrading the efficiency of the scheme.

  10. Interim policy on establishment and operation of internet open, anonymous information servers and services

    OpenAIRE

    Acting Dean of Computer and Information Services

    1995-01-01

    Purpose. To establish interim NPS general policy regarding establishment and operation of Open, Anonymous Information Servers and Services, such as World Wide Web (http), Gopher, Anonymous FTP, etc...

  11. Anonymity and Electronics: Adapting Preparation for Radiology Resident Examination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chapman, Teresa; Reid, Janet R; O'Conner, Erin E

    2017-06-01

    Diagnostic radiology resident assessment has evolved from a traditional oral examination to computerized testing. Teaching faculty struggle to reconcile the differences between traditional teaching methods and residents' new preferences for computerized testing models generated by new examination styles. We aim to summarize the collective experiences of senior residents at three different teaching hospitals who participated in case review sessions using a computer-based, interactive, anonymous teaching tool, rather than the Socratic method. Feedback was collected from radiology residents following participation in a senior resident case review session using Nearpod, which allows residents to anonymously respond to the teaching material. Subjective resident feedback was uniformly enthusiastic. Ninety percent of residents favor a case-based board review incorporating multiple-choice questions, and 94% favor an anonymous response system. Nearpod allows for inclusion of multiple-choice questions while also providing direct feedback to the teaching faculty, helping to direct the instruction and clarify residents' gaps in knowledge before the Core Examination. Copyright © 2017 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Is it OK to be an Anonymous?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Philip Serracino-Inglott

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Do the deviant acts carried out by the collective known as Anonymous qualify as vigilante activity, and if so, can they be justified? Addressing this question helps expose the difficulties of morally evaluating technologically enabled deviance. Anonymous is a complex, fluid actor but not as mysterious as popularly portrayed. Under a definition of vigilantism that includes reprobative punishment rather than violence as a key element, Anonymous are vigilantes. Many of its Ops can be justified in view of the mismatch between formal norm enforcement practice and Internet natives’ experience of it. Anons are more like eco-warriors than terrorists. While their actions are contentious, their force is framed in a vision of common good that is not unreasonable. Engaging with online deviants is shown to be a productive way of identifying the weaknesses in concepts underpinning moral evaluation of Internet-enabled phenomena.

  13. AIB-OR: improving onion routing circuit construction using anonymous identity-based cryptosystems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Changji; Shi, Dongyuan; Xu, Xilei

    2015-01-01

    The rapid growth of Internet applications has made communication anonymity an increasingly important or even indispensable security requirement. Onion routing has been employed as an infrastructure for anonymous communication over a public network, which provides anonymous connections that are strongly resistant to both eavesdropping and traffic analysis. However, existing onion routing protocols usually exhibit poor performance due to repeated encryption operations. In this paper, we first present an improved anonymous multi-receiver identity-based encryption (AMRIBE) scheme, and an improved identity-based one-way anonymous key agreement (IBOWAKE) protocol. We then propose an efficient onion routing protocol named AIB-OR that provides provable security and strong anonymity. Our main approach is to use our improved AMRIBE scheme and improved IBOWAKE protocol in onion routing circuit construction. Compared with other onion routing protocols, AIB-OR provides high efficiency, scalability, strong anonymity and fault tolerance. Performance measurements from a prototype implementation show that our proposed AIB-OR can achieve high bandwidths and low latencies when deployed over the Internet.

  14. Botnet detection and prevention in anonymous networks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuhnert, Katharina; Steinberger, Jessica; Baier, Harald

    Botnets are a major threat to the Internet landscape and have been responsible for large scale distributed attacks on online services. To make take down measures more difficult, Botnet operators started to incorporate anonymous networks into their software to protect their users and their Botnets.

  15. A reciprocal framework for spatial K-anonymity

    KAUST Repository

    Ghinita, Gabriel; Zhao, Keliang; Papadias, Dimitris; Kalnis, Panos

    2010-01-01

    Spatial K-anonymity (SKA) exploits the concept of K-anonymity in order to protect the identity of users from location-based attacks. The main idea of SKA is to replace the exact location of a user U with an anonymizing spatial region (ASR) that contains at least K-1 other users, so that an attacker can pinpoint U with probability at most 1/K. Simply generating an ASR that includes K users does not guarantee SKA. Previous work defined the reciprocity property as a sufficient condition for SKA. However, the only existing reciprocal method, Hilbert Cloak, relies on a specialized data structure. In contrast, we propose a general framework for implementing reciprocal algorithms using any existing spatial index on the user locations. We discuss ASR construction methods with different tradeoffs on effectiveness (i.e., ASR size) and efficiency (i.e., construction cost). Then, we present case studies of applying our framework on top of two popular spatial indices (namely, R*-trees and Quad-trees). Finally, we consider the case where the attacker knows the query patterns of each user. The experimental results verify that our methods outperform Hilbert Cloak. Moreover, since we employ general-purpose spatial indices, the proposed system is not limited to anonymization, but supports conventional spatial queries as well. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. A reciprocal framework for spatial K-anonymity

    KAUST Repository

    Ghinita, Gabriel

    2010-05-01

    Spatial K-anonymity (SKA) exploits the concept of K-anonymity in order to protect the identity of users from location-based attacks. The main idea of SKA is to replace the exact location of a user U with an anonymizing spatial region (ASR) that contains at least K-1 other users, so that an attacker can pinpoint U with probability at most 1/K. Simply generating an ASR that includes K users does not guarantee SKA. Previous work defined the reciprocity property as a sufficient condition for SKA. However, the only existing reciprocal method, Hilbert Cloak, relies on a specialized data structure. In contrast, we propose a general framework for implementing reciprocal algorithms using any existing spatial index on the user locations. We discuss ASR construction methods with different tradeoffs on effectiveness (i.e., ASR size) and efficiency (i.e., construction cost). Then, we present case studies of applying our framework on top of two popular spatial indices (namely, R*-trees and Quad-trees). Finally, we consider the case where the attacker knows the query patterns of each user. The experimental results verify that our methods outperform Hilbert Cloak. Moreover, since we employ general-purpose spatial indices, the proposed system is not limited to anonymization, but supports conventional spatial queries as well. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Traveling the Silk Road: A Measurement of a Large Anonymous Online Marketplace

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-11-28

    Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather...analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international on- line marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We...anonymity, Silk Road needs to also preserve payment anonymity. To that effect, Silk Road only supports Bitcoin (BTC, [30]) as a trading currency

  18. Breaking Bad

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Harlev, Mikkel Alexander; Sun Yin, Haohua; Langenheldt, Klaus Christian

    2018-01-01

    Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency whose transactions are recorded on a distributed, openly accessible ledger. On the Bitcoin Blockchain, an entity’s real-world identity is hidden behind a pseudonym, a so-called address. Therefore, Bitcoin is widely assumed to provide a high degree of anonymity, which...... is a driver for its frequent use for illicit activities. This paper presents a novel approach for reducing the anonymity of the Bitcoin Blockchain by using Supervised Machine Learning to predict the type of yet-unidentified entities. We utilised a sample of 434 entities with ≈ 200 million transactions...... discuss our novel approach of Supervised Machine Learning for uncovering Blockchain anonymity and its potential applications to forensics and financial compliance and its societal implications, outline study limitations and propose future research directions....

  19. Between control and hacker activism: the political actions of Anonymous Brasil.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Machado, Murilo Bansi

    2015-12-01

    This paper addresses the political actions of Anonymous, the principal expression of current hacker activism, arguing that hacktivism is a form of political resistance in control societies. To this end, it focuses on studying the Brazilian, hacktivist facet of the collective. In order to stress its political character, it scrutinizes the principal expressions of hacking in the literature. It describes motivations, methods and the ethics of its political actions, based on a comparative analysis of two operations carried out by Brazilian Anonymous adherents in 2012: #OpWeeksPayment and #OpGlobo. And it finishes by identifying four of its main forms of political engagement: promotion of anonymity; "evangelization;" the formation of distributed networks; and the fact that the collective carries out and facilitates several types of political actions.

  20. Authority and Hierarchy within Anonymous Internet Relay Chat Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stewart Kenton Bertram

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available 'The protest group Anonymous has emerged as one of the most significant social movements of recent years, announcing their arrival as a globally recognized brand with regular disruptive cyber attacks and the leak of large volumes of sensitive data. Despite the obvious significance of Anonymous, to date, little academic research has been focused on what role hierarchy and internal authority play (if any within the group. Bespoke software was used to structure over 5000 examples of IRC log files, so that a base line descriptive statistical picture could be drawn, as well as a more granular enumeration of the privileges associated with individual users.'

  1. Social Media and Higher Education: The Problem of Anonymous Electronic Threats to the Campus Community

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reynolds, Cristin Lee; Platt, R. Eric; Malone Schaffer, Lenore; Foster, Holly

    2017-01-01

    This case is for use in graduate courses pertaining to student affairs and higher education administration. It presents challenges higher education professionals face concerning anonymous social media, and specifically how threats made through anonymous social media platforms such as Yik Yak affect the entire university community. The anonymity of…

  2. Effectiveness of Anonymization Methods in Preserving Patients' Privacy: A Systematic Literature Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Langarizadeh, Mostafa; Orooji, Azam; Sheikhtaheri, Abbas

    2018-01-01

    An ever growing for application of electronic health records (EHRs) has improved healthcare providers' communications, access to data for secondary use and promoted the quality of services. Patient's privacy has been changed to a great issue today since there are large loads of critical information in EHRs. Therefore, many privacy preservation techniques have been proposed and anonymization is a common one. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of anonymization in preserving patients' privacy. The articles published in the 2005-2016 were included. Pubmed, Cochrane, IEEE and ScienceDirect were searched with a variety of related keywords. Finally, 18 articles were included. In the present study, the relevant anonymization issues were investigated in four categories: secondary use of anonymized data, re-identification risk, anonymization effect on information extraction and inadequacy of current methods for different document types. The results revealed that though anonymization cannot reduce the risk of re-identification to zero, if implemented correctly, can manage to help preserve patient's privacy.

  3. A survey of anonymous peer-to-peer file-sharing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chothia, T.; Chatzikokolakis, K.; Enokido, T.; Yan, L.; Xiao, B.; Kim, D.; Dai, Y.S.; Yang, L.T.

    2005-01-01

    This paper provides a survey of searchable, peer-to-peer file-sharing systems that offer the user some form of anonymity. We start this survey by giving a brief description of the most popular methods of providing anonymous communication. These include the Ants protocol, Onion routing, Multicasting,

  4. Our Anonymous Online Research Participants Are Not Always Anonymous: Is This a Problem?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawson, Phillip

    2014-01-01

    When educational research is conducted online, we sometimes promise our participants that they will be anonymous--but do we deliver on this promise? We have been warned since 1996 to be careful when using direct quotes in Internet research, as full-text web search engines make it easy to find chunks of text online. This paper details an empirical…

  5. Local and global recoding methods for anonymizing set-valued data

    KAUST Repository

    Terrovitis, Manolis

    2010-06-10

    In this paper, we study the problem of protecting privacy in the publication of set-valued data. Consider a collection of supermarket transactions that contains detailed information about items bought together by individuals. Even after removing all personal characteristics of the buyer, which can serve as links to his identity, the publication of such data is still subject to privacy attacks from adversaries who have partial knowledge about the set. Unlike most previous works, we do not distinguish data as sensitive and non-sensitive, but we consider them both as potential quasi-identifiers and potential sensitive data, depending on the knowledge of the adversary. We define a new version of the k-anonymity guarantee, the k m-anonymity, to limit the effects of the data dimensionality, and we propose efficient algorithms to transform the database. Our anonymization model relies on generalization instead of suppression, which is the most common practice in related works on such data. We develop an algorithm that finds the optimal solution, however, at a high cost that makes it inapplicable for large, realistic problems. Then, we propose a greedy heuristic, which performs generalizations in an Apriori, level-wise fashion. The heuristic scales much better and in most of the cases finds a solution close to the optimal. Finally, we investigate the application of techniques that partition the database and perform anonymization locally, aiming at the reduction of the memory consumption and further scalability. A thorough experimental evaluation with real datasets shows that a vertical partitioning approach achieves excellent results in practice. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

  6. Using anonymized reflection to teach ethics: a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kyle, Gaye

    2008-01-01

    Anonymized reflection was employed as an innovative way of teaching ethics in order to enhance students' ability in ethical decision making during a Care of the Dying Patient and Family' module. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from the first two student cohorts who experienced anonymized reflection ( n = 24). The themes identified were the richness and relevance of scenarios, small-group work and a team approach to teaching. Students indicated that they preferred this style of teaching. This finding was verified by a postal questionnaire conducted four months later. The conclusions drawn from this study suggest that using anonymized reflection is an effective method for teaching ethics to nurses and indicates that learning about ethical issues in this way reduces uncertainties.

  7. Visibility and anonymity effects on attraction and group cohesiveness

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lea, Martin; Spears, Russell; Watt, Susan E.

    2007-01-01

    This study investigated attraction and group cohesiveness under different visibility and anonymity conditions for social categories that differed in their capacity to be visually cued. Using computer-mediated communication in 36 mixed gender (visually cued category) and nationality (non-visually

  8. A Novel Mobile Communications Authentication Scheme with Roaming Service and User Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Chain

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Many novel, effective, and efficient applications and networking services are being developed for the Social Internet of Things. Recently, Li proposed a more secure and efficient authentication scheme with roaming service and user anonymity for mobile communications. The security analysis and discussion of the agreement phase is sufficiently safe; however, an attacker can intercept the identity of a mobile user’s home agent in the authentication phase. By using this information, the attacker can mount distributed denial-of-service attacks in the roaming phase through replay attacks targeting the network’s foreign agent and mobile user’s home agent by using their corresponding session keys. Li’s method also has some shortcomings regarding anonymity that we aim to address. To overcome these issues, this study proposes an elliptic curve–based wireless roaming anonymous login method for the authentication phase. The problems faced in the roaming phase are resolved, and this approach provides balanced session key computation between senders and receivers. Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic (BAN-logic is used to verify the security of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme affords good security, efficiency, and integrity and maintains anonymity.

  9. "People Are Either Too Fake or Too Real": Opportunities and Challenges in Tie-Based Anonymity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ma, Xiao; Andabili, Nazanin; Barkhuus, Louise

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, several mobile applications allowed individuals to anonymously share information with friends and contacts, without any persistent identity marker. The functions of these “tie-based” anonymity services may be notably different than other social media services. We use semi-structu...... disclosure needs and social probing. Still, challenges for making such applications successful, for example the prevalence of negativity and bullying, are substantial.......In recent years, several mobile applications allowed individuals to anonymously share information with friends and contacts, without any persistent identity marker. The functions of these “tie-based” anonymity services may be notably different than other social media services. We use semi...

  10. Anonymous Communication Policies for the Internet: Results and Recommendations of the AAAS Conference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teich, Al; Frankel, Mark S.; Kling, Rob; Lee, Yaching

    1999-01-01

    Reports the results of a conference on the Internet and anonymous communication organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Discusses how anonymous communications can be shaped by the law, education, and public awareness, and highlights the importance of involving all affected interests in policy development.…

  11. A New Heuristic Anonymization Technique for Privacy Preserved Datasets Publication on Cloud Computing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aldeen Yousra, S.; Mazleena, Salleh

    2018-05-01

    Recent advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) demanded much of cloud services to sharing users’ private data. Data from various organizations are the vital information source for analysis and research. Generally, this sensitive or private data information involves medical, census, voter registration, social network, and customer services. Primary concern of cloud service providers in data publishing is to hide the sensitive information of individuals. One of the cloud services that fulfill the confidentiality concerns is Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM). The PPDM service in Cloud Computing (CC) enables data publishing with minimized distortion and absolute privacy. In this method, datasets are anonymized via generalization to accomplish the privacy requirements. However, the well-known privacy preserving data mining technique called K-anonymity suffers from several limitations. To surmount those shortcomings, I propose a new heuristic anonymization framework for preserving the privacy of sensitive datasets when publishing on cloud. The advantages of K-anonymity, L-diversity and (α, k)-anonymity methods for efficient information utilization and privacy protection are emphasized. Experimental results revealed the superiority and outperformance of the developed technique than K-anonymity, L-diversity, and (α, k)-anonymity measure.

  12. Enabling genomic-phenomic association discovery without sacrificing anonymity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raymond D Heatherly

    Full Text Available Health information technologies facilitate the collection of massive quantities of patient-level data. A growing body of research demonstrates that such information can support novel, large-scale biomedical investigations at a fraction of the cost of traditional prospective studies. While healthcare organizations are being encouraged to share these data in a de-identified form, there is hesitation over concerns that it will allow corresponding patients to be re-identified. Currently proposed technologies to anonymize clinical data may make unrealistic assumptions with respect to the capabilities of a recipient to ascertain a patients identity. We show that more pragmatic assumptions enable the design of anonymization algorithms that permit the dissemination of detailed clinical profiles with provable guarantees of protection. We demonstrate this strategy with a dataset of over one million medical records and show that 192 genotype-phenotype associations can be discovered with fidelity equivalent to non-anonymized clinical data.

  13. Efficient and Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Wireless Body Area Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Libing; Zhang, Yubo; Li, Li; Shen, Jian

    2016-06-01

    As a significant part of the Internet of Things (IoT), Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) has attract much attention in this years. In WBANs, sensors placed in or around the human body collect the sensitive data of the body and transmit it through an open wireless channel in which the messages may be intercepted, modified, etc. Recently, Wang et al. presented a new anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs and claimed that their scheme can solve the security problems in the previous schemes. Unfortunately, we demonstrate that their scheme cannot withstand impersonation attack. Either an adversary or a malicious legal client could impersonate another legal client to the application provider. In this paper, we give the detailed weakness analysis of Wang et al.'s scheme at first. Then we present a novel anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs and prove that it's secure under a random oracle model. At last, we demonstrate that our presented anonymous authentication scheme for WBANs is more suitable for practical application than Wang et al.'s scheme due to better security and performance. Compared with Wang et al.'s scheme, the computation cost of our scheme in WBANs has reduced by about 31.58%.

  14. Impact of Anonymity and Identity Deception on Social Media eWOM

    OpenAIRE

    Kapoor , Payal ,; Gunta , Srinivas

    2016-01-01

    Part 4: Information Sharing on Social Media; International audience; Brand-related consumer to consumer communication, eWOM, is taking place in many forms across the social media space. Rules that governed credibility assessment of brand-related communication, WOM, in the Face to Face context may vary on social media, specifically because of anonymity that is afforded on different social media sites. The current study looks closely on the impact of anonymity in typical eWOM behaviour context ...

  15. Privacy preserving data anonymization of spontaneous ADE reporting system dataset.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Wen-Yang; Yang, Duen-Chuan; Wang, Jie-Teng

    2016-07-18

    To facilitate long-term safety surveillance of marketing drugs, many spontaneously reporting systems (SRSs) of ADR events have been established world-wide. Since the data collected by SRSs contain sensitive personal health information that should be protected to prevent the identification of individuals, it procures the issue of privacy preserving data publishing (PPDP), that is, how to sanitize (anonymize) raw data before publishing. Although much work has been done on PPDP, very few studies have focused on protecting privacy of SRS data and none of the anonymization methods is favorable for SRS datasets, due to which contain some characteristics such as rare events, multiple individual records, and multi-valued sensitive attributes. We propose a new privacy model called MS(k, θ (*) )-bounding for protecting published spontaneous ADE reporting data from privacy attacks. Our model has the flexibility of varying privacy thresholds, i.e., θ (*) , for different sensitive values and takes the characteristics of SRS data into consideration. We also propose an anonymization algorithm for sanitizing the raw data to meet the requirements specified through the proposed model. Our algorithm adopts a greedy-based clustering strategy to group the records into clusters, conforming to an innovative anonymization metric aiming to minimize the privacy risk as well as maintain the data utility for ADR detection. Empirical study was conducted using FAERS dataset from 2004Q1 to 2011Q4. We compared our model with four prevailing methods, including k-anonymity, (X, Y)-anonymity, Multi-sensitive l-diversity, and (α, k)-anonymity, evaluated via two measures, Danger Ratio (DR) and Information Loss (IL), and considered three different scenarios of threshold setting for θ (*) , including uniform setting, level-wise setting and frequency-based setting. We also conducted experiments to inspect the impact of anonymized data on the strengths of discovered ADR signals. With all three

  16. Security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards and biometrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Younsung; Nam, Junghyun; Lee, Donghoon; Kim, Jiye; Jung, Jaewook; Won, Dongho

    2014-01-01

    An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user's biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen's scheme.

  17. Security Enhanced Anonymous Multiserver Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Using Smart Cards and Biometrics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Younsung Choi

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user’s biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen’s scheme.

  18. An outcome study of Gamblers Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stewart, R M; Brown, R I

    1988-02-01

    Retrospective and prospective studies of a total sample of 232 attenders at groups of Gamblers Anonymous suggest that total abstinence from gambling was maintained by 8% of all comers at one year from first attendance and by 7% at two years.

  19. College Students' Experiences with Anonymous Social Media: Implications for Campus Racial Climate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armstrong, Amanda; Thomas, Jaymi; Smith, Madeline

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this exploratory case study was to gather undergraduate students' perceptions of anonymous racist messages found on Yik Yak and to better understand the implications of anonymous platforms on campus racial climate. Given the limited research surrounding students' use of anonymous social media platforms, as well as the predominant…

  20. Confidentiality, anonymity and amnesty for midwives in distress seeking online support - Ethical?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pezaro, Sally; Clyne, Wendy; Gerada, Clare

    2018-06-01

    Midwife health is intrinsically linked to the quality of safe patient care. To ensure safe patient care, there is a need to deliver emotional support to midwives. One option that midwives may turn to may be a confidential online intervention, instead of localised, face-to-face support. Following the Realist And MEta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards publication standards, this realist synthesis approach explores the ethical considerations in permitting confidentiality, anonymity and amnesty in online interventions to support midwives in work-related psychological distress. An iterative search methodology was used to select nine papers for review. To assimilate information, papers were examined for ideas relating to ethical dimensions of online interventions to support midwives in work-related psychological distress. This review takes a narrative approach. Online interventions can support the development of insight, help seeking and open discussion. Additionally, Internet support groups can become morally persuasive in nature. Anonymity and confidentiality are both effective and therapeutic features of online interventions when used in collaboration with effective online moderation. Yet, ethical dilemmas remain where users cannot be identified. Confidentiality and anonymity remain key components of successful online interventions. However, sanctioning the corollary component of amnesty may provoke moral discomfort for those seeking immediate accountability. For others, amnesty is seen as essential for open disclosure and help seeking. Ultimately, the needs of midwives must be balanced with the requirement to protect the public and the professional reputation of midwifery. In supporting midwives online, the principles of anonymity, confidentiality and amnesty may evoke some resistance on ethical grounds. However, without offering identity protection, it may not be possible to create effective online support services for midwives. The authors of this

  1. For the Lulz: Anonymous, Aesthetics and Affect

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rodrigo Ferrada Stoehrel

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available The focus of this paper is on different but connected areas of power – relating to things such as economic globalisation, surveillance, censorship/freedom, ‘terrorism’ and/or specific military activity – visually represented through online media, and intentionally produced to inform a wide spectrum of individuals and interest groups about global and local social injustices. Or, more importantly, produced and distributed with the purpose of providing users with possibilities to engage, bodily and emotionally, in diverse ways: may it be through physical antiwar/anti-wall street protests or hacktivist tactics (e.g. DDoS attacks. We examine a sample of videos, photographs and propaganda posters produced, and digitally distributed (2008-2013, by the fragmented body of activists united globally under the generic name of Anonymous. Analytically, we will draw upon Mouffe’s thoughts on ‘antagonism’ and ‘passion,’ Foucault’s ideas on international citizenship and the (ethical ‘right to intervene’ (beyond governmentality, together with Sontag’s notion of institutional political inertia and the Deleuzian/Spinozian perspective on affect as a capacity for action. The goal is to analyse the ways in which Anonymous systematically inspire (not only the radical and social imaginary but also other direct forms of action that have potential societal effects.

  2. Robust Reputations for Peer-to-peer Markets

    Science.gov (United States)

    2007-05-24

    a cryptographic protocol that permits persistent pseudonyms: on-line identities that maintain privacy and anonymity yet providing a strong guarantee...July 2005. [106] ——, “Resisting sybils in peer-to-peer markets,” 2007, to appear in the Proceedings of the Joint iTrust and PST Conference on Privacy ...vendors unite to voice their concerns,” Startup Journal, May 2004, http://startup.wsj.com/ ecommerce / ecommerce /20040526-wingfield.html. 179 [117] B. Yu and M

  3. Formal Security-Proved Mobile Anonymous Authentication Protocols with Credit-Based Chargeability and Controllable Privacy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chun-I Fan

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Smart mobile phones are widely popularized and advanced mobile communication services are provided increasingly often, such that ubiquitous computing environments will soon be a reality. However, there are many security threats to mobile networks and their impact on security is more serious than that in wireline networks owing to the features of wireless transmissions and the ubiquity property. The secret information which mobile users carry may be stolen by malicious entities. To guarantee the quality of advanced services, security and privacy would be important issues when users roam within various mobile networks. In this manuscript, an anonymous authentication scheme will be proposed to protect the security of the network system and the privacy of users. Not only does the proposed scheme provide mutual authentication between each user and the system, but also each user’s identity is kept secret against anyone else, including the system. Although the system anonymously authenticates the users, it can still generate correct bills to charge these anonymous users via a credit-based solution instead of debit-based ones. Furthermore, our protocols also achieve fair privacy which allows the judge to revoke the anonymity and trace the illegal users when they have misused the anonymity property, for example, if they have committed crimes. Finally, in this paper, we also carry out complete theoretical proofs on each claimed security property.

  4. Anonymous voting for multi-dimensional CV quantum system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shi Rong-Hua; Xiao Yi; Shi Jin-Jing; Guo Ying; Lee, Moon-Ho

    2016-01-01

    We investigate the design of anonymous voting protocols, CV-based binary-valued ballot and CV-based multi-valued ballot with continuous variables (CV) in a multi-dimensional quantum cryptosystem to ensure the security of voting procedure and data privacy. The quantum entangled states are employed in the continuous variable quantum system to carry the voting information and assist information transmission, which takes the advantage of the GHZ-like states in terms of improving the utilization of quantum states by decreasing the number of required quantum states. It provides a potential approach to achieve the efficient quantum anonymous voting with high transmission security, especially in large-scale votes. (paper)

  5. BIX Certificates: Cryptographic Tokens for Anonymous Transactions Based on Certificates Public Ledger

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sead Muftic

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available With the widespread use of Internet, Web, and mobile technologies, a new category of applications and transactions that requires anonymity is gaining increased interest and importance. Examples of such new applications are innovative payment systems, digital notaries, electronic voting, documents sharing, electronic auctions, medical applications, and many others. In addition to anonymity, these applications and transactions also require standard security services: identification, authentication, and authorization of users and protection of their transactions. Providing those services in combination with anonymity is an especially challenging issue, because all security services require explicit user identification and authentication. To solve this issue and enable applications with security and also anonymity we introduce a new type of cryptographically encapsulated objects called BIX certificates. “BIX” is an abbreviation for “Blockchain Information Exchange.” Their purpose is equivalent to X.509 certificates: to support security services for users and transactions, but also enhanced with anonymity. This paper describes the structure and attributes of BIX certificate objects and all related protocols for their creation, distribution, and use. The BIX Certification Infrastructure (BCI as a distributed public ledger is also briefly described.

  6. Verbal Venting in the Social Web: Effects of Anonymity and Group Norms on Aggressive Language Use in Online Comments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leonie Rösner

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Scholars often blame the occurrence of aggressive behavior in online discussions on the anonymity of the Internet; however, even on today’s less anonymous platforms, such as social networking sites, users write plenty of aggressive comments, which can elicit a whole wave of negative remarks. Drawing on the social identity and deindividuation effects (SIDE model, this research conducts a laboratory experiment with a 2 (anonymity vs. no anonymity × 2 (aggressive norm vs. non-aggressive norm between-subjects design in order to disentangle the effects of anonymity, social group norms, and their interactions on aggressive language use in online comments. Results reveal that participants used more aggressive expressions in their comments when peer comments on a blog included aggressive wording (i.e., the social group norm was aggressive. Anonymity had no direct effect; however, we found a tendency that users’ conformity to an aggressive social norm of commenting is stronger in an anonymous environment.

  7. Bayesian modeling of consumer behavior in the presence of anonymous visits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novak, Julie Esther

    Tailoring content to consumers has become a hallmark of marketing and digital media, particularly as it has become easier to identify customers across usage or purchase occasions. However, across a wide variety of contexts, companies find that customers do not consistently identify themselves, leaving a substantial fraction of anonymous visits. We develop a Bayesian hierarchical model that allows us to probabilistically assign anonymous sessions to users. These probabilistic assignments take into account a customer's demographic information, frequency of visitation, activities taken when visiting, and times of arrival. We present two studies, one with synthetic and one with real data, where we demonstrate improved performance over two popular practices (nearest-neighbor matching and deleting the anonymous visits) due to increased efficiency and reduced bias driven by the non-ignorability of which types of events are more likely to be anonymous. Using our proposed model, we avoid potential bias in understanding the effect of a firm's marketing on its customers, improve inference about the total number of customers in the dataset, and provide more precise targeted marketing to both previously observed and unobserved customers.

  8. Health Records and the Cloud Computing Paradigm from a Privacy Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian Stingl

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available With the advent of cloud computing, the realization of highly available electronic health records providing location-independent access seems to be very promising. However, cloud computing raises major security issues that need to be addressed particularly within the health care domain. The protection of the privacy of individuals often seems to be left on the sidelines. For instance, common protection against malicious insiders, i.e., non-disclosure agreements, is purely organizational. Clearly, such measures cannot prevent misuses but can at least discourage it. In this paper, we present an approach to storing highly sensitive health data in the cloud whereas the protection of patient's privacy is exclusively based on technical measures, so that users and providers of health records do not need to trust the cloud provider with privacy related issues. Our technical measures comprise anonymous communication and authentication, anonymous yet authorized transactions and pseudonymization of databases.

  9. Taxonomy for and Analysis of Anonymous Communications Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-03-01

    degradation, preservation and elimination in cyberspace to enhance the security of information assets. This includes discovery/obfuscation of...a means of communication and information dissemination, concerns about Internet privacy and security are escalating. In 1980’s, Chaum began work...variety of different systems including the T9000 Transputer AFIT/DCS/ENG/09-08 - 123 - [Bar95] and a secure ecommerce system [HaC02]. Anonymity

  10. Alcoholics anonymous, other 12-step movements and psychotherapy in the US population, 1990.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Room, R; Greenfield, T

    1993-04-01

    Based on the 1990 US National Alcohol Survey, this note provides the first available comprehensive findings on self-reported utilization of a variety of sources of personal support and counselling for alcohol and other problems. Respondents were queried about lifetime attendance and number of times they went to identified sources of help in the prior year. Twelve-step groups included Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and other non-alcohol-oriented groups like Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous; additional questions inquired about support or therapy groups and individual counselling for non-alcohol problems. Of the US adult population, 9% have been to an AA meeting at some time, 3.6% in the prior year, only about one-third of these for problems of their own. About half these percentages, mostly women, have attended Al-Anon. Of the same population, 13.3% indicate ever attending a 12-step meeting (including non-alcohol-oriented groups), 5.3% in the last year. During the prior year a further 2.1% used other support/therapy groups and 5.5% sought individual counselling/therapy for personal problems other than alcohol. In contrast to this high reported utilization, only 4.9% (ever) and 2.3% (12-months) reported going to anyone including AA for a problem (of their own) related to drinking.

  11. Browsing the Internet: good-bye anonymity!

    CERN Multimedia

    Computer Security Team

    2012-01-01

    Do you consider browsing the Internet to be your private business? When visiting random web-sites, how far do you assume you are anonymous? Would it matter to you that Google or Facebook can profile your browsing behaviour in order to better target you with advertisements? Did you notice that you already get targeted ads when you are logged on to Google or Facebook even if you are visiting completely different websites? If matters to you, note that browsing anonymously on the Internet is far from easy.   When you are connected to the Internet, you give away a variety of information: your PC’s IP address, some browser settings like language or screen size, and, probably, your login information. So how private is private? You might argue that your current IP address has been picked from a pool of addresses and therefore regularly changes, so it does not necessarily always pinpoint you. On the other hand, with the dawn of IPv6 there is no need any more for shared IP addresses as the...

  12. Towards Predicting Efficient and Anonymous Tor Circuits

    OpenAIRE

    Barton, Armon; Imani, Mohsen; Ming, Jiang; Wright, Matthew

    2018-01-01

    The Tor anonymity system provides online privacy for millions of users, but it is slower than typical web browsing. To improve Tor performance, we propose PredicTor, a path selection technique that uses a Random Forest classifier trained on recent measurements of Tor to predict the performance of a proposed path. If the path is predicted to be fast, then the client builds a circuit using those relays. We implemented PredicTor in the Tor source code and show through live Tor experiments and Sh...

  13. Gamblers anonymous and cognitive-behavioral therapies for pathological gamblers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petry, Nancy M

    2005-01-01

    Numerous types of treatments for pathological gambling have been described, but two of the most common are Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and cognitive-behavioral therapy. This paper describes some outcome data associated with the two approaches. It also reviews evidence suggesting that a combined intervention may enhance therapy engagement and reduce relapse rates.

  14. Achieving sink node anonymity in tactical wireless sensor networks using a reactive routing protocol

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-06-01

    node anonymity, base station anonymity, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET), Lightweight Ad hoc On-Demand – Next Generation ... Generation (LOADng) reactive-routing protocol to achieve anonymity. This modified protocol prevents an attacker from identifying the sink node without...within the constraints of WSN communication protocols, specifically IEEE 802.15.4. We use and modify the Lightweight Ad hoc On-Demand – Next Generation

  15. Hacktivism 1-2-3: how privacy enhancing technologies change the face of anonymous hacktivism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Balázs Bodó

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This short essay explores how the notion of hacktivism changes due to easily accessible, military grade Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs. Privacy Enhancing Technologies, technological tools which provide anonymous communications and protect users from online surveillance enable new forms of online political activism. Through the short summary of the ad-hoc vigilante group Anonymous, this article describes hacktivism 1.0 as electronic civil disobedience conducted by outsiders. Through the analysis of Wikileaks, the anonymous whistleblowing website, it describes how strong PETs enable the development of hacktivism 2.0, where the source of threat is shifted from outsiders to insiders. Insiders have access to documents with which power can be exposed, and who, by using PETs, can anonymously engage in political action. We also describe the emergence of a third generation of hacktivists who use PETs to disengage and create their own autonomous spaces rather than to engage with power through anonymous whistleblowing.

  16. All or Nothing: The False Promise of Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Neil Walker

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available In early 2016, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE proposed that responsible sharing of de-identified individual-level data be required for clinical trials published in their affiliated journals. There would be a delay in implementing this policy to allow for the necessary informed consents to work their way through ethical review. Meanwhile, some researchers and policy makers have conflated the notions of de-identification and anonymity. The former is a process that seeks to mitigate disclosure risk though careful application of rules and statistical analysis, while the latter is an absolute state. The consequence of confusing the process and the state is profound. Extensions to the ICMJE proposal based on the presumed anonymity of data include: sharing unconsented data; sharing data without managing access, as Open Data; and proposals to sell data. This essay aims to show that anonymity (the state cannot be guaranteed by de-identification (the process, and so these extensions to the ICMJE proposal should be rejected on governance grounds, if no other. This is not as negative a position as it might seem, as other disciplines have been aware of these limitations and concomitant responsibilities for many years. The essay concludes with an example from social science of managed access strategies that could be adopted by the medical field.

  17. Simplifying Itai-Rodeh leaderelection for anonymous rings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    W.J. Fokkink (Wan); J. Pang

    2004-01-01

    textabstractWe present two probabilistic leader election algorithms for anonymous unidirectional rings with FIFO channels, based on an algorithm from Itai and Rodeh. In contrast to the Itai-Rodeh algorithm, our algorithms are finite-state. So they can be analyzed using explicit state space

  18. Darknet and bitcoin, the obscure and anonymous side of the internet in healthcare.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masoni, Marco; Guelfi, Maria Renza; Gensini, Gian Franco

    2016-11-14

    Illegal activities prosecutable by law in the real life can be committed on the internet alike. In the healthcare domain, we refer mainly to selling of illegal and counterfeit drugs, exchange of pedo-pornographic material and marketing of stolen medical records. These illegal activities are made easier by recent developments of the Internet that medical community must be aware of: darknet and bitcoin. The first allows anonymous surfing and the last anonymous financial transactions. After discussing which healthcare areas are affected by these technological developments of the Internet and the deriving consequences, then the Authors express their opinion on what actions can be taken to protect internet community.

  19. An Efficient Big Data Anonymization Algorithm Based on Chaos and Perturbation Techniques

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Can Eyupoglu

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The topic of big data has attracted increasing interest in recent years. The emergence of big data leads to new difficulties in terms of protection models used for data privacy, which is of necessity for sharing and processing data. Protecting individuals’ sensitive information while maintaining the usability of the data set published is the most important challenge in privacy preserving. In this regard, data anonymization methods are utilized in order to protect data against identity disclosure and linking attacks. In this study, a novel data anonymization algorithm based on chaos and perturbation has been proposed for privacy and utility preserving in big data. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated in terms of Kullback–Leibler divergence, probabilistic anonymity, classification accuracy, F-measure and execution time. The experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm is efficient and performs better in terms of Kullback–Leibler divergence, classification accuracy and F-measure compared to most of the existing algorithms using the same data set. Resulting from applying chaos to perturb data, such successful algorithm is promising to be used in privacy preserving data mining and data publishing.

  20. Enhancing physicians' use of Alcoholics Anonymous: Internet-based training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sellers, Brealyn; Galanter, Marc; Dermatis, Helen; Nachbar, Martin

    2005-01-01

    Alcoholics Anonymous is not yet fully employed by the medical community as a means to enhance patient outcome. The purpose of this study was to evaluate visitors' use of an Internet course on Alcoholics Anonymous, and to compare how various disciplines learned about, gained access to and participated in the course. Demographic information was collected from 414 visitors to the course. 64% of the 414 respondents received their last educational degree within the last 10 years, and had an interest in the topic of addiction prior to their accessing the site. 294 (71%) of those who accessed the course completed it, and those who accessed it learned about it from various sources other than print advertisement in professional journals. Within the 230 physician respondents, 143 (62%) were psychiatrists, 82 (78%) of whom learned about the Internet course via professional journal. Given the need for further training among physicians in the use of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Internet can be utilized to make information available to a large number of people. Because it allows the user to access information outside the traditional means, the barriers to its use are minimal, and it has the potential to effectively convey useful clinical information.

  1. Potential harms, anonymization, and the right to withdraw consent to biobank research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eriksson, Stefan; Helgesson, Gert

    2005-09-01

    This paper discusses the potential harms involved in biobank research and how ethical review, informed consent, withdrawals, and anonymization of samples should be handled in the light of these harms. There is less risk involved in biobank research than in human subject research; it should therefore be treated differently. In our view, anonymization should not be an automatically permissible response to requests for withdrawal. Nor should a request for withdrawal necessarily stop research on identifiable samples. Apart from not being particularly appropriate for protecting the interests of individuals, anonymization of samples has a negative impact on research. We suggest that the current view on withdrawal from research, supported by the Declaration of Helsinki and subsequent ethical guidelines, be abandoned in the context of biobank research and be replaced by an approach inspired by the Nuremberg Code. This approach requires those wishing to withdraw their samples from research to present sufficient reason for doing so. Our interpretation of 'sufficient reason' includes all those involving genuine, deeply felt concerns that are not based on misconceptions. Still, this underlines the fact that we all share a responsibility for health research and that no one should take withdrawal from biobank research lightly.

  2. [Comment on “Anonymous reviews: Self-serving, counterproductive, and unacceptable”] from R.E. Criss and A.M. Hofmeister

    Science.gov (United States)

    Criss, Robert E.; Hofmeister, Anne M.

    We share many of the experiences and most of the sentiments relayed by Myrl Beck in his 1 July contribution to the Eos Forum, as well as those of a similar nature expressed by Alexander McBirney in his March 2003 commentary in GSA Today. We are in fact delighted that senior scientists are speaking up about the unsatisfactory nature of anonymous reviews. However, we believe they understate the problems, partly because the situation is worsening with time. Moreover, the brunt of such problems is disproportionately felt not by emeritus professors but by young scientists, women, and minorities, and this is the crux of the issue.This year, we have, like Beck, received rejections based on comments by two anonymous reviewers and an anonymous associate editor. We have also received rejections from anonymous associate editors based on a single constructive review requesting minor revision, along with an anonymous hostile “review” that could have been written about any manuscript on any topic by any author. More common than these are rejections from identified associate editors based on one or two anonymous reviews, which more often than not err on most of the points made, and in two cases dispute work that resulted in Nobel Prizes. We have examples this year of each type where the senior authors are recent Ph.D.s, whose vulnerabilities underscore the reprehensible nature of this “process.”

  3. Yahtzee: an anonymized group level matching procedure.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jason J Jones

    Full Text Available Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects ever more important. However, strict privacy procedures can hinder the process of joining diverse sources of data that contain information about specific individual behaviors. In this paper we present a procedure to keep information about specific individuals from being "leaked" or shared in either direction between two sources of data without need of a trusted third party. To achieve this goal, we randomly assign individuals to anonymous groups before combining the anonymized information between the two sources of data. We refer to this method as the Yahtzee procedure, and show that it performs as predicted by theoretical analysis when we apply it to data from Facebook and public voter records.

  4. Yahtzee: an anonymized group level matching procedure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Jason J; Bond, Robert M; Fariss, Christopher J; Settle, Jaime E; Kramer, Adam D I; Marlow, Cameron; Fowler, James H

    2013-01-01

    Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects ever more important. However, strict privacy procedures can hinder the process of joining diverse sources of data that contain information about specific individual behaviors. In this paper we present a procedure to keep information about specific individuals from being "leaked" or shared in either direction between two sources of data without need of a trusted third party. To achieve this goal, we randomly assign individuals to anonymous groups before combining the anonymized information between the two sources of data. We refer to this method as the Yahtzee procedure, and show that it performs as predicted by theoretical analysis when we apply it to data from Facebook and public voter records.

  5. Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School: Banishing Anonymity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Principal Leadership, 2010

    2010-01-01

    It is no accident that the staff at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School adopted a central tenet of "Breaking Ranks in the Middle"--to banish anonymity by creating a personalized learning environment for all of its students. The school was created six years ago when the four middle schools in Henry County, VA, were consolidated into two…

  6. De-anonymizing Genomic Databases Using Phenotypic Traits

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Humbert Mathias

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available People increasingly have their genomes sequenced and some of them share their genomic data online. They do so for various purposes, including to find relatives and to help advance genomic research. An individual’s genome carries very sensitive, private information such as its owner’s susceptibility to diseases, which could be used for discrimination. Therefore, genomic databases are often anonymized. However, an individual’s genotype is also linked to visible phenotypic traits, such as eye or hair color, which can be used to re-identify users in anonymized public genomic databases, thus raising severe privacy issues. For instance, an adversary can identify a target’s genome using known her phenotypic traits and subsequently infer her susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease. In this paper, we quantify, based on various phenotypic traits, the extent of this threat in several scenarios by implementing de-anonymization attacks on a genomic database of OpenSNP users sequenced by 23andMe. Our experimental results show that the proportion of correct matches reaches 23% with a supervised approach in a database of 50 participants. Our approach outperforms the baseline by a factor of four, in terms of the proportion of correct matches, in most scenarios. We also evaluate the adversary’s ability to predict individuals’ predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease, and we observe that the inference error can be halved compared to the baseline. We also analyze the effect of the number of known phenotypic traits on the success rate of the attack. As progress is made in genomic research, especially for genotype-phenotype associations, the threat presented in this paper will become more serious.

  7. A Lightweight Anonymous Authentication Protocol with Perfect Forward Secrecy for Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ling Xiong

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Due to their frequent use in unattended and hostile deployment environments, the security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs has attracted much interest in the past two decades. However, it remains a challenge to design a lightweight authentication protocol for WSNs because the designers are confronted with a series of desirable security requirements, e.g., user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, resistance to de-synchronization attack. Recently, the authors presented two authentication schemes that attempt to provide user anonymity and to resist various known attacks. Unfortunately, in this work we shall show that user anonymity of the two schemes is achieved at the price of an impractical search operation—the gateway node may search for every possible value. Besides this defect, they are also prone to smart card loss attacks and have no provision for perfect forward secrecy. As our main contribution, a lightweight anonymous authentication scheme with perfect forward secrecy is designed, and what we believe the most interesting feature is that user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and resistance to de-synchronization attack can be achieved at the same time. As far as we know, it is extremely difficult to meet these security features simultaneously only using the lightweight operations, such as symmetric encryption/decryption and hash functions.

  8. A Lightweight Anonymous Authentication Protocol with Perfect Forward Secrecy for Wireless Sensor Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Ling; Peng, Daiyuan; Peng, Tu; Liang, Hongbin; Liu, Zhicai

    2017-11-21

    Due to their frequent use in unattended and hostile deployment environments, the security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has attracted much interest in the past two decades. However, it remains a challenge to design a lightweight authentication protocol for WSNs because the designers are confronted with a series of desirable security requirements, e.g., user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, resistance to de-synchronization attack. Recently, the authors presented two authentication schemes that attempt to provide user anonymity and to resist various known attacks. Unfortunately, in this work we shall show that user anonymity of the two schemes is achieved at the price of an impractical search operation-the gateway node may search for every possible value. Besides this defect, they are also prone to smart card loss attacks and have no provision for perfect forward secrecy. As our main contribution, a lightweight anonymous authentication scheme with perfect forward secrecy is designed, and what we believe the most interesting feature is that user anonymity, perfect forward secrecy, and resistance to de-synchronization attack can be achieved at the same time. As far as we know, it is extremely difficult to meet these security features simultaneously only using the lightweight operations, such as symmetric encryption/decryption and hash functions.

  9. The influence of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Soowon Park

    Full Text Available Peer influence on students' maladaptive behaviors has been well documented; however, the influence on positive development is less acknowledged.The purpose of this study was to examine anonymous peer influence on college students' prosocial behavior, specifically behavior for the improvement of society (i.e., donating money or participating in social campaigns via an experimental approach. The effects of indirect peer influence (IP and direct peer influence (DP on college students' prosocial behavior were examined.A total of 125 college students participated in an online survey and laboratory experiment. Self-reported helping behavior, social concern goals, and empathy were measured by the online survey. In the laboratory experiments, reading of a prosocial paragraph (IP and confederates' prosocial behavior (DP were manipulated. Participation in a signature campaign and money donation for illness were observed. Furthermore, 19 participants among those who donated were asked about their reasons for participating in such prosocial behavior.Prosocial behavior of anonymous peers (confederates exerts a profound influence on college students' participation in a signature campaign and money donation, whereas the reading of a prosocial paragraph has no effect. Furthermore, no participants reported peer influence as a reason for engaging in prosocial behavior.This finding supports and extends recent research examining the positive impacts of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is not only a foundational and consistent aspect of personality, as previous studies report, but is also highly malleable and unstable in response to immediate situations.

  10. The influence of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shin, Jongho

    2017-01-01

    Background Peer influence on students’ maladaptive behaviors has been well documented; however, the influence on positive development is less acknowledged. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine anonymous peer influence on college students’ prosocial behavior, specifically behavior for the improvement of society (i.e., donating money or participating in social campaigns) via an experimental approach. The effects of indirect peer influence (IP) and direct peer influence (DP) on college students’ prosocial behavior were examined. Methods A total of 125 college students participated in an online survey and laboratory experiment. Self-reported helping behavior, social concern goals, and empathy were measured by the online survey. In the laboratory experiments, reading of a prosocial paragraph (IP) and confederates’ prosocial behavior (DP) were manipulated. Participation in a signature campaign and money donation for illness were observed. Furthermore, 19 participants among those who donated were asked about their reasons for participating in such prosocial behavior. Results Prosocial behavior of anonymous peers (confederates) exerts a profound influence on college students’ participation in a signature campaign and money donation, whereas the reading of a prosocial paragraph has no effect. Furthermore, no participants reported peer influence as a reason for engaging in prosocial behavior. Conclusion This finding supports and extends recent research examining the positive impacts of anonymous peers on prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is not only a foundational and consistent aspect of personality, as previous studies report, but is also highly malleable and unstable in response to immediate situations. PMID:29016612

  11. Utility-preserving transaction data anonymization with low information loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loukides, Grigorios; Gkoulalas-Divanis, Aris

    2012-08-01

    Transaction data record various information about individuals, including their purchases and diagnoses, and are increasingly published to support large-scale and low-cost studies in domains such as marketing and medicine. However, the dissemination of transaction data may lead to privacy breaches, as it allows an attacker to link an individual's record to their identity. Approaches that anonymize data by eliminating certain values in an individual's record or by replacing them with more general values have been proposed recently, but they often produce data of limited usefulness. This is because these approaches adopt value transformation strategies that do not guarantee data utility in intended applications and objective measures that may lead to excessive data distortion. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for anonymizing data in a way that satisfies data publishers' utility requirements and incurs low information loss. To achieve this, we introduce an accurate information loss measure and an effective anonymization algorithm that explores a large part of the problem space. An extensive experimental study, using click-stream and medical data, demonstrates that our approach permits many times more accurate query answering than the state-of-the-art methods, while it is comparable to them in terms of efficiency.

  12. k-Degree Anonymity Model for Social Network Data Publishing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MACWAN, K. R.

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Publicly accessible platform for social networking has gained special attraction because of its easy data sharing. Data generated on such social network is analyzed for various activities like marketing, social psychology, etc. This requires preservation of sensitive attributes before it becomes easily accessible. Simply removing the personal identities of the users before publishing data is not enough to maintain the privacy of the individuals. The structure of the social network data itself reveals much information regarding its users and their connections. To resolve this problem, k-degree anonymous method is adopted. It emphasizes on the modification of the graph to provide at least k number of nodes that contain the same degree. However, this approach is not efficient on a huge amount of social data and the modification of the original data fails to maintain data usefulness. In addition to this, the current anonymization approaches focus on a degree sequence-based graph model which leads to major modification of the graph topological properties. In this paper, we have proposed an improved k-degree anonymity model that retain the social network structural properties and also to provide privacy to the individuals. Utility measurement approach for community based graph model is used to verify the performance of the proposed technique.

  13. To Speak or Not to Speak: Developing Legal Standards for Anonymous Speech on the Internet

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomas A. Lipinski

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores recent developments in the regulation of Internet speech, in specific, injurious or defamatory speech and the impact such speech has on the rights of anonymous speakers to remain anonymous as opposed to having their identity revealed to plaintiffs or other third parties. The paper proceeds in four sections.  First, a brief history of the legal attempts to regulate defamatory Internet speech in the United States is presented. As discussed below this regulation has altered the traditional legal paradigm of responsibility and as a result creates potential problems for the future of anonymous speech on the Internet.  As a result plaintiffs are no longer pursuing litigation against service providers but taking their dispute directly to the anonymous speaker. Second, several cases have arisen in the United States where plaintiffs have requested that the identity of an anonymous Internet speaker be revealed.  These cases are surveyed.  Third, the cases are analyzed in order to determine the factors that courts require to be present before the identity of an anonymous speaker will be revealed.  The release is typically accomplished by the enforcement of a discovery subpoena instigated by the party seeking the identity of the anonymous speaker. The factors courts have used are as follows: jurisdiction, good faith (both internal and external, necessity (basic and sometimes absolute, and at times proprietary interest. Finally, these factors are applied in three scenarios--e-commerce, education, and employment--to guide institutions when adopting policies that regulate when the identity of an anonymous speaker--a customer, a student or an employee--would be released as part of an internal initiative, but would nonetheless be consistent with developing legal standards.

  14. Anonymous letters? DNA and fingerprints technologies combined to solve a case.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barbaro, A; Cormaci, P; Teatino, A; La Marca, A; Barbaro, A

    2004-12-02

    Two brothers, living in two different cities, received two different anonymous letters. We performed latent prints development and DNA research on the letters and also on a glass used by a cousin suspected to be the letters' sender.

  15. Anonymity communication VPN and Tor: a comparative study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramadhani, E.

    2018-03-01

    VPN and Tor is a technology based on anonymity communication. These two technologies have their advantage and disadvantage. The objective of this paper is to find the difference between VPN and Tor technologies by comparing their security of communication on the public network based on the CIA triad concept. The comparative study in this paper is based on the survey method. At last, the result of this paper is a recommendation on when to use a VPN and Tor to secure communication

  16. Anonymizing patient genomic data for public sharing association studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandez-Lozano, Carlos; Lopez-Campos, Guillermo; Seoane, Jose A; Lopez-Alonso, Victoria; Dorado, Julian; Martín-Sanchez, Fernando; Pazos, Alejandro

    2013-01-01

    The development of personalized medicine is tightly linked with the correct exploitation of molecular data, especially those associated with the genome sequence along with these use of genomic data there is an increasing demand to share these data for research purposes. Transition of clinical data to research is based in the anonymization of these data so the patient cannot be identified, the use of genomic data poses a great challenge because its nature of identifying data. In this work we have analyzed current methods for genome anonymization and propose a one way encryption method that may enable the process of genomic data sharing accessing only to certain regions of genomes for research purposes.

  17. (a,k)-Anonymous Scheme for Privacy-Preserving Data Collection in IoT-based Healthcare Services Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Hongtao; Guo, Feng; Zhang, Wenyin; Wang, Jie; Xing, Jinsheng

    2018-02-14

    The widely use of IoT technologies in healthcare services has pushed forward medical intelligence level of services. However, it also brings potential privacy threat to the data collection. In healthcare services system, health and medical data that contains privacy information are often transmitted among networks, and such privacy information should be protected. Therefore, there is a need for privacy-preserving data collection (PPDC) scheme to protect clients (patients) data. We adopt (a,k)-anonymity model as privacy pretection scheme for data collection, and propose a novel anonymity-based PPDC method for healthcare services in this paper. The threat model is analyzed in the client-server-to-user (CS2U) model. On client-side, we utilize (a,k)-anonymity notion to generate anonymous tuples which can resist possible attack, and adopt a bottom-up clustering method to create clusters that satisfy a base privacy level of (a 1 ,k 1 )-anonymity. On server-side, we reduce the communication cost through generalization technology, and compress (a 1 ,k 1 )-anonymous data through an UPGMA-based cluster combination method to make the data meet the deeper level of privacy (a 2 ,k 2 )-anonymity (a 1  ≥ a 2 , k 2  ≥ k 1 ). Theoretical analysis and experimental results prove that our scheme is effective in privacy-preserving and data quality.

  18. Source Anonymity in WSNs against Global Adversary Utilizing Low Transmission Rates with Delay Constraints

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anas Bushnag

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Wireless sensor networks (WSN are deployed for many applications such as tracking and monitoring of endangered species, military applications, etc. which require anonymity of the origin, known as Source Location Privacy (SLP. The aim in SLP is to prevent unauthorized observers from tracing the source of a real event by analyzing the traffic in the network. Previous approaches to SLP such as Fortified Anonymous Communication Protocol (FACP employ transmission of real or fake packets in every time slot, which is inefficient. To overcome this shortcoming, we developed three different techniques presented in this paper. Dummy Uniform Distribution (DUD, Dummy Adaptive Distribution (DAD and Controlled Dummy Adaptive Distribution (CAD were developed to overcome the anonymity problem against a global adversary (which has the capability of analyzing and monitoring the entire network. Most of the current techniques try to prevent the adversary from perceiving the location and time of the real event whereas our proposed techniques confuse the adversary about the existence of the real event by introducing low rate fake messages, which subsequently lead to location and time privacy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed techniques provide reasonable delivery ratio, delay, and overhead of a real event's packets while keeping a high level of anonymity. Three different analysis models are conducted to verify the performance of our techniques. A visualization of the simulation data is performed to confirm anonymity. Further, neural network models are developed to ensure that the introduced techniques preserve SLP. Finally, a steganography model based on probability is implemented to prove the anonymity of the techniques.

  19. Use of WhatsApp in Higher Education: What's Up with Assessing Peers Anonymously?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Güler, Çetin

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate the use of WhatsApp application in anonymous peer assessment in higher education. The mobile phone application WhatsApp was used as both an anonymous and nonanonymous peer assessment tool in a classroom environment. The participants of the study were the students of two classes (sophomores and juniors), half…

  20. An Enhancing Security Research of Tor Anonymous Communication to Against DDos Attacks

    OpenAIRE

    Feng Tao; Zhao Ming-Tao

    2017-01-01

    Tor (The Second Onion Router) is modified by the first generation onion router and known as the most prevalent anonymous communication system. According to the advantage of low latency, high confidentiality of transmission content, high security of communication channels and et al., Tor is widely used in anonymous Web browsing, instant message and so on. However, the vulnerability and blemish of Tor affect system security. An identity and Signcryption-based concurrent signature scheme was use...

  1. Simplifying Itai-Rodeh Leader Election for Anonymous Rings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fokkink, W.J.; Pang, J.

    2005-01-01

    We present two probabilistic leader election algorithms for anonymous unidirectional rings with FIFO channels, based on an algorithm from Itai and Rodeh [A. Itai and M. Rodeh. Symmetry breaking in distributive networks. In Proc. FOCS'81, pp. 150-158. IEEE Computer Society, 1981]. In contrast to the

  2. An Anonymous Access Authentication Scheme Based on Proxy Ring Signature for CPS-WMNs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tianhan Gao

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Access security and privacy have become a bottleneck for the popularization of future Cyber-Physical System (CPS networks. Furthermore, users’ need for privacy-preserved access during movement procedure is more urgent. To address the anonymous access authentication issue for CPS Wireless Mesh Network (CPS-WMN, a novel anonymous access authentication scheme based on proxy ring signature is proposed. A hierarchical authentication architecture is presented first. The scheme is then achieved from the aspect of intergroup and intragroup anonymous mutual authentication through proxy ring signature mechanism and certificateless signature mechanism, respectively. We present a formal security proof of the proposed protocol with SVO logic. The simulation and performance analysis demonstrate that the proposed scheme owns higher efficiency and adaptability than the typical one.

  3. Anonymous electronic trading versus floor trading

    OpenAIRE

    Franke, Günter; Hess, Dieter

    1995-01-01

    This paper compares the attractiveness of floor trading and anonymous electronic trading systems. It is argued that in times of low information intensity the insight into the order book of the electronic trading system provides more valuable information than floor trading, but in times of high information intensity the reverse is true. Thus, the electronic system's market share in trading activity should decline in times of high information intensity. This hypothesis is tested by data on BUND...

  4. Anonymous pastoral care for problems pertaining to sexuality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Drie, A.; Ganzevoort, R.R.; Spiering, M.

    2014-01-01

    Anonymous pastoral care is one of the options for help in problems pertaining to sexuality. This paper explores the topics they seek help for, the religious aspects involved, and the relation between the normativity of their church tradition on the one hand and sexual and spiritual health criteria

  5. Three-factor anonymous authentication and key agreement scheme for Telecare Medicine Information Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arshad, Hamed; Nikooghadam, Morteza

    2014-12-01

    Nowadays, with comprehensive employment of the internet, healthcare delivery services is provided remotely by telecare medicine information systems (TMISs). A secure mechanism for authentication and key agreement is one of the most important security requirements for TMISs. Recently, Tan proposed a user anonymity preserving three-factor authentication scheme for TMIS. The present paper shows that Tan's scheme is vulnerable to replay attacks and Denial-of-Service attacks. In order to overcome these security flaws, a new and efficient three-factor anonymous authentication and key agreement scheme for TMIS is proposed. Security and performance analysis shows superiority of the proposed scheme in comparison with previously proposed schemes that are related to security of TMISs.

  6. THE WIKILEAKS´S CASE AND ANONYMITY: EFFECTS ON THE INFORMATION FREEDOM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marlus Heriberto Arns de Oliveira

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, enacted in 1988 during the democratization process of the country after the end of an authoritarian regime preceded by several others that show a non-democratic tradition in the Brazilian Republic, remained still remnants an authoritarian Patronizing and Paternalist state, the example of the final part of the Article 5, item IV, which claims to be the free expression of thought, but forbids anonymity, prohibition which deserves to be rethought, especially on the internet, where the navigation data of people deserve protection, as well as their rights to remain anonymous, a fact which entails the need for reflection on the scope and how best to interpret the constitutional provision cited, a debate that, in the proposed article will deal think the ideas of paternalism, authoritarianism and freedom, whose focus will be about within the Internet, social networks and the Knowledge Society.

  7. An Anonymous Surveying Protocol via Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naseri, Mosayeb; Gong, Li-Hua; Houshmand, Monireh; Matin, Laleh Farhang

    2016-10-01

    A new experimentally feasible anonymous survey protocol with authentication using Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) entangled states is proposed. In this protocol, a chief executive officer (CEO) of a firm or company is trying to find out the effect of a possible action. In order to prepare a fair voting, the CEO would like to make an anonymous survey and is also interested in the total action for the whole company and he doesn't want to have a partial estimate for each department. In our proposal, there are two voters, Alice and Bob, voting on a question with a response of either "yes" or "no" and a tallyman, whose responsibility is to determine whether they have cast the same vote or not. In the proposed protocol the total response of the voters is calculated without revealing the actual votes of the voters.

  8. The Role of the Anonymous Voice in Post-Publication Peer Review Versus Traditional Peer Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Traditional peer review (TPR has several limitations and weaknesses. Post-publication peer review is one practical way to repair the ills of TPR and reinforce it. A literature that is marked by errors is unhealthy and should, if given the opportunity, be corrected or further improved. The anonymous voice is one source of critique and differs from the blind peer review in TPR in which the reviewer remains anonymous to the authors and/or vice versa, but the identity is known to the editor. If unregulated, the anonymous voice can pose a threat to established editorial norms in TPR, to one of the most important criteria of science publishing, i.e., transparency, and to worthwhile discussion. Yet, if the anonymous voice is not heard, then a vast and potentially valuable pool of untapped opinions may be lost, opinions that may provide valuable solutions to improving TPR.

  9. Anonymous sex and HIV risk practices among men using the Internet specifically to find male partners for unprotected sex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, H

    2012-06-01

    To examine the popularity of anonymous sex practices among men using the Internet to find male partners for unprotected sex, and how anonymous sex relates to involvement in other HIV-related risk behaviours, and to investigate the factors associated with engaging in anonymous sex. Structured telephone interviews were conducted with men who used the Internet specifically to find male partners for unprotected sex. Random sampling from 16 websites was used to obtain a national sample. The data reported in this paper were based on quantitative interviews collected with a cross-sectional study design. Between January 2008 and May 2009, confidential telephone interviews lasting approximately 1-2 h were completed with 332 men. Participants were paid $35 for their participation. Most of the men (67.4%) liked anonymous sex, and slightly more than half (51.2%) had engaged in the behaviour during the month prior to interview. Involvement in anonymous sex was associated with greater involvement in a variety of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related risk practices, such as illegal drug use, number of sex partners, and amount of unprotected sex. Four factors were associated with having vs not having anonymous sex: (1) being HIV positive; (2) answering all of the HIV-related knowledge questions correctly; (3) deriving greater enjoyment from having sex in public places, such as parks, public toilets, or adult book shops; and (4) greater impulsivity. Seven factors were associated with greater vs lesser involvement in anonymous sex among those practising the behaviour: (1) being involved in a relationship with a long-term partner; (2) liking to have sex in public places; (3) using bareback-oriented websites to identify sex partners; (4) greater impulsivity; (5) low level of condom use self-efficacy; (6) greater knowledge about HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; and either (7a) severe childhood maltreatment or (7b) Caucasian race. Men in this population often sought

  10. ZebraLancer: Private and Anonymous Crowdsourcing System atop Open Blockchain

    OpenAIRE

    Lu, Yuan; Tang, Qiang; Wang, Guiling

    2018-01-01

    We design and implement the first private and anonymous decentralized crowdsourcing system ZebraLancer. It realizes the fair exchange (i.e. security against malicious workers and dishonest requesters) without using any third-party arbiter. More importantly, it overcomes two fundamental challenges of decentralization, i.e. data leakage and identity breach. First, our outsource-then-prove methodology resolves the critical tension between blockchain transparency and data confidentiality without ...

  11. An Anonymous Credit Card System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Androulaki, Elli; Bellovin, Steven

    Credit cards have many important benefits; however, these same benefits often carry with them many privacy concerns. In particular, the need for users to be able to monitor their own transactions, as well as bank’s need to justify its payment requests from cardholders, entitle the latter to maintain a detailed log of all transactions its credit card customers were involved in. A bank can thus build a profile of each cardholder even without the latter’s consent. In this paper, we present a practical and accountable anonymous credit system based on ecash, with a privacy preserving mechanism for error correction and expense-reporting.

  12. Recipient screening in IVF: First data from women undergoing anonymous oocyte donation in Dublin

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salma Umme

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Guidelines for safe gamete donation have emphasised donor screening, although none exist specifically for testing oocyte recipients. Pre-treatment assessment of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment in Ireland must comply with the European Union Tissues and Cells Directive (Directive 2004/23/EC. To determine the effectiveness of this Directive when applied to anonymous oocyte recipients in IVF, we reviewed data derived from selected screening tests performed in this clinical setting. Methods Data from tests conducted at baseline for all women enrolling as recipients (n = 225 in the anonymous oocyte donor IVF programme at an urban IVF referral centre during a 24-month period were analysed. Patient age at programme entry and clinical pregnancy rate were also tabulated. All recipients had at least one prior negative test for HIV, Hepatitis B/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis performed by her GP or other primary care provider before reproductive endocrinology consultation. Results Mean (±SD age for donor egg IVF recipients was 40.7 ± 4.2 yrs. No baseline positive chlamydia, gonorrhoea or syphilis screening results were identified among recipients for anonymous oocyte donation IVF during the assessment interval. Mean pregnancy rate (per embryo transfer in this group was 50.5%. Conclusion When tests for HIV, Hepatitis B/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis already have been confirmed to be negative before starting the anonymous donor oocyte IVF sequence, additional (repeat testing on the recipient contributes no new clinical information that would influence treatment in this setting. Patient safety does not appear to be enhanced by application of Directive 2004/23/EC to recipients of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment. Given the absence of evidence to quantify risk, this practice is difficult to justify when applied to this low-risk population.

  13. Recipient screening in IVF: First data from women undergoing anonymous oocyte donation in Dublin

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Walsh, Anthony PH

    2011-04-20

    Abstract Background Guidelines for safe gamete donation have emphasised donor screening, although none exist specifically for testing oocyte recipients. Pre-treatment assessment of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment in Ireland must comply with the European Union Tissues and Cells Directive (Directive 2004\\/23\\/EC). To determine the effectiveness of this Directive when applied to anonymous oocyte recipients in IVF, we reviewed data derived from selected screening tests performed in this clinical setting. Methods Data from tests conducted at baseline for all women enrolling as recipients (n = 225) in the anonymous oocyte donor IVF programme at an urban IVF referral centre during a 24-month period were analysed. Patient age at programme entry and clinical pregnancy rate were also tabulated. All recipients had at least one prior negative test for HIV, Hepatitis B\\/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis performed by her GP or other primary care provider before reproductive endocrinology consultation. Results Mean (±SD) age for donor egg IVF recipients was 40.7 ± 4.2 yrs. No baseline positive chlamydia, gonorrhoea or syphilis screening results were identified among recipients for anonymous oocyte donation IVF during the assessment interval. Mean pregnancy rate (per embryo transfer) in this group was 50.5%. Conclusion When tests for HIV, Hepatitis B\\/C, chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis already have been confirmed to be negative before starting the anonymous donor oocyte IVF sequence, additional (repeat) testing on the recipient contributes no new clinical information that would influence treatment in this setting. Patient safety does not appear to be enhanced by application of Directive 2004\\/23\\/EC to recipients of anonymous donor oocyte IVF treatment. Given the absence of evidence to quantify risk, this practice is difficult to justify when applied to this low-risk population.

  14. Is cyberbullying worse than traditional bullying? Examining the differential roles of medium, publicity, and anonymity for the perceived severity of bullying.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sticca, Fabio; Perren, Sonja

    2013-05-01

    Cyberbullying, a modern form of bullying performed using electronic forms of contact (e.g., SMS, MMS, Facebook, YouTube), has been considered as being worse than traditional bullying in its consequences for the victim. This difference was mainly attributed to some specific aspect that are believed to distinguish cyberbullying from traditional bullying: an increased potential for a large audience, an increased potential for anonymous bullying, lower levels of direct feedback, decreased time and space limits, and lower levels of supervision. The present studies investigated the relative importance of medium (traditional vs. cyber), publicity (public vs. private), and bully's anonymity (anonymous vs. not anonymous) for the perceived severity of hypothetical bullying scenarios among a sample of Swiss seventh- and eight-graders (study 1: 49% female, mean age = 13.7; study 2: 49% female, mean age = 14.2). Participants ranked a set of hypothetical bullying scenarios from the most severe one to the least severe one. The scenarios were experimentally manipulated based on the aspect of medium and publicity (study 1), and medium and anonymity (study 2). Results showed that public scenarios were perceived as worse than private ones, and that anonymous scenarios were perceived as worse than not anonymous ones. Cyber scenarios generally were perceived as worse than traditional ones, although effect sizes were found to be small. These results suggest that the role of medium is secondary to the role of publicity and anonymity when it comes to evaluating bullying severity. Therefore, cyberbullying is not a priori perceived as worse than traditional bullying. Implications of the results for cyberbullying prevention and intervention are discussed.

  15. Anonymity and informed consent in artificial procreation: a report from Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lebech, Anne Mette

    1997-01-01

    a problem concerning its application when dealing with people having a serious mental, social or even physical disability. Within the field of artificial procreation there are even more problems. Informed written consent is often demanded from anonymous donors of gametes in order to ensure their consent...

  16. The Efficacy of Non-Anonymous Measures of Bullying

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, John H. F.; Myron, Rowan; Crawshaw, Martin

    2005-01-01

    The Olweus checklist, along with most of the questionnaires commonly used in bullying research, is anonymous. The respondent is not required to put down his/her name. This has been accepted as the "best suited" method of assessing bullying. However, this assumption has not been adequately tested, and there is contrary evidence that this…

  17. Towards an anonymous access control and accountability scheme for cloud computing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Meiko; Schäge, Sven; Schwenk, Jörg

    2010-01-01

    An important aspect of trust in cloud computing consists in preventing the cloud provider from misusing the user's data. In this work-in-progress paper, we propose the approach of data anonymization to solve this problem. As this directly leads to problems of cloud usage accounting, we also propose...

  18. Does spousal participation in Gamblers Anonymous benefit compulsive gamblers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, E E; Nora, R M

    1992-12-01

    Extent of gambling-free periods was compared for 90 compulsive gamblers, 44 with spouses who participated in Gamblers Anonymous and 46 with spouses who did not. Although the results were in the direction of a beneficial effect of spousal participation, the relationship was statistically nonsignificant.

  19. Estimation of Anonymous Email Network Characteristics through Statistical Disclosure Attacks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javier Portela

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Social network analysis aims to obtain relational data from social systems to identify leaders, roles, and communities in order to model profiles or predict a specific behavior in users’ network. Preserving anonymity in social networks is a subject of major concern. Anonymity can be compromised by disclosing senders’ or receivers’ identity, message content, or sender-receiver relationships. Under strongly incomplete information, a statistical disclosure attack is used to estimate the network and node characteristics such as centrality and clustering measures, degree distribution, and small-world-ness. A database of email networks in 29 university faculties is used to study the method. A research on the small-world-ness and Power law characteristics of these email networks is also developed, helping to understand the behavior of small email networks.

  20. Estimation of Anonymous Email Network Characteristics through Statistical Disclosure Attacks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Portela, Javier; García Villalba, Luis Javier; Silva Trujillo, Alejandra Guadalupe; Sandoval Orozco, Ana Lucila; Kim, Tai-Hoon

    2016-01-01

    Social network analysis aims to obtain relational data from social systems to identify leaders, roles, and communities in order to model profiles or predict a specific behavior in users’ network. Preserving anonymity in social networks is a subject of major concern. Anonymity can be compromised by disclosing senders’ or receivers’ identity, message content, or sender-receiver relationships. Under strongly incomplete information, a statistical disclosure attack is used to estimate the network and node characteristics such as centrality and clustering measures, degree distribution, and small-world-ness. A database of email networks in 29 university faculties is used to study the method. A research on the small-world-ness and Power law characteristics of these email networks is also developed, helping to understand the behavior of small email networks. PMID:27809275

  1. Location Privacy Protection Based on Improved K-Value Method in Augmented Reality on Mobile Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chunyong Yin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available With the development of Augmented Reality technology, the application of location based service (LBS is more and more popular, which provides enormous convenience to people’s life. User location information could be obtained at anytime and anywhere. So user location privacy security suffers huge threats. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to location privacy protection in LBS. Based on the architecture of the trusted third party (TTP, we analyzed the advantages and shortages of existing location privacy protection methods in LBS on mobile terminal. Then we proposed the improved K-value location privacy protection method according to privacy level, which combines k-anonymity method with pseudonym method. Through the simulation experiment, the results show that this improved method can anonymize all service requests effectively. In addition to the experiment of execution time, it demonstrated that our proposed method can realize the location privacy protection more efficiently.

  2. The Sniper Attack: Anonymously Deanonymizing and Disabling the Tor Network

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-02-01

    attack is also similar to those that rely on misbehaving receivers and optimistic ACKs to bypass flow control protocol mechanisms [40]–[42]. In particular...thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions, Damon McCoy for discussions about misbehaving receivers and authenticated signals...ping-o-death. html. [40] S. Savage, N. Cardwell, D. Wetherall, and T. Anderson, “TCP Con- gestion Control with a Misbehaving Receiver,” ACM SIGCOMM CCR

  3. [Examination of the Young maladaptive schemes in a group of Gamblers Anonymous].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katona, Zsuzsa; Körmendi, Attila

    2012-01-01

    Literature of gambling addiction has become widespread in last years. Many studies were written about the vulnerability factors helping the development of addiction, theoretical models, comorbid problems and therapy possibilities. Currently there is no integrated theoretical model that could explain sufficiently the development and maintenance of pathological gambling. The treatment issue is also unresolved. Cognitive psychology is a dynamically developing field of psychology and good results are achieved in gambling treatment with applying cognitive techniques. Jeffrey Young's schema-focused therapy is a recent theoretical and therapeutic direction within cognitive psychology which emphasizes the necessity of emotional changes beside rational ones in the interest of efficiency. The purpose of our research is to examine and analyse active maladaptive schemas among gamblers who are members of Gamblers Anonymous self-help group. 23 control persons and 23 gamblers associated with support group of Gamblers Anonymous took part in our research. The severity of gambling behaviour was measured by Gamblers Anonymous Twenty Questions. For exploring maladaptive schemas we used the shorter 114-item version of the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-S3). All the examined gamblers were considered as problem gamblers based on Gamblers Anonymous Twenty Questions. In the control group there where no active schemas while in the group of gamblers several schemas (Emotional deprivation, Self-sacrifice, Recognition seeking, Emotional inhibition, Unrelenting standards, Self-punitiveness, Insufficient self-control) showed activity. Active schemas show similarity in their matter with main establishments of researches about gamblers and support the role of impulsivity, narcissistic traits, self-medicalization and emotional deprivation in the development and maintenance of pathological gambling.

  4. Who Goes There? Staying Anonymous on the Internet

    Science.gov (United States)

    Descy, Don E.

    2009-01-01

    Privacy is a thing of the past. Monitoring is everywhere. If one is looking at this online, the author is sure that lots of information has been stored and linked to anyone about that action. Nevertheless, at least people can try to play with "their" minds and surf the web anonymously. In this article, the author discusses ways to try to hide…

  5. CRYPTOGRAPHIC SECURE CLOUD STORAGE MODEL WITH ANONYMOUS AUTHENTICATION AND AUTOMATIC FILE RECOVERY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sowmiya Murthy

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available We propose a secure cloud storage model that addresses security and storage issues for cloud computing environments. Security is achieved by anonymous authentication which ensures that cloud users remain anonymous while getting duly authenticated. For achieving this goal, we propose a digital signature based authentication scheme with a decentralized architecture for distributed key management with multiple Key Distribution Centers. Homomorphic encryption scheme using Paillier public key cryptosystem is used for encrypting the data that is stored in the cloud. We incorporate a query driven approach for validating the access policies defined by an individual user for his/her data i.e. the access is granted to a requester only if his credentials matches with the hidden access policy. Further, since data is vulnerable to losses or damages due to the vagaries of the network, we propose an automatic retrieval mechanism where lost data is recovered by data replication and file replacement with string matching algorithm. We describe a prototype implementation of our proposed model.

  6. Montreal Accord on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) use series - Paper 9: anonymization and ethics considerations for capturing and sharing patient reported outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arbuckle, Luk; Moher, Ester; Bartlett, Susan J; Ahmed, Sara; El Emam, Khaled

    2017-09-01

    Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are collected with consent for care; however, using the data for any other purpose requires consent for that additional purpose, or the anonymization of the data. Collecting explicit consent to use this data for secondary purposes, before the patient completes a PRO, can also bias the responses. We consider the ethical and security issues related to the collection of data at the point of care or in the population and the aggregation and integration of PRO data with administrative databases to facilitate decision making and comparative effectiveness research. In this article, we describe risk-based anonymization, taking the context of the data release into account, so that we may consider the degree by which the release is considered anonymized. We also consider the ethical use of anonymized data, the anonymization of free-form text, and the secure linking data sets without sharing any personal information. Many good standards and best practices exist for the sharing of health data and could be used as a baseline in the development of a national PRO initiative. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Vulnerability- and Diversity-Aware Anonymization of Personally Identifiable Information for Improving User Privacy and Utility of Publishing Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Majeed, Abdul; Ullah, Farman; Lee, Sungchang

    2017-01-01

    Personally identifiable information (PII) affects individual privacy because PII combinations may yield unique identifications in published data. User PII such as age, race, gender, and zip code contain private information that may assist an adversary in determining the user to whom such information relates. Each item of user PII reveals identity differently, and some types of PII are highly identity vulnerable. More vulnerable types of PII enable unique identification more easily, and their presence in published data increases privacy risks. Existing privacy models treat all types of PII equally from an identity revelation point of view, and they mainly focus on hiding user PII in a crowd of other users. Ignoring the identity vulnerability of each type of PII during anonymization is not an effective method of protecting user privacy in a fine-grained manner. This paper proposes a new anonymization scheme that considers the identity vulnerability of PII to effectively protect user privacy. Data generalization is performed adaptively based on the identity vulnerability of PII as well as diversity to anonymize data. This adaptive generalization effectively enables anonymous data, which protects user identity and private information disclosures while maximizing the utility of data for performing analyses and building classification models. Additionally, the proposed scheme has low computational overheads. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the scheme and verify the aforementioned claims. PMID:28481298

  8. Vulnerability- and Diversity-Aware Anonymization of Personally Identifiable Information for Improving User Privacy and Utility of Publishing Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdul Majeed

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Personally identifiable information (PII affects individual privacy because PII combinations may yield unique identifications in published data. User PII such as age, race, gender, and zip code contain private information that may assist an adversary in determining the user to whom such information relates. Each item of user PII reveals identity differently, and some types of PII are highly identity vulnerable. More vulnerable types of PII enable unique identification more easily, and their presence in published data increases privacy risks. Existing privacy models treat all types of PII equally from an identity revelation point of view, and they mainly focus on hiding user PII in a crowd of other users. Ignoring the identity vulnerability of each type of PII during anonymization is not an effective method of protecting user privacy in a fine-grained manner. This paper proposes a new anonymization scheme that considers the identity vulnerability of PII to effectively protect user privacy. Data generalization is performed adaptively based on the identity vulnerability of PII as well as diversity to anonymize data. This adaptive generalization effectively enables anonymous data, which protects user identity and private information disclosures while maximizing the utility of data for performing analyses and building classification models. Additionally, the proposed scheme has low computational overheads. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the scheme and verify the aforementioned claims.

  9. Policy-Aware Sender Anonymity in Location-Based Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vyas, Avinash

    2011-01-01

    Sender anonymity in Location-based services (LBS) refers to hiding the identity of a mobile device user who sends requests to the LBS provider for services in her proximity (e.g. "find the nearest gas station etc."). The goal is to keep the requester's interest private even from attackers who (via hacking or subpoenas) gain access to the LBS…

  10. The Risk of a Halo Bias as a Reason to Keep Students Anonymous during Grading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malouff, John M.; Emmerton, Ashley J.; Schutte, Nicola S.

    2013-01-01

    Experts have advocated anonymous grading as a means of eliminating actual or perceived evaluator bias in subjective student assessment. The utility of anonymity in assessment rests on whether information derived from student identity can unduly influence evaluation. The halo effect provides a conceptual background for why a bias might occur. In…

  11. Compatibility of Adlerian Theory and Practice with the Philosophy and Practices of Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carroll, Jane J.

    1999-01-01

    Tenets of Adlerian theory and practice are compatible with the philosophy and practices of Alcoholics Anonymous. Counselors can expect treatment approaches based on Adlerian counseling theory to be congruent with 12-step practices of individuals who are in recovery from alcohol dependence. (Author)

  12. Secure anonymous mutual authentication for star two-tier wireless body area networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Maged Hamada; Kumari, Saru; Das, Ashok Kumar; Wazid, Mohammad; Odelu, Vanga

    2016-10-01

    Mutual authentication is a very important service that must be established between sensor nodes in wireless body area network (WBAN) to ensure the originality and integrity of the patient's data sent by sensors distributed on different parts of the body. However, mutual authentication service is not enough. An adversary can benefit from monitoring the traffic and knowing which sensor is in transmission of patient's data. Observing the traffic (even without disclosing the context) and knowing its origin, it can reveal to the adversary information about the patient's medical conditions. Therefore, anonymity of the communicating sensors is an important service as well. Few works have been conducted in the area of mutual authentication among sensor nodes in WBAN. However, none of them has considered anonymity among body sensor nodes. Up to our knowledge, our protocol is the first attempt to consider this service in a two-tier WBAN. We propose a new secure protocol to realize anonymous mutual authentication and confidential transmission for star two-tier WBAN topology. The proposed protocol uses simple cryptographic primitives. We prove the security of the proposed protocol using the widely-accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic, and also through rigorous informal security analysis. In addition, to demonstrate the practicality of our protocol, we evaluate it using NS-2 simulator. BAN logic and informal security analysis prove that our proposed protocol achieves the necessary security requirements and goals of an authentication service. The simulation results show the impact on the various network parameters, such as end-to-end delay and throughput. The nodes in the network require to store few hundred bits. Nodes require to perform very few hash invocations, which are computationally very efficient. The communication cost of the proposed protocol is few hundred bits in one round of communication. Due to the low computation cost, the energy consumed by the nodes is

  13. Business Information Exchange System with Security, Privacy, and Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sead Muftic

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Business Information Exchange is an Internet Secure Portal for secure management, distribution, sharing, and use of business e-mails, documents, and messages. It has three applications supporting three major types of information exchange systems: secure e-mail, secure instant messaging, and secure sharing of business documents. In addition to standard security services for e-mail letters, which are also applied to instant messages and documents, the system provides innovative features of privacy and full anonymity of users and their locations, actions, transactions, and exchanged resources. In this paper we describe design, implementation, and use of the system.

  14. Informed Traders as Liquidity Providers: Anonymity, Liquidity and Price Formation

    OpenAIRE

    Barbara Rindi

    2008-01-01

    The tendency to introduce anonymity into financial markets apparently runs counter to the theory supporting transparency. This paper studies the impact of pre-trade transparency on liquidity in a market where risk-averse traders accommodate the liquidity demand of noise traders. When some risk-averse investors become informed, an adverse selection problem ensues for the others, making them reluctant to supply liquidity. Hence the disclosure of traders' identities improves liquidity by mitigat...

  15. "Un-Googling” publications: The ethics and problems of anonymization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shklovski, Irina; Vertesi, Janet

    2013-01-01

    Digital tools of research dissemination make scholarly publications accessible to the public at large through simple search engines. As a result, the users that we study, interview, and cite may be at risk of exposure to unwelcome types of scrutiny and scholars must grapple with challenges...... to the ethics of exposure of our research participants. We present one approach to anonymization of research results with search engines in mind, which we call un-Googling, that we have developed to minimize risk to our participants. We discuss the considerations that this approach raises and pose a challenge...

  16. Efficient Asymmetric Index Encapsulation Scheme for Anonymous Content Centric Networking

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rong Ma

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Content Centric Networking (CCN is an effective communication paradigm that well matches the features of wireless environments. To be considered a viable candidate in the emerging wireless networks, despite the clear benefits of location-independent security, CCN must at least have parity with existing solutions for confidential and anonymous communication. This paper designs a new cryptographic scheme, called Asymmetric Index Encapsulation (AIE, that enables the router to test whether an encapsulated header matches the token without learning anything else about both of them. We suggest using the AIE as the core protocol of anonymous Content Centric Networking. A construction of AIE which strikes a balance between efficiency and security is given. The scheme is proved to be secure based on the DBDH assumption in the random oracle with tight reduction, while the encapsulated header and the token in our system consist of only three elements.

  17. (In)visible Ghosts in the Machine and the Powers that Bind: The Relational Securitization of Anonymous

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dunn Cavelty, Myriam; Jaeger, Mark Daniel

    2015-01-01

    prerogative to secrecy, and challenging its claim to unrestrained surveillance. At the same time, the state's bases are implicated and reproduced in the way this conflict is constructed. The conflict not only (re)produces and makes visible “the state” as a social entity, but also changes or at least...... designations give rise to the visibility of political entities and agency in the first place. Applying this framework, we can better understand the movement's path from a bunch of anonymous individuals to the collectivity “Anonymous,” posing a threat to certain bases of the state's ontological existence, its...

  18. Deindividuation and Internet software piracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinduja, Sameer

    2008-08-01

    Computer crime has increased exponentially in recent years as hardware, software, and network resources become more affordable and available to individuals from all walks of life. Software piracy is one prevalent type of cybercrime and has detrimentally affected the economic health of the software industry. Moreover, piracy arguably represents a rend in the moral fabric associated with the respect of intellectual property and reduces the financial incentive of product creation and innovation. Deindividuation theory, originating from the field of social psychology, argues that individuals are extricated from responsibility for their actions simply because they no longer have an acute awareness of the identity of self and of others. That is, external and internal constraints that would typically regulate questionable behavior are rendered less effective via certain anonymizing and disinhibiting conditions of the social and environmental context. This exploratory piece seeks to establish the role of deindividuation in liberating individuals to commit software piracy by testing the hypothesis that persons who prefer the anonymity and pseudonymity associated with interaction on the Internet are more likely to pirate software. Through this research, it is hoped that the empirical identification of such a social psychological determinant will help further illuminate the phenomenon.

  19. An Analysis of College Students' Anonymous Questions about Human Sexuality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valois, Robert F.; Waring, Kathryn A.

    1991-01-01

    Study analyzed the frequency and type of questions about sexuality submitted anonymously by college students in health education courses over five semesters. The most common categories were sexual arousal/response; general anatomy/physiology; contraception; dating/relationships; pregnancy/fertility; and sexually transmitted diseases. The appendix…

  20. Anonymity-Preserving Public-Key Encryption

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kohlweiss, Markulf; Maurer, Ueli; Onete, Cristina

    2013-01-01

    security properties have been proposed. We investigate constructions as well as limitations for preserving receiver anonymity when using public-key encryption (PKE). We use the constructive cryptography approach by Maurer and Renner and interpret cryptographic schemes as constructions of a certain ideal...... literature (IND-CCA, key-privacy, weak robustness). We also show that a desirable stronger variant, preventing the adversary from selective ”trial-deliveries” of messages, is unfortunately unachievable by any PKE scheme, no matter how strong. The constructive approach makes the guarantees achieved...... by applying a cryptographic scheme explicit in the constructed (ideal) resource; this specifies the exact requirements for the applicability of a cryptographic scheme in a given context. It also allows to decide which of the existing security properties of such a cryptographic scheme are adequate...

  1. Anonymity as an Instructional Scaffold in Peer Assessment: Its Effects on Peer Feedback Quality and Evolution in Students' Perceptions about Peer Assessment Skills

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rotsaert, Tijs; Panadero, Ernesto; Schellens, Tammy

    2018-01-01

    Although previous research has indicated that providing anonymity is an effective way to create a safe peer assessment setting, continuously ensuring anonymity prevents students from experiencing genuine two-way interactive feedback dialogues. The present study investigated how installing a transitional approach from an anonymous to a…

  2. A Secure and Anonymous Two-Factor Authentication Protocol in Multiserver Environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chenyu Wang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available With the great development of network technology, the multiserver system gets widely used in providing various of services. And the two-factor authentication protocols in multiserver system attract more and more attention. Recently, there are two new schemes for multiserver environment which claimed to be secure against the known attacks. However, after a scrutinization of these two schemes, we found that (1 their description of the adversary’s abilities is inaccurate; (2 their schemes suffer from many attacks. Thus, firstly, we corrected their description on the adversary capacities to introduce a widely accepted adversary model and then summarized fourteen security requirements of multiserver based on the works of pioneer contributors. Secondly, we revealed that one of the two schemes fails to preserve forward secrecy and user anonymity and cannot resist stolen-verifier attack and off-line dictionary attack and so forth and also demonstrated that another scheme fails to preserve forward secrecy and user anonymity and is not secure to insider attack and off-line dictionary attack, and so forth. Finally, we designed an enhanced scheme to overcome these identified weaknesses, proved its security via BAN logic and heuristic analysis, and then compared it with other relevant schemes. The comparison results showed the superiority of our scheme.

  3. Nursing lives in the blogosphere: A thematic analysis of anonymous online nursing narratives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castro, Aimee; Andrews, Gavin

    2018-02-01

    The aim of this study was to explore the work-life narratives of nurses through a thematic analysis of the nursing accounts they post in their publicly accessible, anonymous blogs. Many nurses participate on social media. Blogs have been advocated as a self-reflective tool in nursing practice, yet as far as the authors are aware, no previous studies have explored nurses' individual blogs for their potential to reveal nurses' perceptions of nursing work. The research design was qualitative description. Between May-August 2015, Internet search engines were used to discover lists of nursing blogs recommended by organizations representing nurses' interests. Recommended blogs were purposively sampled. Four anonymous blogs written by nurses from different nursing specialties met the sampling criteria. All 520 of their entries from 2014 were read and copied into NVivo 10, where an inductive coding process was followed. Three major themes arose in these nurses' online discussions of their work lives: they truly care about and value their nursing work, but they are feeling stressed and burnt out and they are using their anonymous blogs to share factors that frustrate them in their nursing work. Three main areas of frustration were revealed: teamwork problems, challenging patients and families, and management issues. Anonymous nursing blogs offer valuable, longitudinal insights into nurses' perceptions of their work lives. Nursing blogs should be further explored for ongoing insights into nurses' experiences of nursing work, as well as nurses' recommendations for addressing issues causing them to feel frustrated in their work environments. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. A lightweight and secure two factor anonymous authentication protocol for Global Mobility Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    2018-01-01

    Global Mobility Networks(GLOMONETs) in wireless communication permits the global roaming services that enable a user to leverage the mobile services in any foreign country. Technological growth in wireless communication is also accompanied by new security threats and challenges. A threat-proof authentication protocol in wireless communication may overcome the security flaws by allowing only legitimate users to access a particular service. Recently, Lee et al. found Mun et al. scheme vulnerable to different attacks and proposed an advanced secure scheme to overcome the security flaws. However, this article points out that Lee et al. scheme lacks user anonymity, inefficient user authentication, vulnerable to replay and DoS attacks and Lack of local password verification. Furthermore, this article presents a more robust anonymous authentication scheme to handle the threats and challenges found in Lee et al.’s protocol. The proposed protocol is formally verified with an automated tool(ProVerif). The proposed protocol has superior efficiency in comparison to the existing protocols. PMID:29702675

  5. An Enhancing Security Research of Tor Anonymous Communication to Against DDos Attacks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Feng Tao

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Tor (The Second Onion Router is modified by the first generation onion router and known as the most prevalent anonymous communication system. According to the advantage of low latency, high confidentiality of transmission content, high security of communication channels and et al., Tor is widely used in anonymous Web browsing, instant message and so on. However, the vulnerability and blemish of Tor affect system security. An identity and Signcryption-based concurrent signature scheme was used to prevent the behaviors of attackers from inserting controlled nodes and conspiring to make DDos attacks. The integrated security of Tor system was enhanced in our scheme. In addition we have proved the scheme.

  6. The long path to pregnancy: early experience with dual anonymous gamete donation in a European in vitro fertilisation referral centre

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sills Eric

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background This investigation describes features of patients undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF and embryo transfer (ET where both gametes were obtained from anonymous donors. Methods Gamete unsuitability or loss was confirmed in both members of seven otherwise healthy couples presenting for reproductive endocrinology consultation over a 12-month interval in Ireland. IVF was undertaken with fresh oocytes provided by anonymous donors in Ukraine; frozen sperm (anonymous donor was obtained from a licensed tissue establishment. For recipients, saline-enhanced sonography was used to assess intrauterine contour with endometrial preparation via transdermal estrogen. Results Among commissioning couples, mean±SD female and male age was 41.9 ± 3.7 and 44.6 ± 3.5 yrs, respectively. During this period, female age for non dual anonymous gamete donation IVF patients was 37.9 ± 3 yrs (p Conclusions Mean age of females undergoing dual anonymous donor gamete donation with IVF is significantly higher than the background IVF patient population. Even when neither partner is able to contribute any gametes for IVF, the clinical pregnancy rate per transfer can be satisfactory if both anonymous egg and sperm donation are used concurrently. Our report emphasises the role of pre-treatment counselling in dual anonymous gamete donation, and presents a coordinated screening and treatment approach in IVF where this option may be contemplated.

  7. Use of anonymous Web communities and websites by medical consumers in Japan to research drug information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kishimoto, Keiko; Fukushima, Noriko

    2011-01-01

    In this study, we investigated the status of researching drug information online, and the type of Internet user who uses anonymous Web communities and websites. A Web-based cross-sectional survey of 10875 male and female Internet users aged 16 and over was conducted in March 2010. Of 10282 analyzed respondents, excluding medical professionals, about 47% reported that they had previously searched the Internet for drug information and had used online resources ranging from drug information search engines and pharmaceutical industry websites to social networking sites and Twitter. Respondents who had researched drug information online (n=4861) were analyzed by two multivariable logistic regressions. In Model 1, the use of anonymous websites associated with age (OR, 0.778; 95% CI, 0.742-0.816), referring to the reputation and the narrative of other Internet users on shopping (OR, 1.640; 95% CI, 1.450-1.855), taking a prescription drug (OR, 0.806; 95% CI, 0.705-0.922), and frequent consulting with non-professionals about medical care and health (OR, 1.613; 95% CI, 1.396-1.865). In Model 2, use of only anonymous websites was associated with age (OR, 0.753; 95% CI, 0.705-0.805), using the Internet daily (OR, 0.611; 95% CI, 0.462-0.808), taking a prescription drug (OR, 0.614; 95% CI, 0.505-0.747), and experience a side effect (OR, 0.526; 95% CI, 0.421-0.658). The analysis revealed the profiles of Internet users who researched drug information on social media sites where the information providers are anonymous and do not necessarily have adequate knowledge of medicine and online information literacy.

  8. Practical m-k-Anonymization for Collaborative Data Publishing without Trusted Third Party

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jingyu Hua

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In collaborative data publishing (CDP, an m-adversary attack refers to a scenario where up to m malicious data providers collude to infer data records contributed by other providers. Existing solutions either rely on a trusted third party (TTP or introduce expensive computation and communication overheads. In this paper, we present a practical distributed k-anonymization scheme, m-k-anonymization, designed to defend against m-adversary attacks without relying on any TTPs. We then prove its security in the semihonest adversary model and demonstrate how an extension of the scheme can also be proven secure in a stronger adversary model. We also evaluate its efficiency using a commonly used dataset.

  9. A Privacy-Preserving Platform for User-Centric Quantitative Benchmarking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herrmann, Dominik; Scheuer, Florian; Feustel, Philipp; Nowey, Thomas; Federrath, Hannes

    We propose a centralised platform for quantitative benchmarking of key performance indicators (KPI) among mutually distrustful organisations. Our platform offers users the opportunity to request an ad-hoc benchmarking for a specific KPI within a peer group of their choice. Architecture and protocol are designed to provide anonymity to its users and to hide the sensitive KPI values from other clients and the central server. To this end, we integrate user-centric peer group formation, exchangeable secure multi-party computation protocols, short-lived ephemeral key pairs as pseudonyms, and attribute certificates. We show by empirical evaluation of a prototype that the performance is acceptable for reasonably sized peer groups.

  10. K-Anonymity Based Privacy Risk Budgeting System for Interactive Record Linkage

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hye-Chung Kum

    2017-04-01

    The k-anonymity based privacy risk budgeting system provides a mechanism where we can concretely reason about the tradeoff between the privacy risks due to information disclosed, accuracy gained, and biases reduced during interactive record linkage.

  11. Conducting Anonymous, Incentivized, Online Surveys With Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Lessons Learned From a National Polyvictimization Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sterzing, Paul R; Gartner, Rachel E; McGeough, Briana L

    2018-03-01

    Sexual and gender minority adolescents represent an understudied and hard-to-reach population who experience higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems in comparison to their cisgender, heterosexual peers. Online surveys and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices among adolescents offer an exciting opportunity for researchers to begin addressing research gaps and past methodological limitations with these hard-to-reach populations. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance to researchers who are designing and implementing anonymous, incentivized, online surveys by examining the following critical domains-(a) recruitment and engagement: means of leveraging social media and videos to recruit and engage a more nationally representative sample; (b) safety and protection: strategies for administering informed consent and protecting participant anonymity and well-being; and (c) data integrity: mechanisms to detect dishonest and repeat responders. To facilitate discussion of these aims, concrete examples are used from SpeakOut-a 3-year, national study funded by the National Institute of Justice that utilized an anonymous, incentivized, online survey with a large sample of sexual and gender minority adolescents ( N = 1,177) to identify the prevalence, incidence, and correlates of polyvictimization. The article concludes with lessons learned from this national study and recommendations for technological innovations and future research that will strengthen the utility of anonymous, incentivized, online surveys to study sexual and gender minority adolescents and other hard-to-reach populations.

  12. Annotation and Anonymity: Playful Photo-Sharing by Visiting Groups of Teenagers

    OpenAIRE

    Rowland, Duncan; Appiah-Kubi, Kwamena; Shipp, Victoria; Mortier, Richard Michael; Benford, Steve

    2015-01-01

    This paper investigates the playful photo taking behaviour of teenagers during group visits to two touristic public events (an airshow and a guided tour of a museum). These studies provide the feedback for the iterative development of a smartphone based anonymous image annotation and sharing application. The resulting implications for the design of such photo systems are examined, specifically the appropriateness of opportunistic upload for social media. Playfulness in photography has many im...

  13. Mutual support and recovery in the Russian Alcoholics Anonymous online community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lyytikäinen Laura

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available AIMS – In Russia the paradigm of alcoholism as a disease is still in contrast to the general perception of alcoholics as weak-willed. This article studies alcoholism and recovery in Russia through the case study of the Russian Alcoholics Anonymous online group. It studies how people who are seeking help for their drinking problems in this online community come to incorporate a new self-understanding of being ill with alcoholism.

  14. “The Question Exists, but You Don’t Exist With It”: Strategic Anonymity in the Social Lives of Adolescents

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicole B. Ellison

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Anonymous interactions may have important implications for adolescents’ social and psychological development. In this article, we use semi-structured interview data collected from US adolescents aged 13–18 years ( N  = 22 to explore how the specific affordances of an online platform that enables selective anonymity shape adolescents’ practices and perceptions. We contribute to scholarship on the effects of anonymous interaction online by surfacing positive outcomes for young adults who choose to interact in anonymous contexts—specifically, a question-and-answer site popular with teenagers ( Ask.fm —and explicating the ways in which these interactions assist in key developmental tasks during adolescence. We identify five primary themes: (1 perceived authenticity, (2 circumventing social expectations, (3 learning about the self, (4 managing identity and self-presentation, and (5 initiating and developing relationships. Across these themes, we find that users strategically employ anonymity to achieve their social goals. Use of the site was often deeply embedded in offline social structures, such that the platform was used to circumvent rigid norms around socialization (who can talk to whom and information-seeking (who can ask what, enforced in educational institutions and elsewhere. We conclude that the strategic use of selective anonymity has the potential to scaffold social processes through which adolescents work toward critical developmental goals.

  15. Bystander's willingness to report theft, physical assault, and sexual assault: the impact of gender, anonymity, and relationship with the offender.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nicksa, Sarah C

    2014-01-01

    This research examines bystander willingness to report three different crimes to the police or campus authorities among a college student sample (n = 295). Twelve original vignettes varied anonymity when reporting, bystander's relationship with the offender (friend or stranger), and crime type. A factorial analysis of variance showed that main effects were found for crime type, bystander's gender, and bystander's relationship with the offender; anonymity was not significant. The physical assault was the most likely to be reported (4.47), followed by theft (3.26), and sexual assault (2.36). Women were more likely than men to report each crime type, and bystanders who were good friends of the offender were less likely to report than strangers. No two- or three-way interactions were significant, but a significant four-way interaction indicated that anonymity, relationship with the offender, and bystander's gender predicted willingness to report for the sexual assault scenario.

  16. Facebook’s Ugly Sisters: Anonymity and Abuse on Formspring and Ask.fm

    OpenAIRE

    Binns, Amy

    2013-01-01

    New question and answer websites Ask.fm and Formspring have brought highly specific and personal abuse to a new level amongst young people by providing easy anonymity to users within a circle of offline friendship groups culled from Facebook. Relatively unknown due to their unattractiveness to adults, these sites are growing rapidly and have already been associated with at least eight suicides amongst teenagers. \\ud \\ud Media educators at school level encouraging self-awareness of social medi...

  17. Quem controla a política de ninguém? Anonymous Brasil e o ativismo hacker nas redes de comunicação (Who control the politics of no one? Anonymous Brazil and hacktivism in communication networks Doi: 10.5212/Emancipacao.v.15i2.0008

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bárbara Maria Farias Mota

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Resumo: Esse artigo analisa a atuação política dos hackers a partir de um estudo de caso da rede Anonymous Brasil, uma das vertentes do hacktivismo no contexto brasileiro. Para tanto, utiliza as postagens de um dos diferentes perfis Anonymous no Twitter, no período da Operação Hacking Cup (#OpHackingCup, que consistiu em uma série de protestos virtuais contra a Copa do Mundo de 2014. Metodologicamente, o desenho de pesquisa adota uma abordagem multimétodo, unindo análise de conteúdo e estatística descritiva. Os resultados evidenciam que por meio da utilização de ferramentas digitais transgressivas e do anonimato, esses atores não estatais evidenciam táticas estratégicas de ação diante do controle/vigilância presentes na sociedade contemporânea. Palavras-chave: Anonymous Brasil. Ativismo hacker. Redes informacionais. Abstract: This article analyses the political actuation of hackers from a study case of the Anonymous Brazil network, one of the faces of hacktivism in the Brazilian context. For such, this paper utilises tweets from one Anonymous profile in Twitter, during the period of the Operation Hacking Cup (#OpHackingCup, which entailed several digital protests against the 2014 World Cup. Methodologically, this paper adopts a research design based on a multi-method approach, uniting content analysis and descriptive statistics. The results show that, by the means of transgressive digital tools and anonymity, those actors spotlight strategical tactics as a countermeasure to the control/surveillance that is present in the contemporary society. Keywords: Anonymous Brazil. Hacktivism. Informational networks.

  18. Suicidal behavior among members of Gamblers Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frank, M L; Lester, D; Wexler, A

    1991-09-01

    A national sample of 500 members of Gamblers Anonymous was surveyed by mail in order to gather information on suicidal history. One hundred sixty two usable surveys were returned representing 32.4% of the original sample. Compulsive gamblers who had a history of suicidal preoccupation began gambling at an earlier age than nonsuicidal gamblers and were more likely to have stolen to support their gambling. They also tended to have addicted relatives and children more than nonsuicidal gamblers did. The data suggest that those gamblers who had been suicidal tend to be more serious gamblers than nonsuicidal respondents.

  19. A Source Anonymity-Based Lightweight Secure AODV Protocol for Fog-Based MANET.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, Weidong; Zhang, Wuxiong; Xiao, Jinchao; Yang, Yang; Chen, Wei

    2017-06-17

    Fog-based MANET (Mobile Ad hoc networks) is a novel paradigm of a mobile ad hoc network with the advantages of both mobility and fog computing. Meanwhile, as traditional routing protocol, ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol has been applied widely in fog-based MANET. Currently, how to improve the transmission performance and enhance security are the two major aspects in AODV's research field. However, the researches on joint energy efficiency and security seem to be seldom considered. In this paper, we propose a source anonymity-based lightweight secure AODV (SAL-SAODV) routing protocol to meet the above requirements. In SAL-SAODV protocol, source anonymous and secure transmitting schemes are proposed and applied. The scheme involves the following three parts: the source anonymity algorithm is employed to achieve the source node, without being tracked and located; the improved secure scheme based on the polynomial of CRC-4 is applied to substitute the RSA digital signature of SAODV and guarantee the data integrity, in addition to reducing the computation and energy consumption; the random delayed transmitting scheme (RDTM) is implemented to separate the check code and transmitted data, and achieve tamper-proof results. The simulation results show that the comprehensive performance of the proposed SAL-SAODV is a trade-off of the transmission performance, energy efficiency, and security, and better than AODV and SAODV.

  20. METAL DELM - metal avrelianis contribution to the study of mining coins and anonymous quadrantes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vojvoda Mirjana D.

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available In the course of rescue archaeological investigations at the Viminacium necropolis of Vi{e Grobalja in 1984, one anonymous quadrans of the VIII Apollo group was discovered (cat. 1. It was discovered in trench 63 in the immediate vicinity of a grave with an inhumation (G 343 that, besides two pottery vessels, also yielded as grave offerings one as of Faustina the Elder, minted after her death, in AD 141. Other finds presented here are four specimens of Roman mining coins from the private collection of Petar Fajfri} from [abac (cat. 2-5. All specimens come from the well known site of Duge Njive in the area of the village of Banatsko Polje (Bogati} borough where, by all appearances, are the remains of a vicus or smaller settlement. Five specimens of mining coins from that site have already been published. Both mining coins and anonymous quadrantes represent, in general, rare types of numismatic finds. Nine anonymous quadrantes are known so far from the territory of Serbia (Table 1 and the provenance is known for three specimens from the region of Guberevac-Babe (Kosmaj, housed in the National Museum in Belgrade. All three belong to the Minerva group with an owl facing to the right represented on the reverse. For two more anonymous quadrantes the place of discovery is known: one specimen comes from Singidunum and belongs to the Mercury group and the other that was found at Viminacium and is the subject of this paper is of the Apollo group. There are four more specimens from unknown sites for which it is assumed that they come from the Upper Moesia territory. Two of them are from the Vajfert collection and two from the Kovačević collection in the National Museum in Belgrade, There has, however, been a somewhat greater number (38 of Roman mining coins discovered in Serbia (Table 1. We know the finding locations of 25 of them: from the Kosmaj area (Babe, Guberevac and Stojnik, the Ibar valley (from the vicinity of Trepča and So~anica, Ritopek

  1. Applying LU Decomposition of Matrices to Design Anonymity Bilateral Remote User Authentication Scheme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiong Li

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available We apply LU decomposition of matrices to present an anonymous bilateral authentication scheme. This paper aims at improving security and providing more excellent performances for remote user authentication scheme. The proposed scheme can provide bilateral authentication and session key agreement, can quickly check the validity of the input password, and can really protect the user anonymity. The security of the proposed scheme is based on the discrete logarithm problem (DLP, Diffie-Hellman problem (DHP, and the one-way hash function. It can resist various attacks such as insider attack, impersonation attack, server spoofing attack, and stolen smart card attack. Moreover, the presented scheme is computationally efficient for real-life implementation.

  2. Mirroring the videos of Anonymous:cloud activism, living networks, and political mimesis

    OpenAIRE

    Fish, Adam Richard

    2016-01-01

    Mirrors describe the multiplication of data across a network. In this article, I examine the politics of mirroring as practiced on videos by the hacktivist network Anonymous. Mirrors are designed to retain visibility on social media platforms and motivate viewers towards activism. They emerge from a particular social structure and propagate a specific symbolic system. Furthermore, mirrors are not exact replicas nor postmodern representations. Rather, mirroring maps a contestation over visibil...

  3. Forming Circle Formations of Anonymous Mobile Agents With Order Preservation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wang, Chen; Xie, Guangming; Cao, Ming

    2013-01-01

    We propose distributed control laws for a group of anonymous mobile agents to form desired circle formations when the agents move in the one-dimensional space of a circle. The agents are modeled by kinematic points. They share the common knowledge of the orientation of the circle, but are oblivious

  4. Atheists, agnostics and Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tonigan, J Scott; Miller, W R; Schermer, Carol

    2002-09-01

    In spite of the strong emphasis in AA on spiritual beliefs and practices, findings are mixed about the importance of such beliefs in predicting AA affiliation. This study of the Project MATCH outpatient (N = 952) and aftercare (N = 774) samples tested three hypotheses about the role of client God belief and subsequent AA attendance and benefit, taking into account that some individuals may, in fact, deny the existence of a God. Longitudinal analyses were conducted (N = 1,526) investigating client God beliefs, AA attendance, patterns of AA attendance and alcohol use. Assessments were conducted at intake and in 3-month intervals using the Form 90, Religious Behaviors and Background, and the Alcoholics Anonymous Inventory. 12-Step treatment was significantly more likely to promote pre-post shifts in client God beliefs, and atheist and agnostic clients attended AA significantly less often throughout follow-up relative to clients self-labeled as spiritual and religious. AA attendance, however, was significantly associated with increased abstinence and reductions in drinking intensity regardless of God belief. Finally, no differences in percent days abstinence and drinking intensity were found between atheist and agnostic versus spiritual and religious clients, but clients unsure about their God belief reported significantly higher drinking frequency relative to the other groups. God belief appears to be relatively unimportant in deriving AA-related benefit, but atheist and agnostic clients are less likely to initiate and sustain AA attendance relative to spiritual and religious clients. This apparent reticence to affiliate with AA ought to be clinically recognized when encouraging AA participation.

  5. Gamblers Anonymous as a Recovery Pathway: A Scoping Review

    OpenAIRE

    Schuler, Andr?e; Ferentzy, Peter; Turner, Nigel E.; Skinner, Wayne; McIsaac, Kathryn E.; Ziegler, Carolyn P.; Matheson, Flora I.

    2016-01-01

    Given the preponderance of Gamblers Anonymous (GA), there has been relatively little effort to explore the existing evidence base on its effectiveness as a recovery approach for problem gambling. To remedy this gap in the literature we conducted a scoping review of the literature on mutual aid for individuals experiencing problem gambling published between 2002 and 2015. We searched 13 databases and reviewed reference lists and websites of relevant organizations. We reviewed records for eligi...

  6. The long path to pregnancy: early experience with dual anonymous gamete donation in a European in vitro fertilisation referral centre

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Sills, Eric Scott

    2010-08-11

    Abstract Background This investigation describes features of patients undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo transfer (ET) where both gametes were obtained from anonymous donors. Methods Gamete unsuitability or loss was confirmed in both members of seven otherwise healthy couples presenting for reproductive endocrinology consultation over a 12-month interval in Ireland. IVF was undertaken with fresh oocytes provided by anonymous donors in Ukraine; frozen sperm (anonymous donor) was obtained from a licensed tissue establishment. For recipients, saline-enhanced sonography was used to assess intrauterine contour with endometrial preparation via transdermal estrogen. Results Among commissioning couples, mean±SD female and male age was 41.9 ± 3.7 and 44.6 ± 3.5 yrs, respectively. During this period, female age for non dual anonymous gamete donation IVF patients was 37.9 ± 3 yrs (p < 0.001). Infertility duration was ≥3 yrs for couples enrolling in dual gamete donation, and each had ≥2 prior failed fertility treatments using native oocytes. All seven recipient couples proceeded to embryo transfer, although one patient had two transfers. Clinical pregnancy was achieved for 5\\/7 (71.4%) patients. Non-transferred cryopreserved embryos were available for all seven couples. Conclusions Mean age of females undergoing dual anonymous donor gamete donation with IVF is significantly higher than the background IVF patient population. Even when neither partner is able to contribute any gametes for IVF, the clinical pregnancy rate per transfer can be satisfactory if both anonymous egg and sperm donation are used concurrently. Our report emphasises the role of pre-treatment counselling in dual anonymous gamete donation, and presents a coordinated screening and treatment approach in IVF where this option may be contemplated.

  7. A Remote User Authentication Scheme with Anonymity for Mobile Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Soobok Shin

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available With the rapid growth of information technologies, mobile devices have been utilized in a variety of services such as e-commerce. When a remote server provides such e-commerce services to a user, it must verify the legitimacy of the user over an insecure communication channel. Therefore, remote user authentication has been widely deployed to verify the legitimacy of remote user login requests using mobile devices like smart cards. In this paper we propose a smart card-based authentication scheme that provides both user anonymity and mutual authentication between a remote server and a user. The proposed authentication scheme is a simple and efficient system applicable to the limited resource and low computing performance of the smart card. The proposed scheme provides not only resilience to potential attacks in the smart card-based authentication scheme, but also secure authentication functions. A smart card performs a simple one-way hash function, the operations of exclusive-or and concatenation in the authentication phase of the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme also provides user anonymity using a dynamic identity and key agreement, and secure password change.

  8. Anonymity versus privacy in the dictator game: revealing donor decisions to recipients does not substantially impact donor behavior.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeffrey Winking

    Full Text Available Anonymity is often offered in economic experiments in order to eliminate observer effects and induce behavior that would be exhibited under private circumstances. However, anonymity differs from privacy in that interactants are only unaware of each others' identities, while having full knowledge of each others' actions. Such situations are rare outside the laboratory and anonymity might not meet the requirements of some participants to psychologically engage as if their actions were private. In order to explore the impact of a lack of privacy on prosocial behaviors, I expand on a study reported in Dana et al. (2006 in which recipients were left unaware of the Dictator Game and given donations as "bonuses" to their show-up fees for other tasks. In the current study, I explore whether differences between a private Dictator Game (sensu Dana et al. (2006 and a standard anonymous one are due to a desire by dictators to avoid shame or to pursue prestige. Participants of a Dictator Game were randomly assigned to one of four categories-one in which the recipient knew of (1 any donation by an anonymous donor (including zero donations, (2 nothing at all, (3 only zero donations, and (4 and only non-zero donations. The results suggest that a lack of privacy increases the shame that selfish-acting participants experience, but that removing such a cost has only minimal effects on actual behavior.

  9. The Pattern of Drug Abuse in Anonymous Adidcts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seyede Maryam Vahdat-Shariat-Panahi

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Having the information about pattern of substance abuse in the community and its epidemiological features is one of the most important protocols for evaluation, follow–up and control of the use of these substances. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patterns of substances abuse among narcotic anonymous (N. A. addicted patients. Materials & Methods: In this descriptive and analytical study, three hundred patients from narcotic abusers anonymous (N. A. association who were referred to a treatment center in Tehran were participated consecutively. The information about demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, type of drug and the patterns of substance abuse of all cases were collected by researcher made questionnaire. Data were analyzed by Chi–Square test. Results: 80% of the patients were male. Almost 65. 2% of cases aged less than 40 years. More than two–third of cases had free jobs and 21. 2% of them were unemployed. Also, 32% of patients had college degrees. The most common types of abused substance were opium (88%, cigarette (76.7%, and alcohol (63% and 34% of them used substances intravenously. The use of alcohol (P=0.033, cannabis (P<0.001, cocaine (P=0.009 and ecstasy (P<0.001 was more prevalent significantly in the cases less than 40 years old than the elderly. Conclusion: It seems that the trend of substance abuse has been changed to younger population. The pattern of drug abuse in young adults is more toward psychosis drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy.

  10. Design and Implement of the Anonymous Communications in the Mobile IP Networks%移动IP中通信匿名技术的设计与实现

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    康凯; 郭伟; 吴诗其

    2002-01-01

    One of the key problems in the mobile communication is the anonymous communication. The mobile userwants to hide his real identifying information to the visiting domain and the public network which he does not trust,and prevent from being tracked and located. In this paper, we have discoursed the anonymous communications in themobile IP, and presented a novel strategy of the dynamic address allocation and the routing with anonymity. The sug-gested method enables any identifying information can be carried over the anonymous and secure connections, andprovide end-to-end security. The implements of the mobile host and the mobile subnet are also presented.

  11. Your choice MATor(s) : large-scale quantitative anonymity assessment of Tor path selection algorithms against structural attacks

    OpenAIRE

    Backes, Michael; Meiser, Sebastian; Slowik, Marcin

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we present a rigorous methodology for quantifying the anonymity provided by Tor against a variety of structural attacks, i.e., adversaries that compromise Tor nodes and thereby perform eavesdropping attacks to deanonymize Tor users. First, we provide an algorithmic approach for computing the anonymity impact of such structural attacks against Tor. The algorithm is parametric in the considered path selection algorithm and is, hence, capable of reasoning about variants of Tor and...

  12. More than addiction: Examining the role of anonymity, endless narrative, and socialization in prolonged gaming and instant messaging practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kishonna Gray

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This ethnographic study explores a user’s prolonged engagement within virtual gaming communities. Likening prolonged engagement with addiction, this research provides an alternative perspective into virtual addiction focusing on three interrelated themes: 1 anonymity, 2 endless narrative, and 3 socialization. By employing narrative interviews and virtual observations, the researchers examine two different cultural, racial and age groups’ user experience within console and computer-based multiplayer environments. More specifically, they explore how the three factors (i.e., anonymity; endless narrative; socialization relate to the prolonged and extended use within these virtual communities and highlight the multifaceted uses of traditional chat services, social media, and the convergence of media existing within these chat communities.

  13. A Framework For Enhancing Privacy In Location Based Services Using K-Anonymity Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jane Mugi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract This paper presents a framework for enhancing privacy in Location Based Services using K-anonymity model. Users of location based services have to reveal their location information in order to use these services however this has threatened the user privacy. K-anonymity approach has been studied extensively in various forms. However it is only effective when the user location is fixed. When a user moves and continuously sends their location information the location service provider can approximate user trajectory which poses a threat to the trajectory privacy of the user. This framework will ensure that user privacy is enhanced for both snapshot and continuous queries. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed framework was evaluated the results indicate that the proposed framework has high success rate and good run time performance.

  14. Medical Relabeling in Gamblers Anonymous: The Construction of an Ideal Member.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, David N.; Saunders, Danny

    1990-01-01

    Observed 2 Gamblers Anonymous (GA) groups in South Wales over a 12-month period. Determined 2 broad consequences arose from encountering fellow sufferers: acceptance of diagnosis and commitment to recovery and to will of GA, or rejection of the diagnosis with the knowledge that they are returning to the outside world with a reconstituted…

  15. Chaotic maps and biometrics-based anonymous three-party authenticated key exchange protocol without using passwords

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xie Qi; Hu Bin; Chen Ke-Fei; Liu Wen-Hao; Tan Xiao

    2015-01-01

    In three-party password authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol, since two users use their passwords to establish a secure session key over an insecure communication channel with the help of the trusted server, such a protocol may suffer the password guessing attacks and the server has to maintain the password table. To eliminate the shortages of password-based AKE protocol, very recently, according to chaotic maps, Lee et al. [2015 Nonlinear Dyn. 79 2485] proposed a first three-party-authenticated key exchange scheme without using passwords, and claimed its security by providing a well-organized BAN logic test. Unfortunately, their protocol cannot resist impersonation attack, which is demonstrated in the present paper. To overcome their security weakness, by using chaotic maps, we propose a biometrics-based anonymous three-party AKE protocol with the same advantages. Further, we use the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to show that our AKE protocol achieves authentication, security and anonymity, and an acceptable efficiency. (paper)

  16. 1-RAAP: An Efficient 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Jingwei; Zhang, Lihuan; Sun, Rong

    2016-05-19

    Thanks to the rapid technological convergence of wireless communications, medical sensors and cloud computing, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) have emerged as a novel networking paradigm enabling ubiquitous Internet services, allowing people to receive medical care, monitor health status in real-time, analyze sports data and even enjoy online entertainment remotely. However, because of the mobility and openness of wireless communications, WBANs are inevitably exposed to a large set of potential attacks, significantly undermining their utility and impeding their widespread deployment. To prevent attackers from threatening legitimate WBAN users or abusing WBAN services, an efficient and secure authentication protocol termed 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol (1-RAAP) is proposed in this paper. In particular, 1-RAAP preserves anonymity, mutual authentication, non-repudiation and some other desirable security properties, while only requiring users to perform several low cost computational operations. More importantly, 1-RAAP is provably secure thanks to its design basis, which is resistant to the anonymous in the random oracle model. To validate the computational efficiency of 1-RAAP, a set of comprehensive comparative studies between 1-RAAP and other authentication protocols is conducted, and the results clearly show that 1-RAAP achieves the best performance in terms of computational overhead.

  17. 1-RAAP: An Efficient 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jingwei Liu

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Thanks to the rapid technological convergence of wireless communications, medical sensors and cloud computing, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs have emerged as a novel networking paradigm enabling ubiquitous Internet services, allowing people to receive medical care, monitor health status in real-time, analyze sports data and even enjoy online entertainment remotely. However, because of the mobility and openness of wireless communications, WBANs are inevitably exposed to a large set of potential attacks, significantly undermining their utility and impeding their widespread deployment. To prevent attackers from threatening legitimate WBAN users or abusing WBAN services, an efficient and secure authentication protocol termed 1-Round Anonymous Authentication Protocol (1-RAAP is proposed in this paper. In particular, 1-RAAP preserves anonymity, mutual authentication, non-repudiation and some other desirable security properties, while only requiring users to perform several low cost computational operations. More importantly, 1-RAAP is provably secure thanks to its design basis, which is resistant to the anonymous in the random oracle model. To validate the computational efficiency of 1-RAAP, a set of comprehensive comparative studies between 1-RAAP and other authentication protocols is conducted, and the results clearly show that 1-RAAP achieves the best performance in terms of computational overhead.

  18. Is the introduction of anonymous delivery associated with a reduction of high neonaticide rates in Austria? A retrospective study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klier, C M; Grylli, C; Amon, S; Fiala, C; Weizmann-Henelius, G; Pruitt, S L; Putkonen, H

    2013-03-01

    To assess rates of neonaticide after the implementation of a preventative 'anonymous delivery' law in mid-2001 in Austria. Women are allowed to access antenatal care and give birth in a hospital anonymously, without showing any ID and free of charge. Retrospective study. A complete census of police-reported neonaticides was obtained from the police statistics of Austria, Sweden and Finland. All neonaticides reported to the police, 1991-2009. Neonaticide rates before (1991-2001) and after (2002-2009) the introduction of anonymous delivery legislation per 100 000 births. The Mann-Whitney U-test for two independent samples was used to compare neonaticide rates in the period before the new law was introduced with the rates observed after the implementation of the new law for each country. On average the rate of police-reported neonaticides was 7.2 per 100 000 births (SD 3.5, median 7.1) in Austria prior to the new law being passed, and 3.1 per 100 000 births (SD 2.1, median 2.6) after the law was passed. A significant decrease in neonaticide was observed in Austria after the implementation of anonymous delivery (Mann-Whitney U-test P = 0.017). Whereas the Finnish and Swedish rates were lower than the Austrian rates before and after the implementation of the Austrian law, they remained unchanged over the study period. Our data demonstrate a significant decrease in the number of police-reported neonaticides in Austria after the implementation of anonymous delivery. Even though underlying factors associated with neonaticide are complex, the findings could indicate an effect of anonymous delivery in the prevention of this crime. © 2012 The Authors BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology © 2012 RCOG.

  19. Preference for anonymity in sperm donation for artificial insemination: an experience from low-resource settings in Nigeria

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ezugwu, Euzebus Chinonye; Eleje, George U; Iyoke, Chukwuemeka A; Mba, Sunday G; Nnaji, Henry C; Enechukwu, Chukwunonso I; Nkwo, Peter O

    2018-01-01

    Objective Anonymous sperm donation is a common practice in Nigeria with its associated legal and ethical challenges. This study aimed to investigate infertile couples’ opinions about issues of sperm donor anonymity and to determine factors that might influence their preferences. Methods A cross-sectional, multicentered, questionnaire-based study was conducted among infertile couples attending infertility clinics in three tertiary hospitals in the south-eastern region of Nigeria over a period of 6 months. Results A total of 450 infertile couples were recruited consecutively from the three study centers. However, 450 females and 352 males (total=802) participated in the study. The level of awareness of artificial insemination using donor sperm for the management of male infertility among the respondents was 69.2%, while its acceptability rate was 62.7%. The majority of the respondents indicated their preference for secrecy and anonymity in sperm donation. Approximately 84% of the respondents indicated that the mode of conception should never be disclosed to the donor-conceived child, and ~92% of them indicated that the identity of the sperm donor should never be revealed to the donor-conceived child. Fear of adverse effect of such disclosure on the child and the possible of rejection of the father in order to seek for the donor were the major reasons for their preference for anonymity. Conclusion Although it has been argued that every child has a right to know their genetic parents, the reasons proffered by the respondents for their preference for anonymity cannot be totally ignored. Establishing a regulatory body and enacting laws that will address both the ethical and legal issues associated with gamete donation in the developing world will go a long way in promoting openness and honest communication with donor-conceived children. PMID:29670338

  20. Quantum election scheme based on anonymous quantum key distribution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhou Rui-Rui; Yang Li

    2012-01-01

    An unconditionally secure authority-certified anonymous quantum key distribution scheme using conjugate coding is presented, based on which we construct a quantum election scheme without the help of an entanglement state. We show that this election scheme ensures the completeness, soundness, privacy, eligibility, unreusability, fairness, and verifiability of a large-scale election in which the administrator and counter are semi-honest. This election scheme can work even if there exist loss and errors in quantum channels. In addition, any irregularity in this scheme is sensible. (general)

  1. Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters

    OpenAIRE

    NOVÁKOVÁ, Veronika

    2011-01-01

    The title of my bachelor work is ?Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters?. Forensic linguistics is young and not very known branch of applied linguistics. This bachelor work wants to introduce forensic linguistics and its method. The bachelor work has two parts ? theory and practice. The theoretical part informs about forensic linguistics in general. Its two basic aspects utilized in forensic science and respective methods. The practical part t...

  2. A robust uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wen, Fengtong

    2013-12-01

    User authentication plays an important role to protect resources or services from being accessed by unauthorized users. In a recent paper, Das et al. proposed a secure and efficient uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care. This scheme uses three factors, e.g. biometrics, password, and smart card, to protect the security. It protects user privacy and is believed to have many abilities to resist a range of network attacks, even if the secret information stored in the smart card is compromised. In this paper, we analyze the security of Das et al.'s scheme, and show that the scheme is in fact insecure against the replay attack, user impersonation attacks and off-line guessing attacks. Then, we also propose a robust uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care. Compared with the existing schemes, our protocol uses a different user authentication mechanism to resist replay attack. We show that our proposed scheme can provide stronger security than previous protocols. Furthermore, we demonstrate the validity of the proposed scheme through the BAN (Burrows, Abadi, and Needham) logic.

  3. Factors associated with attendance in 12-step groups (Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous) among adults with alcohol problems living with HIV/AIDS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orwat, John; Samet, Jeffrey H; Tompkins, Christopher P; Cheng, Debbie M; Dentato, Michael P; Saitz, Richard

    2011-01-15

    Despite the value of 12-step meetings, few studies have examined factors associated with attendance among those living with HIV/AIDS, such as the impact of HIV disease severity and demographics. This study examines predisposing characteristics, enabling resources and need on attendance at Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings among those living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol problems. Secondary analysis of prospective data from the HIV-Longitudinal Interrelationships of Viruses and Ethanol study, a cohort of 400 adults living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol problems. Factors associated with AA/NA attendance were identified using the Anderson model for vulnerable populations. Generalized estimating equation logistic regression models were fit to identify factors associated with self-reported AA/NA attendance. At study entry, subjects were 75% male, 12% met diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence, 43% had drug dependence and 56% reported attending one or more AA/NA meetings (past 6 months). In the adjusted model, female gender negatively associated with attendance, as were social support systems that use alcohol and/or drugs, while presence of HCV antibody, drug dependence diagnosis, and homelessness associated with higher odds of attendance. Non-substance abuse related barriers to AA/NA group attendance exist for those living with HIV/AIDS, including females and social support systems that use alcohol and/or drugs. Positive associations of homelessness, HCV infection and current drug dependence were identified. These findings provide implications for policy makers and treatment professionals who wish to encourage attendance at 12-step meetings for those living with HIV/AIDS and alcohol or other substance use problems. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. THINKING ABOUT REFERRALS TO ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS IN RELATIONAL WAYS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christopher K. Bitten

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available This article examines Alcoholics Anonymous (AA as a relational therapy, seen through the lens of the relational needs described by Richard Erskine. AA as a resource may be underemployed by therapists who do not realize its potential to heal the relational damage suffered and inflicted by their alcoholic clients. Common misconceptions about AA are addressed, and ways for therapists to facilitate successful referrals of clients to AA are described. The author posits that there is a synergistic benefit in combining integrative psychotherapy with the client’s involvement in AA.

  5. Sexuality Information Needs of Latino and African American Ninth Graders: A Content Analysis of Anonymous Questions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angulo-Olaiz, Francisca; Goldfarb, Eva S.; Constantine, Norman A.

    2014-01-01

    This study used qualitative content analysis to examine anonymous questions about sex and sexuality submitted by Latino and African American adolescents in Los Angeles, California, classrooms. The majority of questions asked about sexuality and sexual behavior, or anatomy and physiology, with fewer questions about pregnancy and pregnancy…

  6. "Life Looks Brighter Since…": Relations Between V. P. Meshchersky and F. M. Dostoevsky as It Follows from Their Correspondence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana Panyukova

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available All the epistolary exchange between Prince V. P. Meshchersky, publisher of the newspaper-magazine “Grazhdanin”, a prominent politician of the second half of the 19th century in the circle of Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Alexander III, and F. M. Dostoevsky covers a period of nine years, beginning from 1872, soon after the return of the writer from abroad, almost until his death. The correspondence provides valuable material on biographies of the correspondents, the publishing history of the weekly “Grazhdanin” (1872–1879, and the attribution of anonymous and pseudonymous articles appeared in the magazine under the editorship of Dostoevsky. It is part of the research of the periodical’s manuscripts “portfolio” in the 1870s. All the letters are provided with textual comments and the necessary cultural and historical review.

  7. dCache, towards Federated Identities & Anonymized Delegation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashish, A.; Millar, AP; Mkrtchyan, T.; Fuhrmann, P.; Behrmann, G.; Sahakyan, M.; Adeyemi, O. S.; Starek, J.; Litvintsev, D.; Rossi, A.

    2017-10-01

    For over a decade, dCache has relied on the authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI) offered by VOMS, Kerberos, Xrootd etc. Although the established infrastructure has worked well and provided sufficient security, the implementation of procedures and the underlying software is often seen as a burden, especially by smaller communities trying to adopt existing HEP software stacks [1]. Moreover, scientists are increasingly dependent on service portals for data access [2]. In this paper, we describe how federated identity management systems can facilitate the transition from traditional AAI infrastructure to novel solutions like OpenID Connect. We investigate the advantages offered by OpenID Connect in regards to ‘delegation of authentication’ and ‘credential delegation for offline access’. Additionally, we demonstrate how macaroons can provide a more fine-granular authorization mechanism that supports anonymized delegation.

  8. Location Prediction Based on Transition Probability Matrices Constructing from Sequential Rules for Spatial-Temporal K-Anonymity Dataset

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Zhao; Zhu, Yunhong; Wu, Chenxue

    2016-01-01

    Spatial-temporal k-anonymity has become a mainstream approach among techniques for protection of users’ privacy in location-based services (LBS) applications, and has been applied to several variants such as LBS snapshot queries and continuous queries. Analyzing large-scale spatial-temporal anonymity sets may benefit several LBS applications. In this paper, we propose two location prediction methods based on transition probability matrices constructing from sequential rules for spatial-temporal k-anonymity dataset. First, we define single-step sequential rules mined from sequential spatial-temporal k-anonymity datasets generated from continuous LBS queries for multiple users. We then construct transition probability matrices from mined single-step sequential rules, and normalize the transition probabilities in the transition matrices. Next, we regard a mobility model for an LBS requester as a stationary stochastic process and compute the n-step transition probability matrices by raising the normalized transition probability matrices to the power n. Furthermore, we propose two location prediction methods: rough prediction and accurate prediction. The former achieves the probabilities of arriving at target locations along simple paths those include only current locations, target locations and transition steps. By iteratively combining the probabilities for simple paths with n steps and the probabilities for detailed paths with n-1 steps, the latter method calculates transition probabilities for detailed paths with n steps from current locations to target locations. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments, and correctness and flexibility of our proposed algorithm have been verified. PMID:27508502

  9. Protecting whistle-blowers: Anonymity on the internet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guinnessy, P.

    1997-01-01

    Even though strict legislation exists in many countries, it appears that the next few years should be a golden opportunity for groups to successfully monitor and publish the activity of the nuclear states, and human right violations through use of the Internet. The reasons for this are: 1. The Internet is becoming widespread even in repressive regimes; 2. Software is available to either hide messages from others or hide the mailers account; 3. Information from sites in other countries can be easily obtained to be read inside repressive regimes from the Internet. In this regard It is suggested the Pugwash or a similar organization should set up either an anonymous account to receive information or maybe use a more heavily protected cyperpunk remailer. Such an ability would hopefully prompt more people to notify treaty violations

  10. iDASH: integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bafna, Vineet; Boxwala, Aziz A; Chapman, Brian E; Chapman, Wendy W; Chaudhuri, Kamalika; Day, Michele E; Farcas, Claudiu; Heintzman, Nathaniel D; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Hyeoneui; Kim, Jihoon; Matheny, Michael E; Resnic, Frederic S; Vinterbo, Staal A

    2011-01-01

    iDASH (integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing) is the newest National Center for Biomedical Computing funded by the NIH. It focuses on algorithms and tools for sharing data in a privacy-preserving manner. Foundational privacy technology research performed within iDASH is coupled with innovative engineering for collaborative tool development and data-sharing capabilities in a private Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-certified cloud. Driving Biological Projects, which span different biological levels (from molecules to individuals to populations) and focus on various health conditions, help guide research and development within this Center. Furthermore, training and dissemination efforts connect the Center with its stakeholders and educate data owners and data consumers on how to share and use clinical and biological data. Through these various mechanisms, iDASH implements its goal of providing biomedical and behavioral researchers with access to data, software, and a high-performance computing environment, thus enabling them to generate and test new hypotheses. PMID:22081224

  11. Sex Differences in Attitudes towards Online Privacy and Anonymity among Israeli Students with Different Technical Backgrounds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinberger, Maor; Zhitomirsky-Geffet, Maayan; Bouhnik, Dan

    2017-01-01

    Introduction: In this exploratory study, we proposed an experimental framework to investigate and model male/female differences in attitudes towards online privacy and anonymity among Israeli students. Our aim was to comparatively model men and women's online privacy attitudes, and to assess the online privacy gender gap. Method: Various factors…

  12. Anonymous or confidential HIV counseling and voluntary testing in federally funded testing sites--United States, 1995-1997.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1999-06-25

    Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) counseling and voluntary testing (CT) programs have been an important part of national HIV prevention efforts since the first HIV antibody tests became available in 1985. In 1995, these programs accounted for approximately 15% of annual HIV antibody testing in the United States, excluding testing for blood donation. CT opportunities are offered to persons at risk for HIV infection at approximately 11,000 sites, including dedicated HIV CT sites, sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinics, drug-treatment centers, hospitals, and prisons. In 39 states, testing can be obtained anonymously, where persons do not have to give their name to get tested. All states provide confidential testing (by name) and have confidentiality laws and regulations to protect this information. This report compares patterns of anonymous and confidential testing in all federally funded CT programs from 1995 through 1997 and documents the importance of both types of testing opportunities.

  13. Preference for anonymity in sperm donation for artificial insemination: an experience from low-resource settings in Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ezugwu EC

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Euzebus Chinonye Ezugwu,1,2 George U Eleje,3,4 Chukwuemeka A Iyoke,1,2 Sunday G Mba,5 Henry C Nnaji,2 Chukwunonso I Enechukwu,4 Peter O Nkwo1,2 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Ittuku Ozalla Campus, Enugu State, Nigeria; 2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State, Nigeria; 3Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria; 4Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria; 5Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu State, Nigeria Objective: Anonymous sperm donation is a common practice in Nigeria with its associated legal and ethical challenges. This study aimed to investigate infertile couples’ opinions about issues of sperm donor anonymity and to determine factors that might influence their preferences.Methods: A cross-sectional, multicentered, questionnaire-based study was conducted among infertile couples attending infertility clinics in three tertiary hospitals in the south-eastern region of Nigeria over a period of 6 months.Results: A total of 450 infertile couples were recruited consecutively from the three study centers. However, 450 females and 352 males (total=802 participated in the study. The level of awareness of artificial insemination using donor sperm for the management of male infertility among the respondents was 69.2%, while its acceptability rate was 62.7%. The majority of the respondents indicated their preference for secrecy and anonymity in sperm donation. Approximately 84% of the respondents indicated that the mode of conception should never be disclosed to the donor-conceived child, and ~92% of them indicated that the identity of the sperm donor should never be revealed to the donor

  14. Hacktivism 1-2-3: how privacy enhancing technologies change the face of anonymous hacktivism

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bodó, B.

    2014-01-01

    This short essay explores how the notion of hacktivism changes due to easily accessible, military grade Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). Privacy Enhancing Technologies, technological tools which provide anonymous communications and protect users from online surveillance enable new forms of

  15. Social influence in computer-mediated communication : The effects of anonymity on group behavior

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Postmes, T; Spears, R; Sakhel, K; de Groot, D

    2001-01-01

    Two studies examined hypotheses derived from a Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) as applied to social influence in computer-mediated communication (CMC) in groups. This model predicts that anonymity can increase social influence if a common group identity is salient. In a first

  16. Proof-of-Work as Anonymous Micropayment: Rewarding a Tor Relay

    OpenAIRE

    Biryukov, Alex; Pustogarov, Ivan

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we propose a new micropayments scheme which can be used to reward Tor relay operators. Tor clients do not pay Tor relays with electronic cash directly but submit proof of work shares which the relays can resubmit to a crypto-currency mining pool. Relays credit users who submit shares with tickets that can later be used to purchase improved service. Both shares and tickets when sent over Tor circuits are anonymous. The analysis of the crypto-currencies market prices shows that th...

  17. Quality of life changes in an alcoholics anonymous self-help group

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    INDRĖ DIRGĖLIENĖ

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The issue of alcohol addiction is one of the most pressing in contemporary society as it causes an effect in the context of poverty, violence and suicidal behaviour. After the restoration of Lithuania‘s Independence a new helping profession such as social worker appeared: they were expected to provide professional help to people in order to help them find inner motivation for positive socialization or re-socialization. The issue of alcohol addiction/dependence was first viewed systemically, with the understanding of the need for systemic help: social, psychological, spiritual and medical. Long-term rehabilitation centres have been created and self-help groups formed: those of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA, Al-anon (self – help groups for friends and families who have relatives suffering from alcohol and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics self-help group. The article analyzes the quality of life changes in an Alcoholics Anonymous self-help group. Qualitative survey data are presented in this article. Six life stories of people attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA self-help groups are provided. The age of the participants ranges from 31 to 58. The main criterion to participate in the research is: people who have or have had problems because of alcohol usage and who are Alcoholics Anonymous self-help group (AA participants that have reached Step 12. This means they are ready to spread the message about recovering from this abuse to people who suffer from it. Deep analysis interview has been used to collect the data. Interview notional blocks are: 1 childhood experiences; 2 addiction to alcohol period and crisis; 3 changes of life quality when attending AA groups. The study data have been provided using content analysis through the deduction method. The theoretical basis is a systematic approach to a person in the course of his life‘ spiritual concepts and stages of recovery (May, 2004; Linn, Linn, 2003; Kubler-Ross, 2008 and the theory of integrated

  18. A large-scale examination of the effectiveness of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences in higher education assessment.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel P Hinton

    Full Text Available The present research aims to more fully explore the issues of performance differences in higher education assessment, particularly in the context of a common measure taken to address them. The rationale for the study is that, while performance differences in written examinations are relatively well researched, few studies have examined the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing these performance differences, particularly in modern student populations. By examining a large archive (N = 30674 of assessment data spanning a twelve-year period, the relationship between assessment marks and factors such as ethnic group, gender and socio-environmental background was investigated. In particular, analysis focused on the impact that the implementation of anonymous marking for assessment of written examinations and coursework has had on the magnitude of mean score differences between demographic groups of students. While group differences were found to be pervasive in higher education assessment, these differences were observed to be relatively small in practical terms. Further, it appears that the introduction of anonymous marking has had a negligible effect in reducing them. The implications of these results are discussed, focusing on two issues, firstly a defence of examinations as a fair and legitimate form of assessment in Higher Education, and, secondly, a call for the re-examination of the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences.

  19. A large-scale examination of the effectiveness of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences in higher education assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinton, Daniel P; Higson, Helen

    2017-01-01

    The present research aims to more fully explore the issues of performance differences in higher education assessment, particularly in the context of a common measure taken to address them. The rationale for the study is that, while performance differences in written examinations are relatively well researched, few studies have examined the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing these performance differences, particularly in modern student populations. By examining a large archive (N = 30674) of assessment data spanning a twelve-year period, the relationship between assessment marks and factors such as ethnic group, gender and socio-environmental background was investigated. In particular, analysis focused on the impact that the implementation of anonymous marking for assessment of written examinations and coursework has had on the magnitude of mean score differences between demographic groups of students. While group differences were found to be pervasive in higher education assessment, these differences were observed to be relatively small in practical terms. Further, it appears that the introduction of anonymous marking has had a negligible effect in reducing them. The implications of these results are discussed, focusing on two issues, firstly a defence of examinations as a fair and legitimate form of assessment in Higher Education, and, secondly, a call for the re-examination of the efficacy of anonymous marking in reducing group performance differences.

  20. Keeping mum about dad: "contracts" to protect gamete donor anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rees, Anne

    2012-06-01

    This article considers the legal status of so-called contracts for anonymity between fertility clinics and donors of gametes that were made in the period before legislation authorising disclosure. It notes that while clinics frequently cite the existence of these "contracts" to argue against retrospective legislation authorising disclosure of the donor's identity, they may be nothing more than one-sided statements of informed consent. However, the article notes that even if an agreement between a donor and a clinic is not contractual, it does not follow that a person conceived through assisted reproductive technology has any right of access to the identity of the donor. The writer has not been able to locate examples of written promises by the clinics promising anonymity. There are written promises by the donors not to seek the identity of the recipients. These promises do not bind the resulting offspring nor do they appear to be supported by consideration. The article suggests that the basis for any individual donor to restrain a clinic from revealing their identity may be found in promissory estoppel. Nevertheless, there is no real issue in Australia concerning clinics revealing these details absent legislative authority. The issue is whether parliaments will legislate to authorise the disclosure. The article notes that it would be rare for parliaments to legislate to overturn existing legal contracts but suggests that the contract argument may not be as strong as has been thought.

  1. Attachment Styles and Changes among Women Members of Overeaters Anonymous Who Have Recovered from Binge-Eating Disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hertz, Pnina; Addad, Moshe; Ronel, Natti

    2012-01-01

    In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), the 12-step self-help program for compulsive overeaters, binge eating is regarded as a physical, spiritual, and emotional disorder. Consequently, the program proposes recovery through the adoption of a lifestyle that leads to physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. A qualitative phenomenological study that…

  2. Collection of Medical Original Data with Search Engine for Decision Support.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orthuber, Wolfgang

    2016-01-01

    Medicine is becoming more and more complex and humans can capture total medical knowledge only partially. For specific access a high resolution search engine is demonstrated, which allows besides conventional text search also search of precise quantitative data of medical findings, therapies and results. Users can define metric spaces ("Domain Spaces", DSs) with all searchable quantitative data ("Domain Vectors", DSs). An implementation of the search engine is online in http://numericsearch.com. In future medicine the doctor could make first a rough diagnosis and check which fine diagnostics (quantitative data) colleagues had collected in such a case. Then the doctor decides about fine diagnostics and results are sent (half automatically) to the search engine which filters a group of patients which best fits to these data. In this specific group variable therapies can be checked with associated therapeutic results, like in an individual scientific study for the current patient. The statistical (anonymous) results could be used for specific decision support. Reversely the therapeutic decision (in the best case with later results) could be used to enhance the collection of precise pseudonymous medical original data which is used for better and better statistical (anonymous) search results.

  3. Analytic neutrality, anonymity, abstinence, and elective self-disclosure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shill, Merton A

    2004-01-01

    Recent contributions to the psychoanalytic literature propose new ways of understanding analytic neutrality, anonymity, abstinence, and self-disclosure. They advocate elective self-disclosure by the analyst as an antidote to the allegedly game-playing quality of transference and resistance analysis. The analytic relationship, they assert, becomes unreal when attempts are made to observe the principles of neutrality and abstinence. Both are seen as ill-conceived because of the irreducible subjectivity and unwarranted authority of the analyst. These relational and interactional views are criticized because (1) they ignore the fact that transference and resistance analysis have from Freud onward been accepted as minimal criteria qualifying a clinical process as psychoanalytic; (2) elective self-disclosure carries metapsychological implications dismissing not only Freud's theory of motivation but motivation as a basic feature of human personality; (3) they do not recognize interpersonal relations as mental events and so do not consider the ego's ability to create intrapsychic representations of object relations; (4) elective self-disclosures within the empathic parameters of the analytic situation are themselves unreal compared to the reality of the patient's experience with other objects. Abstinence and neutrality as ideals facilitate maintenance of an internal holding environment or container for the analyst's countertransference.

  4. Inseminação artificial e anonimato do doador Artificial insemination and donor anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria do Carmo Demasi Wanssa

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Através desse trabalho, objetiva-se abordar o tema de doação de gametas e do anonimato envolvendo este ato na reprodução medicamente assistida. Analisando rapidamente o caráter técnico da doação e seleção dos gametas e a necessidade de uma legislação específica sobre o assunto nos diferentes países do mundo que adotaram esse método, diante da pluralidade social existente. Consideram-se os aspectos éticos e legais vigentes no Brasil ditados pela Resolução do Conselho Federal de Medicina n° 1.358/93 que determina as condutas dos médicos brasileiros e define, dentre outros aspectos, o da doação e do anonimato, envolvendo o aspecto autonomia. A necessidade de proteção dos sujeitos através do termo de consentimento informado ou de recusa informada, permitindo garantir a informação e esclarecimento necessário ao casal que decide submeter-se aos planos de reprodução medicamente assistida assim como ao doador que, por sua vez, também deve dar garantias escritas quanto à espontaneidade e à alienação dos direitos sobre os gametas à instituição que se torna a responsável por estes. Tudo isso, aliado à veracidade e confidencialidade, compõe os elementos fundamentais para a manutenção do anonimato entre o doador e o receptor. Anonimato este, ainda muito discutido pelos estudiosos de diversas áreas e países.This article aims to address the issue of the donation of gametes and the anonymity involved in this act of medically-assisted reproduction. It briefly discusses the technical aspects of the donation and selection of gametes and the need for specific legislation on the issue in various countries that have adopted this method, in view of the plurality of different social systems in the world today. The article addresses the legal and ethical issues that are currently being aired in Brazil, and the rulings contained in the Federal Medical Council Resolution 1,358/93, which rules on the conduct of physicians in

  5. Chaotic maps and biometrics-based anonymous three-party authenticated key exchange protocol without using passwords

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Qi; Hu, Bin; Chen, Ke-Fei; Liu, Wen-Hao; Tan, Xiao

    2015-11-01

    In three-party password authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocol, since two users use their passwords to establish a secure session key over an insecure communication channel with the help of the trusted server, such a protocol may suffer the password guessing attacks and the server has to maintain the password table. To eliminate the shortages of password-based AKE protocol, very recently, according to chaotic maps, Lee et al. [2015 Nonlinear Dyn. 79 2485] proposed a first three-party-authenticated key exchange scheme without using passwords, and claimed its security by providing a well-organized BAN logic test. Unfortunately, their protocol cannot resist impersonation attack, which is demonstrated in the present paper. To overcome their security weakness, by using chaotic maps, we propose a biometrics-based anonymous three-party AKE protocol with the same advantages. Further, we use the pi calculus-based formal verification tool ProVerif to show that our AKE protocol achieves authentication, security and anonymity, and an acceptable efficiency. Project supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (Grant No. LZ12F02005), the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (Grant No. 2013CB834205), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61070153).

  6. AN EFFECTIVE MULTI-CLUSTERING ANONYMIZATION APPROACH USING DISCRETE COMPONENT TASK FOR NON-BINARY HIGH DIMENSIONAL DATA SPACES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    L.V. Arun Shalin

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Clustering is a process of grouping elements together, designed in such a way that the elements assigned to similar data points in a cluster are more comparable to each other than the remaining data points in a cluster. During clustering certain difficulties related when dealing with high dimensional data are ubiquitous and abundant. Works concentrated using anonymization method for high dimensional data spaces failed to address the problem related to dimensionality reduction during the inclusion of non-binary databases. In this work we study methods for dimensionality reduction for non-binary database. By analyzing the behavior of dimensionality reduction for non-binary database, results in performance improvement with the help of tag based feature. An effective multi-clustering anonymization approach called Discrete Component Task Specific Multi-Clustering (DCTSM is presented for dimensionality reduction on non-binary database. To start with we present the analysis of attribute in the non-binary database and cluster projection identifies the sparseness degree of dimensions. Additionally with the quantum distribution on multi-cluster dimension, the solution for relevancy of attribute and redundancy on non-binary data spaces is provided resulting in performance improvement on the basis of tag based feature. Multi-clustering tag based feature reduction extracts individual features and are correspondingly replaced by the equivalent feature clusters (i.e. tag clusters. During training, the DCTSM approach uses multi-clusters instead of individual tag features and then during decoding individual features is replaced by corresponding multi-clusters. To measure the effectiveness of the method, experiments are conducted on existing anonymization method for high dimensional data spaces and compared with the DCTSM approach using Statlog German Credit Data Set. Improved tag feature extraction and minimum error rate compared to conventional anonymization

  7. Anonymous Search Histories Featuring Personalized Advertisement - Balancing Privacy with Economic Interests

    OpenAIRE

    Thorben Burghardt; Klemens Bohm; Achim Guttmann; Chris Clifton

    2011-01-01

    Search engines are key to finding information on the web. Search presently is free for users financed by targeted advertisement. Today, the current search terms determine the ad placement. In the near future, search-engine providers will make use of detailed user profiles for better ad placement. This puts user privacy at risk. Anonymizing search histories, which is a solution in principle, gives way to a trade-off between privacy and the usability of the data for ad placement. This paper stu...

  8. Preserving Smart Objects Privacy through Anonymous and Accountable Access Control for a M2M-Enabled Internet of Things

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernández-Ramos, José L.; Bernabe, Jorge Bernal; Moreno, M. Victoria; Skarmeta, Antonio F.

    2015-01-01

    As we get into the Internet of Things era, security and privacy concerns remain as the main obstacles in the development of innovative and valuable services to be exploited by society. Given the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) nature of these emerging scenarios, the application of current privacy-friendly technologies needs to be reconsidered and adapted to be deployed in such global ecosystem. This work proposes different privacy-preserving mechanisms through the application of anonymous credential systems and certificateless public key cryptography. The resulting alternatives are intended to enable an anonymous and accountable access control approach to be deployed on large-scale scenarios, such as Smart Cities. Furthermore, the proposed mechanisms have been deployed on constrained devices, in order to assess their suitability for a secure and privacy-preserving M2M-enabled Internet of Things. PMID:26140349

  9. Preserving Smart Objects Privacy through Anonymous and Accountable Access Control for a M2M-Enabled Internet of Things

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José L. Hernández-Ramos

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available As we get into the Internet of Things era, security and privacy concerns remain as the main obstacles in the development of innovative and valuable services to be exploited by society. Given the Machine-to-Machine (M2M nature of these emerging scenarios, the application of current privacy-friendly technologies needs to be reconsidered and adapted to be deployed in such global ecosystem. This work proposes different privacy-preserving mechanisms through the application of anonymous credential systems and certificateless public key cryptography. The resulting alternatives are intended to enable an anonymous and accountable access control approach to be deployed on large-scale scenarios, such as Smart Cities. Furthermore, the proposed mechanisms have been deployed on constrained devices, in order to assess their suitability for a secure and privacy-preserving M2M-enabled Internet of Things.

  10. Preserving Smart Objects Privacy through Anonymous and Accountable Access Control for a M2M-Enabled Internet of Things.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernández-Ramos, José L; Bernabe, Jorge Bernal; Moreno, M Victoria; Skarmeta, Antonio F

    2015-07-01

    As we get into the Internet of Things era, security and privacy concerns remain as the main obstacles in the development of innovative and valuable services to be exploited by society. Given the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) nature of these emerging scenarios, the application of current privacy-friendly technologies needs to be reconsidered and adapted to be deployed in such global ecosystem. This work proposes different privacy-preserving mechanisms through the application of anonymous credential systems and certificateless public key cryptography. The resulting alternatives are intended to enable an anonymous and accountable access control approach to be deployed on large-scale scenarios, such as Smart Cities. Furthermore, the proposed mechanisms have been deployed on constrained devices, in order to assess their suitability for a secure and privacy-preserving M2M-enabled Internet of Things.

  11. Applying Semigroup Property of Enhanced Chebyshev Polynomials to Anonymous Authentication Protocol

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hong Lai

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available We apply semigroup property of enhanced Chebyshev polynomials to present an anonymous authentication protocol. This paper aims at improving security and reducing computational and storage overhead. The proposed scheme not only has much lower computational complexity and cost in the initialization phase but also allows the users to choose their passwords freely. Moreover, it can provide revocation of lost or stolen smart card, which can resist man-in-the-middle attack and off-line dictionary attack together with various known attacks.

  12. A Comparison of the Effects of K-Anonymity on Machine Learning Algorithms

    OpenAIRE

    Hayden Wimmer; Loreen Powell

    2014-01-01

    While research has been conducted in machine learning algorithms and in privacy preserving in data mining (PPDM), a gap in the literature exists which combines the aforementioned areas to determine how PPDM affects common machine learning algorithms. The aim of this research is to narrow this literature gap by investigating how a common PPDM algorithm, K-Anonymity, affects common machine learning and data mining algorithms, namely neural networks, logistic regression, decision trees, and Baye...

  13. Anonymity versus privacy: selective information sharing in online cancer communities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frost, Jeana; Vermeulen, Ivar E; Beekers, Nienke

    2014-05-14

    Active sharing in online cancer communities benefits patients. However, many patients refrain from sharing health information online due to privacy concerns. Existing research on privacy emphasizes data security and confidentiality, largely focusing on electronic medical records. Patient preferences around information sharing in online communities remain poorly understood. Consistent with the privacy calculus perspective adopted from e-commerce research, we suggest that patients approach online information sharing instrumentally, weighing privacy costs against participation benefits when deciding whether to share certain information. Consequently, we argue that patients prefer sharing clinical information over daily life and identity information that potentially compromises anonymity. Furthermore, we explore whether patients' prior experiences, age, health, and gender affect perceived privacy costs and thus willingness to share information. The goal of the present study is to document patient preferences for sharing information within online health platforms. A total of 115 cancer patients reported sharing intentions for 15 different types of information, demographics, health status, prior privacy experiences, expected community utility, and privacy concerns. Factor analysis on the 15 information types revealed 3 factors coinciding with 3 proposed information categories: clinical, daily life, and identity information. A within-subject ANOVA showed a strong preference for sharing clinical information compared to daily life and identity information (F1,114=135.59, P=.001, η(2)=.93). Also, adverse online privacy experiences, age, and health status negatively affected information-sharing intentions. Female patients shared information less willingly. Respondents' information-sharing intentions depend on dispositional and situational factors. Patients share medical details more willingly than daily life or identity information. The results suggest the need to focus on

  14. Selfrando: Securing the Tor Browser against De-anonymization Exploits

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Conti Mauro

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Tor is a well-known anonymous communication system used by millions of users, including journalists and civil rights activists all over the world. The Tor Browser gives non-technical users an easy way to access the Tor Network. However, many government organizations are actively trying to compromise Tor not only in regions with repressive regimes but also in the free world, as the recent FBI incidents clearly demonstrate. Exploiting software vulnerabilities in general, and browser vulnerabilities in particular, constitutes a clear and present threat to the Tor software. The Tor Browser shares a large part of its attack surface with the Firefox browser. Therefore, Firefox vulnerabilities (even patched ones are highly valuable to attackers trying to monitor users of the Tor Browser.

  15. An Anonymous Mutual Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Wearable Sensors in Wireless Body Area Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chien-Ming Chen

    2018-07-01

    Full Text Available The advancement of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN have led to significant progress in medical and health care systems. However, such networks still suffer from major security and privacy threats, especially for the data collected in medical or health care applications. Lack of security and existence of anonymous communication in WBAN brings about the operation failure of these networks. Recently, Li et al. proposed a lightweight protocol for wearable sensors in wireless body area networks. In their paper, the authors claimed that the protocol may provide anonymous mutual authentication and resist against various types of attacks. This study shows that such a protocol is still vulnerable to three types of attacks, i.e., the offline identity guessing attack, the sensor node impersonation attack and the hub node spoofing attack. We then present a secure scheme that addresses these problems, and retains similar efficiency in wireless sensors nodes and mobile phones.

  16. Long-Term Influence of Duration and Frequency of Participation in Alcoholics Anonymous on Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moos, Rudolf H.; Moos, Bernice S.

    2004-01-01

    This study examined the influence of the duration and frequency of a baseline episode of participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) among 473 individuals with alcohol use disorders on 1-year and 8-year outcomes and the effect of additional participation and delayed participation on outcomes. Compared with individuals who did not participate,…

  17. Cloud Based Data Protection in Anonymously Controlled SDN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Shen

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, Software Defined Network (SDN develops rapidly for its novel structure which separates the control plane and the data plane of network devices. Many researchers devoted themselves to the study of such a special network. However, some limitations restrict the development of SDN. On the one hand, the single controller in the conventional model bears all threats, and the corruption of it will result in network paralysis. On the other hand, the data will be increasing more in SDN switches in the data plane, while the storage space of these switches is limited. In order to solve the mentioned issues, we propose two corresponding protocols in this paper. Specifically, one is an anonymous protocol in the control plane, and the other is a verifiable outsourcing protocol in the data plane. The evaluation indicates that our protocol is correct, secure, and efficient.

  18. The Anonymization Protection Algorithm Based on Fuzzy Clustering for the Ego of Data in the Internet of Things

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mingshan Xie

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In order to enhance the enthusiasm of the data provider in the process of data interaction and improve the adequacy of data interaction, we put forward the concept of the ego of data and then analyzed the characteristics of the ego of data in the Internet of Things (IOT in this paper. We implement two steps of data clustering for the Internet of things; the first step is the spatial location of adjacent fuzzy clustering, and the second step is the sampling time fuzzy clustering. Equivalent classes can be obtained through the two steps. In this way we can make the data with layout characteristics to be classified into different equivalent classes, so that the specific location information of the data can be obscured, the layout characteristics of tags are eliminated, and ultimately anonymization protection would be achieved. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can greatly improve the efficiency of protection of the data in the interaction with others in the incompletely open manner, without reducing the quality of anonymization and enhancing the information loss. The anonymization data set generated by this method has better data availability, and this algorithm can effectively improve the security of data exchange.

  19. RESPECTING THE CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANONYMITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIOLOGY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria OPREA

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Ethics, a philosophical discipline, formulates a set of principles that must be followed, in respect of good and truth, fundamental values of humanity. The world of scientific research, of all kinds, also obeys moral imperatives and principles and is called upon to answer to society not only in relation to the discoveries themselves but, above all, in relation to the possible destructive effects on man or his life environment. The researcher in the sphere of social sciences is more involved in the act of responsibility, the more the topic subject of the study is the individual, the social group, the social environment. He must rigorously follow the principles and requirements of fair, honest, objective studies that do not harm the dignity of the human being. In line with the ethical rigors of scientific research, the article aims to highlight some aspects of respecting the principle of confidentiality and anonymity in qualitative research in the field of sociology, with reference to the study of vulnerable groups in Arad County.

  20. Anonymity Versus Privacy: Selective Information Sharing in Online Cancer Communities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vermeulen, Ivar E; Beekers, Nienke

    2014-01-01

    Background Active sharing in online cancer communities benefits patients. However, many patients refrain from sharing health information online due to privacy concerns. Existing research on privacy emphasizes data security and confidentiality, largely focusing on electronic medical records. Patient preferences around information sharing in online communities remain poorly understood. Consistent with the privacy calculus perspective adopted from e-commerce research, we suggest that patients approach online information sharing instrumentally, weighing privacy costs against participation benefits when deciding whether to share certain information. Consequently, we argue that patients prefer sharing clinical information over daily life and identity information that potentially compromises anonymity. Furthermore, we explore whether patients’ prior experiences, age, health, and gender affect perceived privacy costs and thus willingness to share information. Objective The goal of the present study is to document patient preferences for sharing information within online health platforms. Methods A total of 115 cancer patients reported sharing intentions for 15 different types of information, demographics, health status, prior privacy experiences, expected community utility, and privacy concerns. Results Factor analysis on the 15 information types revealed 3 factors coinciding with 3 proposed information categories: clinical, daily life, and identity information. A within-subject ANOVA showed a strong preference for sharing clinical information compared to daily life and identity information (F 1,114=135.59, P=.001, η2=.93). Also, adverse online privacy experiences, age, and health status negatively affected information-sharing intentions. Female patients shared information less willingly. Conclusions Respondents’ information-sharing intentions depend on dispositional and situational factors. Patients share medical details more willingly than daily life or identity

  1. Simple Algorithms for Distributed Leader Election in Anonymous Synchronous Rings and Complete Networks Inspired by Neural Development in Fruit Flies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Lei; Jeavons, Peter

    2015-11-01

    Leader election in anonymous rings and complete networks is a very practical problem in distributed computing. Previous algorithms for this problem are generally designed for a classical message passing model where complex messages are exchanged. However, the need to send and receive complex messages makes such algorithms less practical for some real applications. We present some simple synchronous algorithms for distributed leader election in anonymous rings and complete networks that are inspired by the development of the neural system of the fruit fly. Our leader election algorithms all assume that only one-bit messages are broadcast by nodes in the network and processors are only able to distinguish between silence and the arrival of one or more messages. These restrictions allow implementations to use a simpler message-passing architecture. Even with these harsh restrictions our algorithms are shown to achieve good time and message complexity both analytically and experimentally.

  2. RSEQtools: a modular framework to analyze RNA-Seq data using compact, anonymized data summaries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Habegger, Lukas; Sboner, Andrea; Gianoulis, Tara A; Rozowsky, Joel; Agarwal, Ashish; Snyder, Michael; Gerstein, Mark

    2011-01-15

    The advent of next-generation sequencing for functional genomics has given rise to quantities of sequence information that are often so large that they are difficult to handle. Moreover, sequence reads from a specific individual can contain sufficient information to potentially identify and genetically characterize that person, raising privacy concerns. In order to address these issues, we have developed the Mapped Read Format (MRF), a compact data summary format for both short and long read alignments that enables the anonymization of confidential sequence information, while allowing one to still carry out many functional genomics studies. We have developed a suite of tools (RSEQtools) that use this format for the analysis of RNA-Seq experiments. These tools consist of a set of modules that perform common tasks such as calculating gene expression values, generating signal tracks of mapped reads and segmenting that signal into actively transcribed regions. Moreover, the tools can readily be used to build customizable RNA-Seq workflows. In addition to the anonymization afforded by MRF, this format also facilitates the decoupling of the alignment of reads from downstream analyses. RSEQtools is implemented in C and the source code is available at http://rseqtools.gersteinlab.org/.

  3. An improved biometrics-based remote user authentication scheme with user anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Muhammad Khurram; Kumari, Saru

    2013-01-01

    The authors review the biometrics-based user authentication scheme proposed by An in 2012. The authors show that there exist loopholes in the scheme which are detrimental for its security. Therefore the authors propose an improved scheme eradicating the flaws of An's scheme. Then a detailed security analysis of the proposed scheme is presented followed by its efficiency comparison. The proposed scheme not only withstands security problems found in An's scheme but also provides some extra features with mere addition of only two hash operations. The proposed scheme allows user to freely change his password and also provides user anonymity with untraceability.

  4. Becoming a morther by non-anonymous egg donation: secrecy and the relationship between egg recipient, egg donor and egg donation child

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Berkel, D.A.M. van; Candido, A.; Pijffers, W.H.

    The object of the study was to investigate secrecy in non-anonymous egg donation, to explore some characteristics of this kind of egg donation arrangement and the relationship of the recipient with her non-genetic child. Forty-four egg recipients and 62 IVF patients with a child conceived through

  5. Robust anonymous authentication scheme for telecare medical information systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Qi; Zhang, Jun; Dong, Na

    2013-04-01

    Patient can obtain sorts of health-care delivery services via Telecare Medical Information Systems (TMIS). Authentication, security, patient's privacy protection and data confidentiality are important for patient or doctor accessing to Electronic Medical Records (EMR). In 2012, Chen et al. showed that Khan et al.'s dynamic ID-based authentication scheme has some weaknesses and proposed an improved scheme, and they claimed that their scheme is more suitable for TMIS. However, we show that Chen et al.'s scheme also has some weaknesses. In particular, Chen et al.'s scheme does not provide user's privacy protection and perfect forward secrecy, is vulnerable to off-line password guessing attack and impersonation attack once user's smart card is compromised. Further, we propose a secure anonymity authentication scheme to overcome their weaknesses even an adversary can know all information stored in smart card.

  6. An Improved Biometrics-Based Remote User Authentication Scheme with User Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhammad Khurram Khan

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The authors review the biometrics-based user authentication scheme proposed by An in 2012. The authors show that there exist loopholes in the scheme which are detrimental for its security. Therefore the authors propose an improved scheme eradicating the flaws of An’s scheme. Then a detailed security analysis of the proposed scheme is presented followed by its efficiency comparison. The proposed scheme not only withstands security problems found in An’s scheme but also provides some extra features with mere addition of only two hash operations. The proposed scheme allows user to freely change his password and also provides user anonymity with untraceability.

  7. Gamblers Anonymous in Israel: a participant observation study of a self-help group.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cromer, G

    1978-10-01

    This participant observation study of the first Gamblers Anonymous group in Israel is designed to show (1) the ways in which the group helps it members rehabilitate themselves, (2) the three stages through which they must go in order to ensure success, and (3) the reason why some participants fail to do so. The article concludes with a number of observations concerning the extent of gambling in Israel and the different ways that should be developed for dealing with the problem.

  8. An Anonymous User Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Based on a Symmetric Cryptosystem in Wireless Sensor Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jung, Jaewook; Kim, Jiye; Choi, Younsung; Won, Dongho

    2016-08-16

    In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a registered user can login to the network and use a user authentication protocol to access data collected from the sensor nodes. Since WSNs are typically deployed in unattended environments and sensor nodes have limited resources, many researchers have made considerable efforts to design a secure and efficient user authentication process. Recently, Chen et al. proposed a secure user authentication scheme using symmetric key techniques for WSNs. They claim that their scheme assures high efficiency and security against different types of attacks. After careful analysis, however, we find that Chen et al.'s scheme is still vulnerable to smart card loss attack and is susceptible to denial of service attack, since it is invalid for verification to simply compare an entered ID and a stored ID in smart card. In addition, we also observe that their scheme cannot preserve user anonymity. Furthermore, their scheme cannot quickly detect an incorrect password during login phase, and this flaw wastes both communication and computational overheads. In this paper, we describe how these attacks work, and propose an enhanced anonymous user authentication and key agreement scheme based on a symmetric cryptosystem in WSNs to address all of the aforementioned vulnerabilities in Chen et al.'s scheme. Our analysis shows that the proposed scheme improves the level of security, and is also more efficient relative to other related schemes.

  9. SAM: Secure Access of Media Independent Information Service with User Anonymity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li Guangsong

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Seamless handover across different access technologies is very important in the future wireless networks. To optimize vertical handover in heterogeneous networks, IEEE 802.21 standard defines Media Independent Handover (MIH services. The MIH services can be a new target to attackers, which will be the main concern for equipment vendors and service providers. In this paper, we focus specifically on security of Media Independent Information Service (MIIS and present a new access authentication scheme with user anonymity for MIIS. The protocol can be used to establish a secure channel between the mobile node and the information server. Security and performance of the protocol are also analyzed in this paper.

  10. Patient Perspectives on Sharing Anonymized Personal Health Data Using a Digital System for Dynamic Consent and Research Feedback: A Qualitative Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spencer, Karen; Sanders, Caroline; Whitley, Edgar A; Lund, David; Kaye, Jane; Dixon, William Gregory

    2016-04-15

    Electronic health records are widely acknowledged to provide an important opportunity to anonymize patient-level health care data and collate across populations to support research. Nonetheless, in the wake of public and policy concerns about security and inappropriate use of data, conventional approaches toward data governance may no longer be sufficient to respect and protect individual privacy. One proposed solution to improve transparency and public trust is known as Dynamic Consent, which uses information technology to facilitate a more explicit and accessible opportunity to opt out. In this case, patients can tailor preferences about whom they share their data with and can change their preferences reliably at any time. Furthermore, electronic systems provide opportunities for informing patients about data recipients and the results of research to which their data have contributed. To explore patient perspectives on the use of anonymized health care data for research purposes. To evaluate patient perceptions of a Dynamic Consent model and electronic system to enable and implement ongoing communication and collaboration between patients and researchers. A total of 26 qualitative interviews and three focus groups were conducted that included a video presentation explaining the reuse of anonymized electronic patient records for research. Slides and tablet devices were used to introduce the Dynamic Consent system for discussion. A total of 35 patients with chronic rheumatic disease with varying levels of illness and social deprivation were recruited from a rheumatology outpatient clinic; 5 participants were recruited from a patient and public involvement health research network. Patients were supportive of sharing their anonymized electronic patient record for research, but noted a lack of transparency and awareness around the use of data, making it difficult to secure public trust. While there were general concerns about detrimental consequences of data falling

  11. Criminología Informática. Anonymous: ¿justicia cibernética o terrorismo enmascarado?/Informatic Criminology. Anonymous: ¿Cyber Justice or masked terrorism?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Romano Ozcáriz

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Desde hace ya una década se viene escuchando las acciones cibernéticas de un grupo de ciberactivistas autodenominado Anonymous, pero ¿qué sabemos realmente de ellos? Ciertamente poco, debido en parte a la anárquica organización que los representa y a la ingente cantidad de bulos y rumores sin confirmar que inundan las redes. En honor a la verdad, es imprescindible hacer una limpieza de información y separar lo que es este grupo realmente de lo que es puro desprestigio o sobrevaloración, y de las mentiras. Para ello analizaremos cinco puntos fundamentales, para una mejor comprensión: su definición, valores, principios, simbología y su historia/acciones más representativas.

  12. Improving an Anonymous and Provably Secure Authentication Protocol for a Mobile User

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jongho Moon

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Recently many authentication protocols using an extended chaotic map were suggested for a mobile user. Many researchers demonstrated that authentication protocol needs to provide key agreement, mutual authentication, and user anonymity between mobile user and server and resilience to many possible attacks. In this paper, we cautiously analyzed chaotic-map-based authentication scheme and proved that it is still insecure to off-line identity guessing, user and server impersonation, and on-line identity guessing attacks. To address these vulnerabilities, we proposed an improved protocol based on an extended chaotic map and a fuzzy extractor. We proved the security of the proposed protocol using a random oracle and AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool. Furthermore, we present an informal security analysis to make sure that the improved protocol is invulnerable to possible attacks. The proposed protocol is also computationally efficient when compared to other previous protocols.

  13. Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis

    CERN Document Server

    Gkoulalas-Divanis, Aris

    2013-01-01

    Anonymization of Electronic Medical Records to Support Clinical Analysis closely examines the privacy threats that may arise from medical data sharing, and surveys the state-of-the-art methods developed to safeguard data against these threats. To motivate the need for computational methods, the book first explores the main challenges facing the privacy-protection of medical data using the existing policies, practices and regulations. Then, it takes an in-depth look at the popular computational privacy-preserving methods that have been developed for demographic, clinical and genomic data sharing, and closely analyzes the privacy principles behind these methods, as well as the optimization and algorithmic strategies that they employ. Finally, through a series of in-depth case studies that highlight data from the US Census as well as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the book outlines a new, innovative class of privacy-preserving methods designed to ensure the integrity of transferred medical data for su...

  14. Improvement of a uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving user authentication scheme for connected health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Qi; Liu, Wenhao; Wang, Shengbao; Han, Lidong; Hu, Bin; Wu, Ting

    2014-09-01

    Patient's privacy-preserving, security and mutual authentication between patient and the medical server are the important mechanism in connected health care applications, such as telecare medical information systems and personally controlled health records systems. In 2013, Wen showed that Das et al.'s scheme is vulnerable to the replay attack, user impersonation attacks and off-line guessing attacks, and then proposed an improved scheme using biometrics, password and smart card to overcome these weaknesses. However, we show that Wen's scheme is still vulnerable to off-line password guessing attacks, does not provide user's anonymity and perfect forward secrecy. Further, we propose an improved scheme to fix these weaknesses, and use the applied pi calculus based formal verification tool ProVerif to prove the security and authentication.

  15. Moves on the Street: Classifying Crime Hotspots Using Aggregated Anonymized Data on People Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogomolov, Andrey; Lepri, Bruno; Staiano, Jacopo; Letouzé, Emmanuel; Oliver, Nuria; Pianesi, Fabio; Pentland, Alex

    2015-09-01

    The wealth of information provided by real-time streams of data has paved the way for life-changing technological advancements, improving the quality of life of people in many ways, from facilitating knowledge exchange to self-understanding and self-monitoring. Moreover, the analysis of anonymized and aggregated large-scale human behavioral data offers new possibilities to understand global patterns of human behavior and helps decision makers tackle problems of societal importance. In this article, we highlight the potential societal benefits derived from big data applications with a focus on citizen safety and crime prevention. First, we introduce the emergent new research area of big data for social good. Next, we detail a case study tackling the problem of crime hotspot classification, that is, the classification of which areas in a city are more likely to witness crimes based on past data. In the proposed approach we use demographic information along with human mobility characteristics as derived from anonymized and aggregated mobile network data. The hypothesis that aggregated human behavioral data captured from the mobile network infrastructure, in combination with basic demographic information, can be used to predict crime is supported by our findings. Our models, built on and evaluated against real crime data from London, obtain accuracy of almost 70% when classifying whether a specific area in the city will be a crime hotspot or not in the following month.

  16. Domestic violence in a UK abortion clinic: anonymous cross-sectional prevalence survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motta, Silvia; Penn-Kekana, Loveday; Bewley, Susan

    2015-04-01

    To measure the prevalence of domestic violence (DV) experienced by women seeking termination of pregnancy (TOP) in a UK abortion clinic. A cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire survey of all women aged over 16 years accessing a TOP clinic in inner London between 20 May 2012 and 2 July 2012. The main outcome measures were: distribution of questionnaires, response rate, lifetime prevalence of abuse, past-year prevalence of physical and sexual abuse, prevalence of physical abuse during current pregnancy, relationship of lifetime abuse to number of terminations, and receptivity to DV services. Questionnaires were distributed to 46% (383/828) of women accessing the clinic. Response rate was 50% (190/383). Lifetime prevalence of abuse was 16%. Past-year prevalence of physical abuse was 11% and sexual abuse was 4%. Prevalence of physical abuse during the current pregnancy was 4%. Prevalence of lifetime abuse was lower in women having a first termination (12%) versus one (20%) or two or more previous terminations (24%), although this was not statistically significant (p=0.192). The majority (75%) of participants expressing an opinion on the possibility of having a support service for DV in the abortion clinic setting were positive, unrelated to their personal experience, but some concerns were raised about implementation. In order to provide effective support for women, services require a needs assessment of their local population. Asking women presenting for abortion about DV, even anonymously, is challenging but feasible. Future work should be directed to women's unmet safety needs. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  17. What affects your MS? Responses to an anonymous, Internet-based epidemiological survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simmons, Rex D; Ponsonby, Anne-Louise; van der Mei, Ingrid A F; Sheridan, Peter

    2004-04-01

    Evolving information technology has raised the possibility of new methods of data collection in multiple sclerosis (MS) research. An anonymous, self-report, Internet-based survey was developed, which asked people with MS their opinion on how various extrinsic factors affected their condition. From September 2001 to July 2002, a total of 2529 people completed the questionnaire. The demographic and clinical profiles of the anonymous respondents indicated that most were likely to have MS. Common factors reported as beneficial were cannabis, cold baths, meditation and dietary factors. Common adverse factors reported were high stress, exposure to high temperatures and viral infections. There was an increasing report of high temperatures as being adverse with increasing respondent age (test for trend, P < 0.001). The adverse report of high temperatures correlated significantly with the report of strong sunlight apparently making MS worse (r = 0.35, P < 0.0001). In Australia, high temperatures were more likely to be reported as adverse in warmer, lower latitude regions. The association between strong sunlight as adverse and age or region did not persist after adjustment for high temperatures. Thus, this apparent adverse factor appeared to relate to solar heat, not solar light. People with MS may risk vitamin D deficiency because of sun avoidance due to heat-related fatigue or intolerance. This is of clinical significance not only for bone health but because vitamin D may have beneficial immunomodulatory properties. The present study provides new information from people with MS on factors that may influence symptoms or clinical course. This information will now be used in the design of formal epidemiological cohort studies.

  18. Effects of Cultural Orientation on Attitude Toward Anonymity in E-Collaboration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, Yingqin; Liu, Na; Lim, John

    The important role of attitude in the acceptance and diffusion of technology has been widely acknowledged. Greater research efforts have been called for examining the relationships between cultural variables and attitude toward technology. In this regard, this study investigates the impact of cultural orientation (focusing on an individual's degree of collectivism) on attitude toward e-collaboration technology. A theoretical model is proposed and subsequently tested using a questionnaire survey involving 236 data points. Self-reliance, competitive success, and group work orientation are found as significant indicators reflecting an individual's degree of collectivism, which in turn influences willingness to participate, evaluation of collaborative effort, and preference for anonymity feature. Subsequently, the three variables are found to affect perceptions about decision quality, enjoyment, uncertainty, and pressure in e-collaboration.

  19. An Anonymous User Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Based on a Symmetric Cryptosystem in Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaewook Jung

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available In wireless sensor networks (WSNs, a registered user can login to the network and use a user authentication protocol to access data collected from the sensor nodes. Since WSNs are typically deployed in unattended environments and sensor nodes have limited resources, many researchers have made considerable efforts to design a secure and efficient user authentication process. Recently, Chen et al. proposed a secure user authentication scheme using symmetric key techniques for WSNs. They claim that their scheme assures high efficiency and security against different types of attacks. After careful analysis, however, we find that Chen et al.’s scheme is still vulnerable to smart card loss attack and is susceptible to denial of service attack, since it is invalid for verification to simply compare an entered ID and a stored ID in smart card. In addition, we also observe that their scheme cannot preserve user anonymity. Furthermore, their scheme cannot quickly detect an incorrect password during login phase, and this flaw wastes both communication and computational overheads. In this paper, we describe how these attacks work, and propose an enhanced anonymous user authentication and key agreement scheme based on a symmetric cryptosystem in WSNs to address all of the aforementioned vulnerabilities in Chen et al.’s scheme. Our analysis shows that the proposed scheme improves the level of security, and is also more efficient relative to other related schemes.

  20. Anonymization of Court Decisions: Are Restrictions on the Right to Information in “Accordance with the Law”?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gruodytė Edita

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In Lithuania rules for the anonymization of court decisions were introduced in 2005. These rules require automatic anonymization of all court decisions, which in the opinion of the authors violates the public interest to know and freedom of expression is unjustifiably restricted on behalf of the right to privacy. This issue covers two diametrically opposed human rights: the right to privacy and the right to information. The first question is how the balance between two equivalent rights could be reached. The second question is whether this regulation is in accordance with the law as it is established in the national Constitution and revealed by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania and developed by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The authors conclude that the legislator is not empowered to delegate to the Judicial Council issues which are a matter of legal regulation and suggest possible solutions evaluating practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, and selected EU countries.

  1. Patient Perspectives on Sharing Anonymized Personal Health Data Using a Digital System for Dynamic Consent and Research Feedback: A Qualitative Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitley, Edgar A; Lund, David; Kaye, Jane

    2016-01-01

    Background Electronic health records are widely acknowledged to provide an important opportunity to anonymize patient-level health care data and collate across populations to support research. Nonetheless, in the wake of public and policy concerns about security and inappropriate use of data, conventional approaches toward data governance may no longer be sufficient to respect and protect individual privacy. One proposed solution to improve transparency and public trust is known as Dynamic Consent, which uses information technology to facilitate a more explicit and accessible opportunity to opt out. In this case, patients can tailor preferences about whom they share their data with and can change their preferences reliably at any time. Furthermore, electronic systems provide opportunities for informing patients about data recipients and the results of research to which their data have contributed. Objective To explore patient perspectives on the use of anonymized health care data for research purposes. To evaluate patient perceptions of a Dynamic Consent model and electronic system to enable and implement ongoing communication and collaboration between patients and researchers. Methods A total of 26 qualitative interviews and three focus groups were conducted that included a video presentation explaining the reuse of anonymized electronic patient records for research. Slides and tablet devices were used to introduce the Dynamic Consent system for discussion. A total of 35 patients with chronic rheumatic disease with varying levels of illness and social deprivation were recruited from a rheumatology outpatient clinic; 5 participants were recruited from a patient and public involvement health research network. Results Patients were supportive of sharing their anonymized electronic patient record for research, but noted a lack of transparency and awareness around the use of data, making it difficult to secure public trust. While there were general concerns about

  2. 7-year trajectories of Alcoholics Anonymous attendance and associations with treatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaskutas, Lee Ann; Bond, Jason; Avalos, Lyndsay Ammon

    2009-01-01

    Although many members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) are introduced to AA during treatment, the relationship between treatment and AA attendance over time is unknown. This paper describes four latent classes of AA attendance among 586 dependent alcoholics interviewed by telephone 1, 3, 5 and 7 years after baseline, and models the relationship between treatment exposure and AA attendance in each class. There was a low AA group (averaging fewer than 5 meetings at most follow-ups), a medium AA group (about 50 meetings a year at each follow-up), a descending AA group (about 150 meetings year 1, then decreasing steeply), and a high AA group (about 200 meetings at 1 year, then decreasing gradually by year 7). Declines in meeting attendance were not always accompanied by decreases in abstinence. After accounting for the effect of time on AA attendance (i.e., the “ups-and-downs” that occur over time), treatment exposure was minimally related to AA attendance in all but the descending AA group, where it was negatively associated (p<.001). Considering AA patterns over time highlights a different role for treatment in AA attendance than what is gleaned from analyses at single timepoints. PMID:19632789

  3. On the Anonymity Risk of Time-Varying User Profiles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Puglisi

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Websites and applications use personalisation services to profile their users, collect their patterns and activities and eventually use this data to provide tailored suggestions. User preferences and social interactions are therefore aggregated and analysed. Every time a user publishes a new post or creates a link with another entity, either another user, or some online resource, new information is added to the user profile. Exposing private data does not only reveal information about single users’ preferences, increasing their privacy risk, but can expose more about their network that single actors intended. This mechanism is self-evident in social networks where users receive suggestions based on their friends’ activities. We propose an information-theoretic approach to measure the differential update of the anonymity risk of time-varying user profiles. This expresses how privacy is affected when new content is posted and how much third-party services get to know about the users when a new activity is shared. We use actual Facebook data to show how our model can be applied to a real-world scenario.

  4. Finding God through the Spirituality of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeff Sandoz

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous has provided relief for individuals recovering from alcoholism for over 75 years. The key to the recovery process is a spiritual experience as the result of practicing the daily discipline of the 12 Steps, a process which evokes a psychic change sufficient to recover from this disease. Although a relatively new spiritual discipline, the 12 Step program is built upon a foundation of much older and more traditional paths to God including devotion, understanding, service and meditation. Recent research provides insights into the 12 Step program. Specifically, the path of recovery is highlighted by the reduction of resentment and the promotion of forgiveness which are key factors of recovery.

  5. Solutions to the new threats to academic freedom?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tooley, Michael

    2014-05-01

    In my commentary on Francesca Minerva's article 'New Threats to Academic Freedom', I agree with her contention that the existence of the Internet has given rise to new and very serious threats to academic freedom. I think that it is crucial that we confront those threats, and find ways to eliminate them, which I believe can be done. The threats in question involve both authors and editors. In the case of authors, I argue that the best solution is not anonymous publication, but publication using pseudonyms, and I describe how that would work. In the case of editors, my proposal is a website that a number of journals would have access to, where papers that editors judge to be clearly worthy of publication, but whose publication seems likely to set off a firestorm of public and media protest, could be published without any indication of the journal that had accepted the paper for publication. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  6. The Problem of Anonymity in Archives: A Literature Review=Arşivlerde Anonimlik Sorunu: Bir Literatür Değerlendirmesi

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emily Ross

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Archivists processing documents rely on factors such as authorship and provenance to contextualize their materials and render them searchable. But in my past experience as an archives user, I repeatedly came across instances of anonymity: letters and diaries by unnamed authors or to unknown recipients, photographs of unknown subjects. In some cases this anonymity is a loss of information that was once there, but in other case it enabled the material to come into existence in the first place: such as in the case of satirical political poetry, for which a writer might face legal censure. In this literature review, the issue of anonymity in the archives is explored, both in a pragmatic sense (recommended strategies for managing it, and a philosophical sense (according anonymous documents the same status as documents with known authors./Arşivcilikte belgelerin işlenmesi, materyallerin kavramsallaştırılması ve aranabilir hale gelmesinde önemli olan yazarlık ve kaynak (menşe gibi faktörlere dayanmaktadır. Ancak bir arşiv kullanıcısı olarak deneyimlerimizde defalarca isimsiz yazarlar tarafından bilinmeyen kişilere atfedilmiş mektuplar ve günlükler, bilinmeyen konuların fotoğrafları gibi anonim eserlerle karşılaşmaktayız. Bir zamanlar bu anonimlik bazen bir bilgi kaybı olarak görülürken bazen de belgenin yazarının yasal kınamaya maruz kalabildiği hicivli siyasi bir şiir örneğinde olduğu gibi eserin ilk etapta ortaya çıkmasını sağlamaktaydı. Bu literatür taramasında arşivlerde anonimlik sorunu hem pragmatik anlamda (konunun yönetimi için önerilen stratejiler hem de felsefi anlamda (anonim belgelere uygun olarak bilinen yazarlı belgelerle aynı statüde ele alınmaktadır.

  7. Anonymous body or first patient? A status report and needs assessment regarding the personalization of donors in dissection courses in German, Austrian, and Swiss Medical Schools.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasselblatt, Friederike; Messerer, David A C; Keis, Oliver; Böckers, Tobias M; Böckers, Anja

    2018-05-06

    Many Anglo-American universities have undertaken a paradigm shift in how the dissection of human material is approached, such that students are encouraged to learn about the lives of body donors, and to respectfully "personalize" them as human beings, rather than treating the specimens as anonymous cadavers. For the purposes of this study, this provision of limited personal information regarding the life of a body donor will be referred to as "personalization" of body donors. At this time, it is unknown whether this paradigm shift in the personalization of body donors can be translated into the German-speaking world. A shift from donor anonymity to donor personalization could strengthen students' perception of the donor as a "first patient," and thereby reinforce their ability to empathize with their future patients. Therefore, this study aimed to collect data about the current status of donation practices at German-speaking anatomy departments (n = 44) and to describe the opinions of anatomy departments, students (n = 366), and donors (n = 227) about possible donor personalization in medical education. Anatomy departments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland were invited to participate in an online questionnaire. One-tenth of registered donors at Ulm University were randomly selected and received a questionnaire (20 items, yes-no questions) by mail. Students at the University of Ulm were also surveyed at the end of the dissection course (31 items, six-point Likert-scale). The majority of students were interested in receiving additional information about their donors (78.1%). A majority of donors also supported the anonymous disclosure of information about their medical history (92.5%). However, this information is only available in about 28% of the departments surveyed and is communicated to the students only irregularly. Overall, 78% of anatomy departments were not in favor of undertaking donor personalization. The results appear to reflect

  8. Distributed Performance Measurement and Usability Assessment of the Tor Anonymization Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Steffen Kunz

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available While the Internet increasingly permeates everyday life of individuals around the world, it becomes crucial to prevent unauthorized collection and abuse of personalized information. Internet anonymization software such as Tor is an important instrument to protect online privacy. However, due to the performance overhead caused by Tor, many Internet users refrain from using it. This causes a negative impact on the overall privacy provided by Tor, since it depends on the size of the user community and availability of shared resources. Detailed measurements about the performance of Tor are crucial for solving this issue. This paper presents comparative experiments on Tor latency and throughput for surfing to 500 popular websites from several locations around the world during the period of 28 days. Furthermore, we compare these measurements to critical latency thresholds gathered from web usability research, including our own user studies. Our results indicate that without massive future optimizations of Tor performance, it is unlikely that a larger part of Internet users would adopt it for everyday usage. This leads to fewer resources available to the Tor community than theoretically possible, and increases the exposure of privacy-concerned individuals. Furthermore, this could lead to an adoption barrier of similar privacy-enhancing technologies for a Future Internet.

  9. Maintaining confidentiality in prospective studies: anonymous repeated measurements via email (ARME) procedure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carli, Vladimir; Hadlaczky, Gergö; Wasserman, Camilla; Stingelin-Giles, Nicola; Reiter-Theil, Stella; Wasserman, Danuta

    2012-02-01

    Respecting and protecting the confidentiality of data and the privacy of individuals regarding the information that they have given as participants in a research project is a cornerstone of complying with accepted research standards. However, in longitudinal studies, establishing and maintaining privacy is often challenging because of the necessity of repeated contact with participants. A novel internet-based solution is introduced here, which maintains privacy while at the same time ensures linkage of data to individual participants in a repeated measures design. With the use of the anonymous repeated measurements via email (ARME) procedure, two separate one-way communication systems are established through ad hoc email accounts and a secure study website. Strengths and limitations of the approach are discussed.

  10. Analysis of Drugs of Abuse in Anonymously Collected Urine and Soil samples from a Music Festival in Scandinavia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mardal, Marie; Ramin, Pedram; Plósz, Benedek G.

    Aim: Pooled human urine and soil from urinating spots were collected anonymously at a Scandinavian music festival. Samples should be screened for drugs of abuse, particularly novel psychoactive substances (NPS), but also therapeutic drugs and ethanol. Methods: Twenty-one urine samples were...... be detected besides several therapeutic drugs: cocaine (9), MDMA (7), sildenafil (2), ketamine (1), amphetamine (1), and oxycodone (1). Conclusions: NPS were detected neither in urine nor in soil samples. This might be due to low concentrations based on their negligible consumption at the studied festival...

  11. A Clustering K-Anonymity Privacy-Preserving Method for Wearable IoT Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fang Liu

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Wearable technology is one of the greatest applications of the Internet of Things. The popularity of wearable devices has led to a massive scale of personal (user-specific data. Generally, data holders (manufacturers of wearable devices are willing to share these data with others to get benefits. However, significant privacy concerns would arise when sharing the data with the third party in an improper manner. In this paper, we first propose a specific threat model about the data sharing process of wearable devices’ data. Then we propose a K-anonymity method based on clustering to preserve privacy of wearable IoT devices’ data and guarantee the usability of the collected data. Experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

  12. Alcoholics Anonymous and other mutual help organizations: Impact of a 45-minute didactic for primary care and categorical internal medicine residents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcovitz, David; Cristello, Julie V; Kelly, John F

    2017-01-01

    Substance use disorders (SUDs) are highly prevalent among primary care patients. One evidence-based, cost-effective referral option is ubiquitous mutual help organizations (MHOs) such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), and SMART Recovery; however, little is known about how to effectively increase trainee knowledge and confidence with these referrals. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate whether a single 45-minute combined lecture and role play-based didactic for primary care residents could enhance knowledge, improve attitudes, and bolster confidence in referring patients with addictions to community MHOs. The authors developed a 45-minute lecture and role play addressing the evidence for MHOs, their respective background/content, and how to make effective referrals. Participants were administered a brief survey of their MHO-related knowledge, attitudes, and confidence before and after the session to evaluate the didactic impact. Participants were 55 primary care and categorical internal medicine residents divided among postgraduate year 1 (PGY1; 27.3%), PGY2 (38.2%), and PGY3 (34.5%). They had a mean age of 29 (SD = 2.62); 49% were female, 69% were Caucasian, and 78% reported some religious affiliation. Participants' subjective knowledge about MHOs increased significantly (P didactic. Role play may be a useful supplementary tool in enhancing residents' knowledge and skill in treating patients with SUD.

  13. From anonymity to "open doors": IRB responses to tensions with researchers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klitzman, Robert

    2012-07-03

    Tensions between IRBs and researchers in the US and elsewhere have increased, and may affect whether, how, and to what degree researchers comply with ethical guidelines. Yet whether, how, when, and why IRBs respond to these conflicts have received little systematic attention. I contacted 60 US IRBs (every fourth one in the list of the top 240 institutions by NIH funding), and interviewed leaders from 34 (response rate = 55%) and an additional 12 members and administrators. IRBs often try to respond to tensions with researchers and improve relationships in several ways, but range widely in how, when, and to what degree (e.g., in formal and informal structure, content, and tone of interactions). IRBs varied from open and accessible to more distant and anonymous, and in the amount and type of "PR work" and outreach they do. Many boards seek to improve the quantity, quality, and helpfulness of communication with PIs, but differ in how. IRBs range in meetings from open to closed, and may have clinics and newsletters. Memos can vary in helpfulness and tone (e.g., using "charm"). IRBs range considerably, too, in the degrees to which they seek to educate PIs, showing them the underlying ethical principles. But these efforts take time and resources, and IRBs thus vary in degrees of responses to PI complaints. This study, the first to explore the mechanisms through which IRBs respond to tensions and interactions with PIs, suggests that these committees seek to respond to conflicts with PIs in varying ways - both formal and informal, involving both the form and content of communications. This study has important implications for future practice, research, and policy, suggesting needs for increased attention to not only what IRBs communicate to PIs, but how (i.e., the tone and the nature of interactions). IRBs can potentially improve relationships with PIs in several ways: using more "open doors" rather than anonymity, engaging in outreach (e.g., through clinics), enhancing

  14. Performance Evaluation of Fusing Protected Fingerprint Minutiae Templates on the Decision Level

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yang, Bian; Busch, C.; Groot, K. de; Xu, H.; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.

    In a biometric authentication system using protected templates, a pseudonymous identifier is the part of a protected template that can be directly compared. Each compared pair of pseudonymous identifiers results in a decision testing whether both identifiers are derived from the same biometric

  15. Performance evaluation of fusing protected fingerprint minutiae templates on the decision level

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yang, B.; Groot, K.T.J. de; Christoph Busch; Veldhuis, R.N.J.; Xu, H.

    2013-01-01

    In a biometric authentication system using protected templates, a pseudonymous identifier is the part of a protected template that can be directly compared. Each compared pair of pseudonymous identifiersresults in a decision testing whether both identifiers are derived from the same biometric

  16. Der Einfluss von Anonymität in der Lehrevaluation durch Studierende [The Effects of Anonymity on Student Ratings of Teaching and Course Quality in a Bachelor Degree Programme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Schaffner, Noemi

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available [english] Research Question: Are there any clear differences between the outcomes of anonymous and personalised student evaluations of teaching quality?Methods: During a two-year period students were randomly divided into two separate groups, “anonymous” and “personalised”, for end-of-module evaluations. The quality of the module was assessed using a standardised questionnaire. Additionally, students were given the option to add “further comments” if they wanted to highlight specifics.These optional comments were independently assessed by three people, using a five-dimensional rating instrument: positive/negative; differentiated/absolute; naming a person/general; containing an order/neutral; visually accentuated/blank.The database consisted of 615 evaluation forms, of which 306 were completed anonymously. In order to identify whether there were any differences between the anonymous and personalised data, a multivariate variance analysis was performed. Based on the scale, the answers to the questions and the quality of the comments were evaluated. Furthermore, an assessment was made to determine if there were any differences in the number of optional comments between the two groups. Results: No significant differences were identified in the informative quality of data between the anonymous and personalised student evaluations. However, students in the personalised group had a tendency to include more details in their written answers.Conclusion: Personalised evaluations do not generate more biased results in terms of social desirability, as long as the evaluation concept is characterised by a closed-circle process and is transparent. In other words, it is imperative that the outcomes of the evaluation are reported back to the students. Moreover, there has to be an opportunity for students to discuss any further suggestions and/or future desires in an open environment. In this way the students respect and understand that their feedback

  17. The Incompatibility of Pareto Optimality and Dominant-Strategy Incentive Compatibility in Sufficiently-Anonymous Budget-Constrained Quasilinear Settings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rica Gonen

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available We analyze the space of deterministic, dominant-strategy incentive compatible, individually rational and Pareto optimal combinatorial auctions. We examine a model with multidimensional types, nonidentical items, private values and quasilinear preferences for the players with one relaxation; the players are subject to publicly-known budget constraints. We show that the space includes dictatorial mechanisms and that if dictatorial mechanisms are ruled out by a natural anonymity property, then an impossibility of design is revealed. The same impossibility naturally extends to other abstract mechanisms with an arbitrary outcome set if one maintains the original assumptions of players with quasilinear utilities, public budgets and nonnegative prices.

  18. Duke Surgery Patient Safety: an open-source application for anonymous reporting of adverse and near-miss surgical events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pietrobon, Ricardo; Lima, Raquel; Shah, Anand; Jacobs, Danny O; Harker, Matthew; McCready, Mariana; Martins, Henrique; Richardson, William

    2007-05-01

    Studies have shown that 4% of hospitalized patients suffer from an adverse event caused by the medical treatment administered. Some institutions have created systems to encourage medical workers to report these adverse events. However, these systems often prove to be inadequate and/or ineffective for reviewing the data collected and improving the outcomes in patient safety. To describe the Web-application Duke Surgery Patient Safety, designed for the anonymous reporting of adverse and near-miss events as well as scheduled reporting to surgeons and hospital administration. SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE: DSPS was developed primarily using Java language running on a Tomcat server and with MySQL database as its backend. Formal and field usability tests were used to aid in development of DSPS. Extensive experience with DSPS at our institution indicate that DSPS is easy to learn and use, has good speed, provides needed functionality, and is well received by both adverse-event reporters and administrators. This is the first description of an open-source application for reporting patient safety, which allows the distribution of the application to other institutions in addition for its ability to adapt to the needs of different departments. DSPS provides a mechanism for anonymous reporting of adverse events and helps to administer Patient Safety initiatives. The modifiable framework of DSPS allows adherence to evolving national data standards. The open-source design of DSPS permits surgical departments with existing reporting mechanisms to integrate them with DSPS. The DSPS application is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

  19. Entre o controle e o ativismo hacker: a ação política dos Anonymous Brasil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Murilo Bansi Machado

    Full Text Available Resumo Este trabalho trata da ação política dos Anonymous, principal expressão do ativismo hacker atual, argumentando que o hacktivismo se configura como uma forma de resistência política nas sociedades de controle. Para isso, centra-se no estudo da faceta brasileira e hacktivista do coletivo. A fim de ressaltar seu caráter político, recorre às principais expressões dohacking na literatura. Descreve motivações, métodos e a ética de sua ação política, tendo como base uma análise comparativa de duas operações deflagradas por Anonymous brasileiros em 2012: #OpWeeksPayment e #OpGlobo. Por fim, identifica quatro de suas principais formas de engajamento político: promoção do anonimato; “evangelização”; formação de redes distribuídas; e o fato de o coletivo exibir e possibilitar várias formas de ações políticas.

  20. Cardinality Estimation Algorithm in Large-Scale Anonymous Wireless Sensor Networks

    KAUST Repository

    Douik, Ahmed

    2017-08-30

    Consider a large-scale anonymous wireless sensor network with unknown cardinality. In such graphs, each node has no information about the network topology and only possesses a unique identifier. This paper introduces a novel distributed algorithm for cardinality estimation and topology discovery, i.e., estimating the number of node and structure of the graph, by querying a small number of nodes and performing statistical inference methods. While the cardinality estimation allows the design of more efficient coding schemes for the network, the topology discovery provides a reliable way for routing packets. The proposed algorithm is shown to produce a cardinality estimate proportional to the best linear unbiased estimator for dense graphs and specific running times. Simulation results attest the theoretical results and reveal that, for a reasonable running time, querying a small group of nodes is sufficient to perform an estimation of 95% of the whole network. Applications of this work include estimating the number of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor devices, online social users, active protein cells, etc.

  1. Comparing Acceptance and Commitment Group Therapy and 12-Steps Narcotics Anonymous in Addict’s Rehabilitation Process: A Randomized Controlled Trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manoochehr Azkhosh

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Substance abuse is a socio-psychological disorder. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy with 12-steps Narcotics Anonymous on psychological well-being of opiate dependent individuals in addiction treatment centers in Shiraz, Iran.Method: This was a randomized controlled trial. Data were collected at entry into the study and at post-test and follow-up visits. The participants were selected from opiate addicted individuals who referred to addiction treatment centers in Shiraz. Sixty individuals were evaluated according to inclusion/ exclusion criteria and were divided into three equal groups randomly (20 participants per group. One group received acceptance and commitment group therapy (Twelve 90-minute sessions and the other group was provided with the 12-steps Narcotics Anonymous program and the control group received the usual methadone maintenance treatment. During the treatment process, seven participants dropped out. Data were collected using the psychological well-being questionnaire and AAQ questionnaire in the three groups at pre-test, post-test and follow-up visits. Data were analyzed using repeated measure analysis of variance.Results: Repeated measure analysis of variance revealed that the mean difference between the three groups was significant (P<0.05 and that acceptance and commitment therapy group showed improvement relative to the NA and control groups on psychological well-being and psychological flexibility.Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that acceptance and commitment therapy can be helpful in enhancing positive emotions and increasing psychological well-being of addicts who seek treatment.

  2. Cryptanalysis and Enhancement of Anonymity Preserving Remote User Mutual Authentication and Session Key Agreement Scheme for E-Health Care Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amin, Ruhul; Islam, S K Hafizul; Biswas, G P; Khan, Muhammad Khurram; Li, Xiong

    2015-11-01

    The E-health care systems employ IT infrastructure for maximizing health care resources utilization as well as providing flexible opportunities to the remote patient. Therefore, transmission of medical data over any public networks is necessary in health care system. Note that patient authentication including secure data transmission in e-health care system is critical issue. Although several user authentication schemes for accessing remote services are available, their security analysis show that none of them are free from relevant security attacks. We reviewed Das et al.'s scheme and demonstrated their scheme lacks proper protection against several security attacks such as user anonymity, off-line password guessing attack, smart card theft attack, user impersonation attack, server impersonation attack, session key discloser attack. In order to overcome the mentioned security pitfalls, this paper proposes an anonymity preserving remote patient authentication scheme usable in E-health care systems. We then validated the security of the proposed scheme using BAN logic that ensures secure mutual authentication and session key agreement. We also presented the experimental results of the proposed scheme using AVISPA software and the results ensure that our scheme is secure under OFMC and CL-AtSe models. Moreover, resilience of relevant security attacks has been proved through both formal and informal security analysis. The performance analysis and comparison with other schemes are also made, and it has been found that the proposed scheme overcomes the security drawbacks of the Das et al.'s scheme and additionally achieves extra security requirements.

  3. From anonymity to “open doors”: IRB responses to tensions with researchers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Klitzman Robert

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Tensions between IRBs and researchers in the US and elsewhere have increased, and may affect whether, how, and to what degree researchers comply with ethical guidelines. Yet whether, how, when, and why IRBs respond to these conflicts have received little systematic attention. Findings I contacted 60 US IRBs (every fourth one in the list of the top 240 institutions by NIH funding, and interviewed leaders from 34 (response rate = 55% and an additional 12 members and administrators. IRBs often try to respond to tensions with researchers and improve relationships in several ways, but range widely in how, when, and to what degree (e.g., in formal and informal structure, content, and tone of interactions. IRBs varied from open and accessible to more distant and anonymous, and in the amount and type of “PR work” and outreach they do. Many boards seek to improve the quantity, quality, and helpfulness of communication with PIs, but differ in how. IRBs range in meetings from open to closed, and may have clinics and newsletters. Memos can vary in helpfulness and tone (e.g., using “charm”. IRBs range considerably, too, in the degrees to which they seek to educate PIs, showing them the underlying ethical principles. But these efforts take time and resources, and IRBs thus vary in degrees of responses to PI complaints. Conclusions This study, the first to explore the mechanisms through which IRBs respond to tensions and interactions with PIs, suggests that these committees seek to respond to conflicts with PIs in varying ways – both formal and informal, involving both the form and content of communications. This study has important implications for future practice, research, and policy, suggesting needs for increased attention to not only what IRBs communicate to PIs, but how (i.e., the tone and the nature of interactions. IRBs can potentially improve relationships with PIs in several ways: using more “open doors” rather

  4. A uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Ya-Fen; Yu, Shih-Hui; Shiao, Ding-Rui

    2013-04-01

    Connected health care provides new opportunities for improving financial and clinical performance. Many connected health care applications such as telecare medicine information system, personally controlled health records system, and patient monitoring have been proposed. Correct and quality care is the goal of connected heath care, and user authentication can ensure the legality of patients. After reviewing authentication schemes for connected health care applications, we find that many of them cannot protect patient privacy such that others can trace users/patients by the transmitted data. And the verification tokens used by these authentication schemes to authenticate users or servers are only password, smart card and RFID tag. Actually, these verification tokens are not unique and easy to copy. On the other hand, biometric characteristics, such as iris, face, voiceprint, fingerprint and so on, are unique, easy to be verified, and hard to be copied. In this paper, a biometrics-based user authentication scheme will be proposed to ensure uniqueness and anonymity at the same time. With the proposed scheme, only the legal user/patient himself/herself can access the remote server, and no one can trace him/her according to transmitted data.

  5. Patterns and correlates of Gamblers Anonymous attendance in pathological gamblers seeking professional treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petry, Nancy M

    2003-08-01

    Although Gamblers Anonymous (GA) is a popular intervention for gamblers, many attendees later present for professional treatment. This study evaluated gambling and psychosocial problems in individuals seeking professional treatment for gambling and compared those with and without a history of GA attendance. At intake to treatment, 342 pathological gamblers completed the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) and South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). Fifty-four percent attended GA previously. Compared to non-GA attendees, GA attendees were older, had higher incomes, and were less likely to be single. They had higher SOGS scores, more years of gambling problems, and larger debts. GA attendees also had more serious family conflicts and less serious drug problems. Individuals with a history of GA attendance were more likely to be abstinent from gambling 2 months after treatment initiation. Logistic regression revealed that the number of professional sessions and GA meetings attended during treatment was independently associated with short-term abstinence. These data suggest that individuals entering professional treatment for gambling with a history of GA attendance differ from those who do not, and these differences may impact treatment recommendations and outcomes.

  6. Evolution of the Schoolmarm Stereotype: The Impact of the Feminization of Education on Two Male Teacher Cadets

    Science.gov (United States)

    McClanahan, Constance Stolark

    2012-01-01

    The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of two male students and their teacher who participated in a Teacher Cadet Program over the 2010-2011 academic year. The qualitative case study took place at the Royal Fern High School (RFHS) (pseudonym) in Cypress Grove County (pseudonym), located outside of Charleston, SC. The…

  7. An anonymous survey of psychosomatic medicine fellowship directors regarding breaches of contracts and a proposal for prevention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levenson, James L; Bialer, Philip

    2010-01-01

    The authors studied how often applicants accept positions at more than one program, or programs offer positions to applicants who have already signed contracts with other programs. An anonymous survey was distributed to all psychosomatic medicine fellowship program directors. It is fairly common for applicants to sign contracts for fellowship positions and then back out of the contracts. Only one program reported ever knowingly offering a contract to an applicant who had accepted a position elsewhere. Programs are divided over whether there are extenuating circumstances under which it would be acceptable to offer a position to an applicant who has already signed a contract with another program. Guidelines for fellowship programs that do not use the National Resident Match Program can improve the recruitment process.

  8. Holistic Privacy-Preserving Identity Management System for the Internet of Things

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jorge Bernal Bernabe

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Security and privacy concerns are becoming an important barrier for large scale adoption and deployment of the Internet of Things. To address this issue, the identity management system defined herein provides a novel holistic and privacy-preserving solution aiming to cope with heterogeneous scenarios that requires both traditional online access control and authentication, along with claim-based approach for M2M (machine to machine interactions required in IoT. It combines a cryptographic approach for claim-based authentication using the Idemix anonymous credential system, together with classic IdM mechanisms by relying on the FIWARE IdM (Keyrock. This symbiosis endows the IdM system with advanced features such as privacy-preserving, minimal disclosure, zero-knowledge proofs, unlikability, confidentiality, pseudonymity, strong authentication, user consent, and offline M2M transactions. The IdM system has been specially tailored for the Internet of Things bearing in mind the management of both users’ and smart objects’ identity. Moreover, the IdM system has been successfully implemented, deployed, and tested in the scope of SocIoTal European research project.

  9. An Analysis of the Privacy Threat in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks due to Radio Frequency Fingerprinting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gianmarco Baldini

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs used in the road transportation sector, privacy risks may arise because vehicles could be tracked on the basis of the information transmitted by the Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I communications implemented with the Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC standards operating at 5.9 GHz. Various techniques have been proposed in the literature to mitigate these privacy risks including the use of pseudonym schemes, but they are mostly focused on data anonymization at the network and application layer. At the physical layer, the capability to accurately identify and fingerprint wireless devices through their radio frequency (RF emissions has been demonstrated in the literature. This capability may generate a privacy threat because vehicles can be tracked using the RF emissions of their DSRC devices. This paper investigates the privacy risks related to RF fingerprinting to determine if privacy breaches are feasible in practice. In particular, this paper analyzes the tracking accuracy in challenging RF environments with high attenuation and fading.

  10. Finding erotic oases: locating the sites of men's same-sex anonymous sexual encounters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tewksbury, Richard

    2008-01-01

    Because anonymous sexual relations between two men are widely considered deviant many men seeking such activities look to erotic oases-natural environments appropriated for covert, often furtive sexual purposes. Previous research on erotic oases has focused on characteristics of involved men and processes of locating, negotiating with, and consummating sexual relations with others. This study draws on one major Web site listing of "cruising places" in the United States to identify common locations for erotic oases. Results show that the most common locations identified as erotic oases by users are public parks, adult bookstores, health clubs, and college campuses. Locations most likely to be listed as believed to be under law enforcement surveillance are outdoor, high traffic locations. Based on these results existing research has only begun to examine the most common locations for this highly stigmatized, deviant behavior and subculture.

  11. 20 Questions of Gamblers Anonymous: A Psychometric Study with Population of Spain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ursua, María Prieto; Uribelarrea, Luis Llavona

    1998-01-01

    The authors present a psychometric study of the questionnaire proposed by the Gamblers Anonymous organization for the self-assessment of problem gambling. The study was carried out in Spain with two samples: one of 127 problem gamblers (mean age: 41.67; sex: 78.7% men; mean duration of the problem: 5 years) and the other of 142 social gamblers (mean age: 38.46; sex: 60% men). The questionnaire was self-applied, in the presence of one of the investigators in case any doubts arose. The results indicate that it is a good screening instrument, with high reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.94), good covergent validity (the correlation with the SOGS questionnaire is high (r = 0.94; p < 0.001)), good factorial validity (the questionnaire's structure is unidimensional and coherent (just one factor explains more than 50% of the variance)), and its discriminative power is high (diagnostic efficacy = 98.88%). The study offers a comparative analysis of this instrument with other measures of problem gambling, emphasizing its extraordinary performance.

  12. Psychosocial factors related to gambling abstinence and relapse in members of gamblers anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oei, Tian P S; Gordon, Leon M

    2008-03-01

    Problem gamblers account for almost one-third of the industry's total revenue with the adverse effects of problem gambling including significant financial loss, legal and occupational difficulties, family problems, psychological distress and suicide. As such, it is important to understand the influential factors in gambling abstinence and relapse, which will assist in the development of relapse prevention methods in therapeutic treatment regimes. This paper reported the role of a set of seven predictors in distinguishing between abstinent and relapsed gamblers among 75 Gambling Anonymous (GA) members (55 males; 20 females; Mean age 45 years) in Southeast Queensland. The measures taken were meeting Attendance and Participation, Social Support, God Belief, Belief in a Higher Power, Working the 12-steps of Recovery, Gambling Urges and Erroneous Cognitions. Discriminant analysis revealed that the variables separating the two groups were significant, suggesting that GA members achieving abstinence could be distinguished from those who relapsed, with Attendance and Participation, and Social Support contributing the greatest influence on member's ability to abstain from gambling. The findings suggested that GA member's involvement in meetings, and support from family and friends had significant impact on their gambling abstinence. In contrast, increased gambling urges and erroneous cognitions increased the chance of relapse.

  13. Gamblers Anonymous as a Recovery Pathway: A Scoping Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuler, Andrée; Ferentzy, Peter; Turner, Nigel E; Skinner, Wayne; McIsaac, Kathryn E; Ziegler, Carolyn P; Matheson, Flora I

    2016-12-01

    Given the preponderance of Gamblers Anonymous (GA), there has been relatively little effort to explore the existing evidence base on its effectiveness as a recovery approach for problem gambling. To remedy this gap in the literature we conducted a scoping review of the literature on mutual aid for individuals experiencing problem gambling published between 2002 and 2015. We searched 13 databases and reviewed reference lists and websites of relevant organizations. We reviewed records for eligibility and extracted relevant data from eligible articles. Three reviewers independently assessed the methodological quality of the included studies using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. We identified 17 studies in 25 publications that were eligible for inclusion. Most studies were conducted in the United States, were cross-sectional in design, and involved both male and female adult participants. Results indicate that the evidence for the effectiveness of GA either as a control condition or in conjunction with formal treatment or medication is inconsistent. An emphasis on patience, using the Serenity Prayer as a way to gain acceptance of financial matters and reality, and absolute assertion of identity as a "compulsive gambler" were identified as important aspects of GA's recovery culture. There is a need for large-scale randomized controlled trials to determine GA's effectiveness, as well as research exploring the mechanisms through which GA works, barriers to GA as a recovery approach, and the status of women in the fellowship.

  14. Safe2Tell® : an anonymous, 24/7 reporting system for preventing school violence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Payne, Susan R T; Elliott, Delbert S

    2011-01-01

    There is widespread agreement that many school shootings could be prevented if authorities were informed that a student was planning or preparing to carry out an attack. A universal problem is that young people are highly reluctant to report on their peers. This code of silence represents a major barrier to prevention efforts. In response to the Columbine shooting, the state of Colorado established the Safe2Tell® anonymous, 24/7 reporting system for receiving and forwarding threats of violence, bullying, and other concerns. This article describes how the program has grown to the point that it now receives more than 100 calls per month. A series of case examples illustrates its success in responding to threatening situations, including twenty-eight potential school attacks. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company.

  15. Authenticated Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement Scheme that Protects Client Anonymity and Achieves Half-Forward Secrecy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hung-Yu Chien

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Authenticated Diffie-Hellman key agreement (D-H key is the de facto building block for establishing secure session keys in many security systems. Regarding the computations of authenticated D-H key agreement, the operation of modular exponentiation is the most expensive computation, which incurs a heavy loading on those clients where either their computational capacities or their batteries are limited and precious. As client’s privacy is a big concern in several e-commerce applications, it is desirable to extend authenticated D-H key agreement to protect client’s identity privacy. This paper proposes a new problem: the modified elliptic curves computational Diffie-Hellman problem (MECDHP and proves that the MECDHP is as hard as the conventional elliptic curves computational Diffie-Hellman problem (ECDHP. Based on the MECDHP, we propose an authenticated D-H key agreement scheme which greatly improves client computational efficiency and protects client’s anonymity from outsiders. This new scheme is attractive to those applications where the clients need identity protection and lightweight computation.

  16. Fault lines in forensic medical toxicology in Ireland exposed through replies of pathologists and coroners to anonymous questionnaires.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tormey, William P; Borovickova, Ingrid; Moore, Tara M

    2014-01-01

    The attitudes and experiences of pathologists and coroners to the provision of biochemical forensic toxicology in the Republic of Ireland were determined using separate questionnaires to each group anonymously. Replies were received from 36/88 (41%) of pathologists and 19/71 (27%) of coroners. 37% of coroners considered that histopathologists give an adequate opinion in forensic toxicology yet 58% of pathologists reported that they did not have adequate access to expert medical interpretative toxicological opinion. For drug-drug interactions and metabolic diseases, 69% of pathologists were unhappy with the processes and 68% of coroner replies did not know if vitreous samples were used appropriately. There is a clear requirement for retraining of coroners and for the appointment of medical toxicology expertise to improve the quality of service for coroners.

  17. Humility and 12-Step Recovery: A Prolegomenon for the Empirical Investigation of a Cardinal Virtue in Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Post, Stephen G; Pagano, Maria E; Lee, Matthew T; Johnson, Byron R

    Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) offers a live stage to study how humility is worn by thousands for another day of sobriety and more freedom from the bondage of self. It has been the coauthors' intent to emphasize the significance of humility as a cardinal virtue across the 12-Step program and as essential to all its key elements. The coauthors have placed this emphasis in the context of a wider theological history of thought as this converged on Bill W. and AA. In addition, the coauthors have offered a constructive developmental interpretation of the 12 Steps that relies on a model of four modulations of humility. Finally, the coauthors have reviewed in brief some approaches to the measurement of humility in this context, and suggest several aims for future research.

  18. [Preliminary results of an anonymous internet-based reporting system for critical incidents in ambulatory primary care].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brun, A

    2005-03-01

    To learn from errors is not always easy, especially if they happened to others! This paper describes the organization and management of a critical incident reporting system for primary care physicians in Switzerland and reports about the difficulties and experiences during the first 18 months since the start of the program. It seems to be particularly difficult to enhance the attentiveness of physicians for apparently harmless daily critical incidents and to motivate them to report it even in an anonymous reporting system. As incentives for more intensive participation there are the hope for comments on reported cases by other participants and the expectation that reported errors will be avoided by the readers.

  19. Determining the relative importance of the mechanisms of behavior change within Alcoholics Anonymous: a multiple mediator analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, John F; Hoeppner, Bettina; Stout, Robert L; Pagano, Maria

    2012-02-01

    Evidence indicates that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) participation reduces relapse risk but less is known about the mechanisms through which AA confers this benefit. Initial studies indicate self-efficacy, negative affect, adaptive social networks and spiritual practices are mediators of this effect, but because these have been tested in isolation, their relative importance remains elusive. This study tested multiple mediators simultaneously to help determine the most influential pathways. Prospective, statistically controlled, naturalistic investigation examined the extent to which these previously identified mechanisms mediated AA attendance effects on alcohol outcomes controlling for baseline outcome values, mediators, treatment, and other confounders. Nine clinical sites within the United States. Adults (n = 1726) suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) initially enrolled in a randomized study with two arms: aftercare (n = 774); and out-patient (n = 952) comparing three out-patient treatments (Project MATCH). AA attendance during treatment; mediators at 9 months; and outcomes [percentage of days abstinent (PDA) and drinks per drinking day (DDD)] at 15 months. Among out-patients the effect of AA attendance on alcohol outcomes was explained primarily by adaptive social network changes and increases in social abstinence self-efficacy. Among more impaired aftercare patients, in addition to mediation through adaptive network changes and increases in social self-efficacy, AA lead to better outcomes through increasing spirituality/religiosity and by reducing negative affect. The degree to which mediators explained the relationship between AA and outcomes ranged from 43% to 67%. While Alcoholics Anonymous facilitates recovery by mobilizing several processes simultaneously, it is changes in social factors which appear to be of primary importance. © 2011 The Authors, Addiction © 2011 Society for the Study of Addiction.

  20. [Reticulate evolution of parthenogenetic species of the Lacertidae rock lizards: inheritance of CLsat tandem repeats and anonymous RAPD markers].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chobanu, D; Rudykh, I A; Riabinina, N L; Grechko, V V; Kramerov, D A; Darevskiĭ, I S

    2002-01-01

    The genetic relatedness of several bisexual and of four unisexual "Lacerta saxicola complex" lizards was studied, using monomer sequences of the complex-specific CLsat tandem repeats and anonymous RAPD markers. Genomes of parthenospecies were shown to include different satellite monomers. The structure of each such monomer is specific for a certain pair of bisexual species. This fact might be interpreted in favor of co-dominant inheritance of these markers in bisexual species hybridogenesis. This idea is supported by the results obtained with RAPD markers; i.e., unisexual species genomes include only the loci characteristic of certain bisexual species. At the same time, in neither case parthenospecies possess specific, autoapomorphic loci that were not present in this or that bisexual species.

  1. Alcoholics Anonymous and twelve-step recovery: a model based on social and cognitive neuroscience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galanter, Marc

    2014-01-01

    In the course of achieving abstinence from alcohol, longstanding members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) typically experience a change in their addiction-related attitudes and behaviors. These changes are reflective of physiologically grounded mechanisms which can be investigated within the disciplines of social and cognitive neuroscience. This article is designed to examine recent findings associated with these disciplines that may shed light on the mechanisms underlying this change. Literature review and hypothesis development. Pertinent aspects of the neural impact of drugs of abuse are summarized. After this, research regarding specific brain sites, elucidated primarily by imaging techniques, is reviewed relative to the following: Mirroring and mentalizing are described in relation to experimentally modeled studies on empathy and mutuality, which may parallel the experiences of social interaction and influence on AA members. Integration and retrieval of memories acquired in a setting like AA are described, and are related to studies on storytelling, models of self-schema development, and value formation. A model for ascription to a Higher Power is presented. The phenomena associated with AA reflect greater complexity than the empirical studies on which this article is based, and certainly require further elucidation. Despite this substantial limitation in currently available findings, there is heuristic value in considering the relationship between the brain-based and clinical phenomena described here. There are opportunities for the study of neuroscientific correlates of Twelve-Step-based recovery, and these can potentially enhance our understanding of related clinical phenomena. © American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

  2. Serbs in the poetry of Theodore Prodromos and anonymous Manganeios

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stanković Vlada

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Numerous rhetorical writings of the Comnenian period constitute a fruitful field of research, both with respect to historical data, i.e. hard historical facts hidden, though still recognizable, behind the peculiar and somewhat abstract mode of expression of the authors of the twelfth century, and with regard to the poetics of the literary works themselves, i.e. the internal elements characteristic not only for the genre chosen, but also for each particular author. A comparative, historical and literary approach to these works renders their sense clearer and their complex allusions more readily understood. This is a matter of some importance, since allusions constitute one of the basic elements of historical rhetoric, which reached its peak at the time of Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180, especially during the first half of his reign, i.e. till the end of the fifties of the twelfth century. The poetry of Theodore Prodromes and of the somewhat younger Anonymous ('Prodromos' Manganeios is an excellent example of this intertwining of historical and literary elements, i.e. of the presentation of historical data through rhetorical patterns. One has to concentrate on individual works attempting to determine, as far as possible, the date of composition, the circumstances of writing and the purpose of a particular poem, the occasion for which it was written and the character of the expected audience, in order to better understand both the poetry written by these two rhetoricians and the individual features of the authors, as well as their respective positions in the circle around Emperor Manuel Komnenos. The poems dealt with in the present paper stand out for calling the Serbs by their real name. This naming practice was invariably employed by both rhetoricians in cases when new achievements of the basileus were to be announced and proclaimed immediately after the event, on the occasions of first reports, first celebrations of the new victories and

  3. Prospective parents' intentions regarding disclosure following the removal of donor anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crawshaw, Marilyn

    2008-06-01

    This short survey of UK infertility counsellors was designed to determine whether the removal of donor anonymity resulted in noticeable changes in prospective parents' stated intentions regarding disclosure of their origins to any children conceived through donor conception. Members of the British Infertility Counselling Association working in Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) -- licensed centres, before and after the legal changes, were sent a short questionnaire that included space for free comments (take-up: 62%). Three-quarters reported changes. Of these, two-thirds said prospective parents were more likely to say they would disclose, while less than a tenth said prospective parents were less likely do so. Where no changes were noted, this was primarily because the majority of prospective parents had stated their intention to be open even prior to the legal changes. Possible influences on intentions included: the culture within the centre, moves towards openness within the wider society, and parents' lack of confidence regarding how to go about disclosure. Follow-up studies are needed to improve understanding of whether influences on decision making carry through to patterns of actual disclosure; whether involvement in counselling affects outcomes; and whether access to professional assistance at the time of planned disclosure is helpful.

  4. Homophily in an Anonymous Online Community: Sociodemographic Versus Personality Traits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kang, Jeong-Han; Chung, Da Young

    2017-06-01

    In what traits do people interact with others who are similar to them in completely anonymous online communication? Can those traits contribute to greater exchange of opinion and information across the sociodemographic boundaries that often limit interaction between social strata? To answer this question concerning online homophily, we combined survey data on 7,287 users (aged 18 and above) of a Korean online dating advice platform with their behavioral data from June 2015 to August 2015 and explored whether advice exchange occurred between users with similar sociodemographic and personality traits. On this platform, two types of interactions occurred as follows: (1) responses to a randomly distributed problem submitted by an advice seeker and (2) the seeker's indication of approval of any of the responses given. The study found that (1) a receiver was more likely to respond to problems submitted by seekers of a comparable age and that (2) seekers were more likely to approve of a response if the seeker and receiver had similar educational backgrounds. By contrast, homophily based on personality traits was not observed even though some personality traits significantly affected the likelihood of both response and approval. Our findings suggest that online communication may breed sociodemographic homophily, whether based on age or education, more than expected or intended while not easily fostering alternative forms of homophily, such as personality homophily, which can potentially cut across borders dividing sociodemographic groups.

  5. A secure user anonymity-preserving three-factor remote user authentication scheme for the telecare medicine information systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Das, Ashok Kumar

    2015-03-01

    Recent advanced technology enables the telecare medicine information system (TMIS) for the patients to gain the health monitoring facility at home and also to access medical services over the Internet of mobile networks. Several remote user authentication schemes have been proposed in the literature for TMIS. However, most of them are either insecure against various known attacks or they are inefficient. Recently, Tan proposed an efficient user anonymity preserving three-factor authentication scheme for TMIS. In this paper, we show that though Tan's scheme is efficient, it has several security drawbacks such as (1) it fails to provide proper authentication during the login phase, (2) it fails to provide correct updation of password and biometric of a user during the password and biometric update phase, and (3) it fails to protect against replay attack. In addition, Tan's scheme lacks the formal security analysis and verification. Later, Arshad and Nikooghadam also pointed out some security flaws in Tan's scheme and then presented an improvement on Tan's s scheme. However, we show that Arshad and Nikooghadam's scheme is still insecure against the privileged-insider attack through the stolen smart-card attack, and it also lacks the formal security analysis and verification. In order to withstand those security loopholes found in both Tan's scheme, and Arshad and Nikooghadam's scheme, we aim to propose an effective and more secure three-factor remote user authentication scheme for TMIS. Our scheme provides the user anonymity property. Through the rigorous informal and formal security analysis using random oracle models and the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool, we show that our scheme is secure against various known attacks, including the replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. Furthermore, our scheme is also efficient as compared to other related schemes.

  6. Rejection of unfair offers can be driven by negative emotions, evidence from modified ultimatum games with anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Ning; Li, Nan; He, Xiao-Song; Sun, De-Lin; Zhang, Xiaochu; Zhang, Da-Ren

    2012-01-01

    The rejection of unfair offers can be affected by both negative emotions (e.g. anger and moral disgust) and deliberate cognitive processing of behavioral consequences (e.g. concerns of maintaining social fairness and protecting personal reputation). However, whether negative emotions are sufficient to motivate this behavior is still controversial. With modified ultimatum games, a recent study (Yamagishi T, et al. (2009) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106:11520-11523) found that people reject unfair offers even when this behavior increases inequity, and even when they could not communicate to the proposers. Yamagishi suggested that rejection of unfair offers could occur without people's concerning of maintaining social fairness, and could be driven by negative emotions. However, as anonymity was not sufficiently guaranteed in Yamagishi's study, the rejection rates in their experiments may have been influenced by people's concerns of protecting personal reputation (reputational concerns) in addition to negative emotions; thus, it was unclear whether the rejection was driven by negative emotions, or by reputational concerns, or both. In the present study, with specific methods to ensure anonymity, the effect of reputational concerns was successfully ruled out. We found that in a private situation in which rejection could not be driven by reputational concerns, the rejection rates of unfair offers were significantly larger than zero, and in public situations in which rejection rates could be influenced by both negative emotions and reputational concerns, rejection rates were significantly higher than that in the private situation. These results, together with Yamagishi's findings, provided more complete evidence suggesting (a) that the rejection of unfair offers can be driven by negative emotions and (b) that deliberate cognitive processing of the consequences of the behavior can increase the rejection rate, which may benefit social cooperation.

  7. Anonymity, ethics and credibility in the blogosphere and on Twitter: gastronomic criticism in “Alhos, passas & maçãs” and in @carapuceiro

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renata Maria do Amaral

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This article intends to understand the anonymous restaurant critic currently made on the Internet, based on the cases of the Alhos, passas & maçãs blog and the @carapuceiro Twitter. Before considered as personal diaries or means of communication among friends, today blogs and social networks have no limits – and, when used to criticize restaurants negatively, its impact reaches unpremeditated boundaries, including reactions of chefs and journalists themselves. At the same time that these tools extend the possibilities of subjective comments written by ordinary people, without a degree in journalism, the press loses credibility by choosing to criticize in a courteous way, submitting itself to the invitations sent by press offices and to the “cordial journalism”.

  8. Frequency and risk factors for donor reactions in an anonymous blood donor survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldman, Mindy; Osmond, Lori; Yi, Qi-Long; Cameron-Choi, Keltie; O'Brien, Sheila F

    2013-09-01

    Adverse donor reactions can result in injury and decrease the likelihood of donor return. Reaction reports captured in the blood center's database provide an incomplete picture of reaction rates and risk factors. We performed an anonymous survey, mailed to 40,000 donors in 2008, including questions about symptoms, height, weight, sex, and donation status. Reaction rates were compared to those recorded in our database. Possible risk factors were assessed for various reactions. The response rate was 45.5%. A total of 32% of first-time and 14% of repeat donors reported having any adverse symptom, most frequently bruising (84.9 per 1000 donors) or feeling faint or weak (66.2 per 1000). Faint reactions were two to eight times higher than reported in our database, although direct comparison was difficult. Younger age, female sex, and first-time donation status were risk factors for systemic and arm symptoms. In females, low estimated blood volume (EBV) was a risk factor for systemic symptoms. Only 51% of donors who consulted an outside physician also called Canadian Blood Services. A total of 10% of first-time donors with reactions found adverse effects information inadequate. This study allowed us to collect more information about adverse reactions, including minor symptoms and delayed reactions. Based on our findings of the risk factors and frequency of adverse reactions, we are implementing more stringent EBV criteria for younger donors and providing more detailed information to donors about possible adverse effects and their management. © 2012 American Association of Blood Banks.

  9. Personalized Pseudonyms for Servers in the Cloud

    OpenAIRE

    Xiao Qiuyu; Reiter Michael K.; Zhang Yinqian

    2017-01-01

    A considerable and growing fraction of servers, especially of web servers, is hosted in compute clouds. In this paper we opportunistically leverage this trend to improve privacy of clients from network attackers residing between the clients and the cloud: We design a system that can be deployed by the cloud operator to prevent a network adversary from determining which of the cloud’s tenant servers a client is accessing. The core innovation in our design is a PoPSiCl (pronounced “popsicle”), ...

  10. Fictional Marriage Proposal of Anonymous Astrakhan Khan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roman Hautala

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The following text is reproduced from a handwritten copy of the letter made by the Italian humanist Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601 and contained in one codex of Ambrosiana Library in Milan (R 104 sup., fol. 194r [see the description of the codex in: 3, no. 341. p. 125]. This codex (588 folios contains Italian and Latin texts of the 16th century of extremely diverse content, which does not allow to determe neither the name of the author of the reproduced letter, nor the date of its writing. Nevertheless, a reference to the name of “Luther” in the letter suggests that it must have been written in the 16th century and an indication of the main purpose of the letter – matchmaking to anonymous queen – makes it possible to put forward quite a bold (but, for now, unproven hypothesis that this letter might be addressed to approximates of the Polish Queen Bona Sforza and the widow of King Sigismund I the Old starting with the April 1, 1548. Following this hypothesis, the alleged author of the letter could be the ruler of Astrakhan Yamgurchi or the Crimean khan Sahib Giray. However, this assumption remains only a hypothesis, and the author of this article hopes that future researchers will be able to identify both the author of the letter and its recipients. Be that as it may, this letter is of undoubtedly fictitious character since it does not indicate the name of its author and the date of writing and obviously differs from official form of the Tatar rulers’ letters. Undoubtedly, this letter refers to the literary genre of fictional letters of the rulers, which became extremely popular in Europe since the second half of the 15th century. As an illustration of this genre, the author of this article presents a “letter” of the Turkish sultan to the Tatars and their “response” from the fictional collection of “Letters of the Great Turk” [1, fol. 18r] of Laudivius Hierosolymitanus, which was a relatively widespread in Europe in the

  11. Identifying seasonal mobility profiles from anonymized and aggregated mobile phone data. Application in food security.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zufiria, Pedro J; Pastor-Escuredo, David; Úbeda-Medina, Luis; Hernandez-Medina, Miguel A; Barriales-Valbuena, Iker; Morales, Alfredo J; Jacques, Damien C; Nkwambi, Wilfred; Diop, M Bamba; Quinn, John; Hidalgo-Sanchís, Paula; Luengo-Oroz, Miguel

    2018-01-01

    We propose a framework for the systematic analysis of mobile phone data to identify relevant mobility profiles in a population. The proposed framework allows finding distinct human mobility profiles based on the digital trace of mobile phone users characterized by a Matrix of Individual Trajectories (IT-Matrix). This matrix gathers a consistent and regularized description of individual trajectories that enables multi-scale representations along time and space, which can be used to extract aggregated indicators such as a dynamic multi-scale population count. Unsupervised clustering of individual trajectories generates mobility profiles (clusters of similar individual trajectories) which characterize relevant group behaviors preserving optimal aggregation levels for detailed and privacy-secured mobility characterization. The application of the proposed framework is illustrated by analyzing fully anonymized data on human mobility from mobile phones in Senegal at the arrondissement level over a calendar year. The analysis of monthly mobility patterns at the livelihood zone resolution resulted in the discovery and characterization of seasonal mobility profiles related with economic activities, agricultural calendars and rainfalls. The use of these mobility profiles could support the timely identification of mobility changes in vulnerable populations in response to external shocks (such as natural disasters, civil conflicts or sudden increases of food prices) to monitor food security.

  12. Identifying seasonal mobility profiles from anonymized and aggregated mobile phone data. Application in food security.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pedro J Zufiria

    Full Text Available We propose a framework for the systematic analysis of mobile phone data to identify relevant mobility profiles in a population. The proposed framework allows finding distinct human mobility profiles based on the digital trace of mobile phone users characterized by a Matrix of Individual Trajectories (IT-Matrix. This matrix gathers a consistent and regularized description of individual trajectories that enables multi-scale representations along time and space, which can be used to extract aggregated indicators such as a dynamic multi-scale population count. Unsupervised clustering of individual trajectories generates mobility profiles (clusters of similar individual trajectories which characterize relevant group behaviors preserving optimal aggregation levels for detailed and privacy-secured mobility characterization. The application of the proposed framework is illustrated by analyzing fully anonymized data on human mobility from mobile phones in Senegal at the arrondissement level over a calendar year. The analysis of monthly mobility patterns at the livelihood zone resolution resulted in the discovery and characterization of seasonal mobility profiles related with economic activities, agricultural calendars and rainfalls. The use of these mobility profiles could support the timely identification of mobility changes in vulnerable populations in response to external shocks (such as natural disasters, civil conflicts or sudden increases of food prices to monitor food security.

  13. LPPS: A Distributed Cache Pushing Based K-Anonymity Location Privacy Preserving Scheme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming Chen

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of location-based services (LBSs for mobile social network applications. To enable location-based services, mobile users are required to report their location information to the LBS servers and receive answers of location-based queries. Location privacy leak happens when such servers are compromised, which has been a primary concern for information security. To address this issue, we propose the Location Privacy Preservation Scheme (LPPS based on distributed cache pushing. Unlike existing solutions, LPPS deploys distributed cache proxies to cover users mostly visited locations and proactively push cache content to mobile users, which can reduce the risk of leaking users’ location information. The proposed LPPS includes three major process. First, we propose an algorithm to find the optimal deployment of proxies to cover popular locations. Second, we present cache strategies for location-based queries based on the Markov chain model and propose update and replacement strategies for cache content maintenance. Third, we introduce a privacy protection scheme which is proved to achieve k-anonymity guarantee for location-based services. Extensive experiments illustrate that the proposed LPPS achieves decent service coverage ratio and cache hit ratio with lower communication overhead compared to existing solutions.

  14. A robust ECC based mutual authentication protocol with anonymity for session initiation protocol.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehmood, Zahid; Chen, Gongliang; Li, Jianhua; Li, Linsen; Alzahrani, Bander

    2017-01-01

    Over the past few years, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is found as a substantial application-layer protocol for the multimedia services. It is extensively used for managing, altering, terminating and distributing the multimedia sessions. Authentication plays a pivotal role in SIP environment. Currently, Lu et al. presented an authentication protocol for SIP and profess that newly proposed protocol is protected against all the familiar attacks. However, the detailed analysis describes that the Lu et al.'s protocol is exposed against server masquerading attack and user's masquerading attack. Moreover, it also fails to protect the user's identity as well as it possesses incorrect login and authentication phase. In order to establish a suitable and efficient protocol, having ability to overcome all these discrepancies, a robust ECC-based novel mutual authentication mechanism with anonymity for SIP is presented in this manuscript. The improved protocol contains an explicit parameter for user to cope the issues of security and correctness and is found to be more secure and relatively effective to protect the user's privacy, user's masquerading and server masquerading as it is verified through the comprehensive formal and informal security analysis.

  15. A robust ECC based mutual authentication protocol with anonymity for session initiation protocol.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zahid Mehmood

    Full Text Available Over the past few years, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP is found as a substantial application-layer protocol for the multimedia services. It is extensively used for managing, altering, terminating and distributing the multimedia sessions. Authentication plays a pivotal role in SIP environment. Currently, Lu et al. presented an authentication protocol for SIP and profess that newly proposed protocol is protected against all the familiar attacks. However, the detailed analysis describes that the Lu et al.'s protocol is exposed against server masquerading attack and user's masquerading attack. Moreover, it also fails to protect the user's identity as well as it possesses incorrect login and authentication phase. In order to establish a suitable and efficient protocol, having ability to overcome all these discrepancies, a robust ECC-based novel mutual authentication mechanism with anonymity for SIP is presented in this manuscript. The improved protocol contains an explicit parameter for user to cope the issues of security and correctness and is found to be more secure and relatively effective to protect the user's privacy, user's masquerading and server masquerading as it is verified through the comprehensive formal and informal security analysis.

  16. HIV and/or AIDS, migrant labour and the experience of God: A ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    2010-07-10

    Jul 10, 2010 ... research undertaken amongst migrant workers with HIV or AIDS. The practical ... I have used pseudonyms to protect the identities of my ..... day to day issues like employment, housing and health care. Broad strokes were ...

  17. Utilstrækkeligt enestående

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hjortkjær, Christian

    , and interpret our lives, through the ‘eyes’ of the diagnostic manual. The methodological approach is fundamentally Kierkegaardian. In order to preserve the complexity of the subject, the dissertation presents four parallel diagnoses (in four chapters) with an outset in four Kierkegaardian pseudonyms, each...... much the external demand as the reaction of the self which causes the self to despair and lose itself in downward moving spirals of shame and enclosed reserve. 3. The haufniencian diagnosis shifts the perspective to the mind. Here, the Kierkegaardian pseudonyms are used as actual diagnosticians...

  18. Anonyme Kindesabgabe – ein passgenaues Angebot für hilfesuchende Frauen oder der Preis für ein kollektives gutes Gewissen?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Monika Bradna

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Das erste Angebot zur anonymen Kindesabgabe in Deutschland wurde 1999 initiiert. Mit der Zielsetzung, Kindstötung und Aussetzung zu verhindern sowie Schwangere und Mütter in problematischen Lebenssituationen zu unterstützen, wurden in den Folgejahren weitere Babyklappen und Möglichkeiten der anonymen Geburt bzw. der anonymen Übergabe geschaffen. Zugleich regen sich seit ihrer Einführung ethische und rechtliche Bedenken.  In einer bundesweiten Studie untersuchte das Deutsche Jugendinstitut, wie sich die Angebote der anonymen Kindesabgabe entwickelt haben und von wem bzw. wie sie in Anspruch genommen werden. Die Studie zeigt, dass sich die gegenwärtige Praxis in einer rechtlichen Grauzone bewegt und Routinen manifestiert, die weder rechtmäßig noch fachlich stets angemessen sind. Zu den wesentlichen Befunden gehört, dass die Zielgruppen, die bei der Einrichtung der Angebote im Fokus standen, nicht erreicht werden. Nicht die Zugehörigkeit zu einer bestimmten sozialen Gruppe ist für die Nutzung von Angeboten anonymer Geburt ausschlaggebend, sondern vielmehr eine Häufung von Belastungen und Problemen schwangerer Frauen.  Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit einer auf Anonymität verengten Problemlösungspraxis und fokussiert die Konsequenzen für betroffene Frauen.  Dem gegenübergestellt werden die Argumentationsmuster, die die anonyme Kindesabgabe rechtfertigen. Sie werden hinsichtlich ihrer gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung für Frauen in (sozialen Notlagen kritisch hinterfragt.

  19. Sinatra, He3nry und andere moderne Enzyklopädisten. Synchron und diachron vergleichende Anmerkungen zur Eigen- und Fremdbenennung von Wikipedia-Autoren

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Grzega, Joachim

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes the formation of authors' pseudonyms in the English, German, French, Italian and Spanish versions of the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia. 694 semi-randomly collected Wikipedia usernames ("nicknames" are checked against traditional classifications of pseudonyms and compared to a semi-randomly collected corpus of 607 pseudonyms of English, German, French, Italian and Spanish writers of the 18th and 19th centuries (who published, at least in part, non-fictional works. The main results of the diachronic comparison are the following: (1 Qualitatively, typical modern phenomena are the replacement of letters by similar-looking special characters (called leetspeak, e. g. Serg!o for Sergio, the use of abstract nouns, the use of non-standard forms, deacronymization (e. g. when a Spanish Wikipedian's initials FG become Efegé, and the formation of nicknames from Wikipedia pseudonyms on users' discussion pages ("nick-nicknames". (2 Qualitatively, typical historical phenomena are the use of symbols not easily representable on modern (Latin keyboards (e. g. musical notes and Greek letters. (3 Quantitatively, there is a clear decrease in the use of Latin elements in pseudonyms. A cross-linguistic comparison of Wikipedia nicknames leads to the following characteristic features of the different Wikipedia communities: (a English Wikipedia nicknames show the highest amount of non-onymic elements and numbers and the lowest amount of nicknames with foreign elements. (b French-speaking Wikipedians use the lowest amount of numbers in their nicknames and are the least informative as regards telling the motivation behind their usernames. (c Italian-speaking Wikipedians are the most open to tell about the motivation behind their usernames, use relatively few non-onymic elements in their nicknames, but are very productive as to forming nicknicknames. (d Spanish-speaking Wikipedians use relatively few appellative lexemes, are the most reserved as to

  20. Changing spousal roles and their effect on recovery in gamblers anonymous: GamAnon, social support, wives and husbands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferentzy, Peter; Skinner, Wayne; Antze, Paul

    2010-09-01

    This paper examines changing spousal roles and their effects upon recovery in Gamblers Anonymous (GA). It is based upon a qualitative study designed to gage uniformity as well as variations in approaches to recovery in GA. Interviews were conducted with 39 GA members (26 men, 13 women; mean age 56.5 years). Though the study was based in the Toronto area, only 13 interviews involved participants from that region. Phone interviews were conducted with GA members from various regions of both Canada and the US. GamAnon, GA's sister fellowship, has been designed for anyone affected seriously by someone's gambling problem. In practice, GamAnon comprises mostly women--spouses of male GA members--who traditionally have taken a keen interest in the ways in which their husbands achieve and maintain abstinence from gambling. Changing spousal roles have led to fewer women joining GamAnon, as many opt instead to part with troubled spouses. As well, more women are attending GA than in the past, typically with husbands who are disinclined to join GamAnon. All of this has drastically altered how GA members pursue recovery. These changes and their implications are discussed.

  1. Piloting the European Unified Patient Identity Management (EUPID) Concept to Facilitate Secondary Use of Neuroblastoma Data from Clinical Trials and Biobanking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ebner, Hubert; Hayn, Dieter; Falgenhauer, Markus; Nitzlnader, Michael; Schleiermacher, Gudrun; Haupt, Riccardo; Erminio, Giovanni; Defferrari, Raffaella; Mazzocco, Katia; Kohler, Jan; Tonini, Gian Paolo; Ladenstein, Ruth; Schreier, Guenter

    2016-01-01

    Data from two contexts, i.e. the European Unresectable Neuroblastoma (EUNB) clinical trial and results from comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) analyses from corresponding tumour samples shall be provided to existing repositories for secondary use. Utilizing the European Unified Patient IDentity Management (EUPID) as developed in the course of the ENCCA project, the following processes were applied to the data: standardization (providing interoperability), pseudonymization (generating distinct but linkable pseudonyms for both contexts), and linking both data sources. The applied procedures resulted in a joined dataset that did not contain any identifiers that would allow to backtrack the records to either data sources. This provided a high degree of privacy to the involved patients as required by data protection regulations, without preventing proper analysis.

  2. Social networks as mediators of the effect of Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaskutas, Lee Ann; Bond, Jason; Humphreys, Keith

    2002-07-01

    This study tested the hypothesis that the relationship between Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) involvement and reduced substance use is partially explained (or 'mediated') by changes in social networks. This is a naturalistic longitudinal study of the course of alcohol problems. Study sites were the 10 largest public and private alcohol treatment programs in a northern California county. Three hundred and seventy-seven men and 277 women were recruited upon seeking treatment at study sites. At baseline and 1-year follow-up, we assessed alcohol consequences and dependence symptoms, consumption, social support for abstinence, pro-drinking social influences and AA involvement. In the structural equation model, AA involvement was a significant predictor of lower alcohol consumption and fewer related problems. The size of this effect decreased by 36% when network size and support for drinking were included as mediators. In logistic regression models predicting abstinence at follow-up, AA remained highly significant after including social network variables but was again reduced in magnitude. Thirty-day abstinence was predicted by AA involvement (OR=2.9), not having pro-drinking influences in one's network (OR=0.7) and having support for reducing consumption from people met in AA (versus no support; OR=3.4). In contrast, having support from non-AA members was not a significant predictor of abstinence. For alcohol-related outcomes other than abstinence, significant relationships were found for both AA-based and non-AA-based support. The type of social support specifically given by AA members, such as 24-hour availability, role modeling and experientially based advice for staying sober, may help to explain AA's mechanism of action. Results highlight the value of focusing on outcomes reflective of AA's goals (such as abstinence) when studying how AA works.

  3. Sperm donor recruitment within an NHS fertility service since the removal of anonymity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomlinson, Mathew J; Pooley, Karen; Pierce, Angela; Hopkisson, James F

    2010-09-01

    The marked decline in the number of sperm donors recruited in the UK has been largely attributed to changes in regulations and in particular those related to the removal of anonymity. After a 5-year period of inactivity, the sperm donor bank in Nottingham was provided with limited resources to try and recruit donors who were willing to be identified on the HFEA register. Marketing was sporadic and at first low cost and the enquiry rate only increased significantly when the centre's website became operational and higher cost advertising was used. Over a 4-year period, a total of 151 enquiries gave rise to 14 useable donors at a cost of approximately £5,500 each. Donor sperm was generally of high quality having been density gradient prepared prior to cryopreservation and provided an overall ongoing pregnancy rate of 21.6% and 45.6% by IUI and IVF, respectively. The overall exercise demonstrated that identifiable donors were coming forward but in lower numbers compared to those observed before 2005. At current treatment prices, centres should be aware that recouping the costs of donor recruitment and processing may be difficult and that the cost of both donor sperm and donor insemination are likely to rise significantly.

  4. Anonymity In Survey Courses as Tool for More Diverse Engagement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samson, P. J.

    2017-12-01

    It is not uncommon that students in introductory survey courses are reluctant to participate in verbal inquiry. In a survey submitted to students of CLIMATE 102, Extreme Weather, over the past four semesters about 45% of male students professed comfort in asking verbal questions in a large lecture hall but less than 25% of females and only 15% of students for whom English is not their first language. Hence, large lecture hall courses may be inadvertently dissuading the inclusion of many of the students we wish to encourage to participate in our discipline. To combat this a system was used in CLIMATE 102 wherein students could pose questions digitally and anonymously. These questions could be seen by all and answered by all. The instructor and/or teaching assistant can also participate and answer or offer corrections to others' answers. The use of this system had three important outcomes: The number of questions posed during class time rose dramatically from previous semesters when only verbal questions were entertained. The number of questions in CLIMATE 102 with this system generally exceeded 500 per semester where the number of students 200. The number of per-capita questions from female students exceeded the male students, thus differences in gender inquiry was eliminated. The number of per-capita questions from students whose first language was not English equaled the native English-speaking students. While it is the goal of higher education to encourage students to participate verbally in class discussions it is important to provide a "safe" environment in the first year(s) as many students are initially uncomfortable participating verbally in class. We hypothesize, but have not researched, that through this process students have the opportunity to see that their questions are as valid as others' in the class and will subsequently gain the confidence to participate verbally.

  5. Responsible vendors, intelligent consumers: Silk Road, the online revolution in drug trading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Hout, Marie Claire; Bingham, Tim

    2014-03-01

    Silk Road is located on the Deep Web and provides an anonymous transacting infrastructure for the retail of drugs and pharmaceuticals. Members are attracted to the site due to protection of identity by screen pseudonyms, variety and quality of product listings, selection of vendors based on reviews, reduced personal risks, stealth of product delivery, development of personal connections with vendors in stealth modes and forum activity. The study aimed to explore vendor accounts of Silk Road as retail infrastructure. A single and holistic case study with embedded units approach (Yin, 2003) was chosen to explore the accounts of vendor subunits situated within the Silk Road marketplace. Vendors (n=10) completed an online interview via the direct message facility and via Tor mail. Vendors described themselves as 'intelligent and responsible' consumers of drugs. Decisions to commence vending operations on the site centred on simplicity in setting up vendor accounts, and opportunity to operate within a low risk, high traffic, high mark-up, secure and anonymous Deep Web infrastructure. The embedded online culture of harm reduction ethos appealed to them in terms of the responsible vending and use of personally tested high quality products. The professional approach to running their Silk Road businesses and dedication to providing a quality service was characterised by professional advertising of quality products, professional communication and visibility on forum pages, speedy dispatch of slightly overweight products, competitive pricing, good stealth techniques and efforts to avoid customer disputes. Vendors appeared content with a fairly constant buyer demand and described a relatively competitive market between small and big time market players. Concerns were evident with regard to Bitcoin instability. The greatest threat to Silk Road and other sites operating on the Deep Web is not law enforcement or market dynamics, it is technology itself. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier

  6. Computer-Aided Identification and Validation of Intervenability Requirements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rene Meis

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Privacy as a software quality is becoming more important these days and should not be underestimated during the development of software that processes personal data. The privacy goal of intervenability, in contrast to unlinkability (including anonymity and pseudonymity, has so far received little attention in research. Intervenability aims for the empowerment of end-users by keeping their personal data and how it is processed by the software system under their control. Several surveys have pointed out that the lack of intervenability options is a central privacy concern of end-users. In this paper, we systematically assess the privacy goal of intervenability and set up a software requirements taxonomy that relates the identified intervenability requirements with a taxonomy of transparency requirements. Furthermore, we provide a tool-supported method to identify intervenability requirements from the functional requirements of a software system. This tool-supported method provides the means to elicit and validate intervenability requirements in a computer-aided way. Our combined taxonomy of intervenability and transparency requirements gives a detailed view on the privacy goal of intervenability and its relation to transparency. We validated the completeness of our taxonomy by comparing it to the relevant literature that we derived based on a systematic literature review. The proposed method for the identification of intervenability requirements shall support requirements engineers to elicit and document intervenability requirements in compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

  7. Assessment Role of Participation in Narcotic Anonymous in Opiate Dependents during Abstinence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hossien Zare

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Background: The activity level of Narcotics Anonymous group (NA is expanding in many countries, including Iran. Some research has confessed the benefits of 12-step NA approach compared with similar methods. In the present study, the role of regular participation of opioid addicts in the NA group was studied in terms of abstinence rate and compared with routine program of detoxification centers of the person Welfare Organization and Medical Sciences University. Materials and Methods: All addicts who attempted to quit in self-introducer clinical centers of Medical Sciences University and the Welfare Organization of Rafsanjan were suggested to participate and not to participate in NA, based on even and odd numbers, respectively. Among them, two equal 120-person (NA and control groups were selected, then evaluated every three months and followed up for 12 months. Their status was assessed through questionnaires, interviews, and morphine tests.Results: The purity rate of NA group with 8.49 months was significantly different with normal addicts in 5.19 months (p=0.001. The recurrence rate at 12 months was significantly lower in the NA group compared with the control group, calculated through independent t-test (p=0.001. Quitting history and addiction duration in the NA group was significantly higher than control group.Conclusion: The findings of the research support a better prognosis for participants of NA group. Further researches are recommended to provide useful clinical information for patients and professionals.

  8. Organizational restructuring and career plateauing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    P. Paffen; Hans Timmermans

    2009-01-01

    This article describes a flexibility program for plateaued professionals in a technical Dutch firm operating in the consultancy sector we will refer to with the pseudonym Greentree Corp. First, we will discuss the impact reorganization had on job-requirements and career opportunities for technical

  9. Kierkegaard's Notions of Drama and Opera

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Nils Holger

    2018-01-01

    The essay focuses on Kierkegaard's treatise on Mozart's Don Giovanni (in the first volume of his Either/Or (1843), ascribed to the pseudonymous aestitician "A". It discusses the aesthetics of drama and opera, not least through A's understanding of (and comparison between) language and music...

  10. Development and Validation of Anonymous Third-Party Physicians’ Reports of Exemplar Cases of Social Iatrogenesis Questionnaire (ATPROSIQ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdolreza Shaghaghi

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Social iatrogenesis is a phenomenon in which normal behaviour is redefined as a medical condition, and people depend on physicians’ help even in doing their normal tasks. It poses considerable problems to public health. The aim of this study was to design and psychometrically evaluate an instrument for measuring factors associated with social iatrogenesis by physicians. Method: This study is a methodological research that was conducted during 2016- 2017 in Tabriz, Iran. At first, a questionnaire was developed after literature review to generate a preliminary item pool and then, content and face validity were performed. In the quantitative phase, reliability (internal consistency and test-retest analysis, validity and exploratory factor analysis were performed to assess psychometric properties of the instrument. Results: A 26-item questionnaire was reduced to 20-item after content validity. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a three-factor solution (eigenvalues>1 explaining 41.94% of the cumulative variance. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed excellent internal consistency (alpha=0.8, and test-retest of the scale with a 2-week interval indicated an appropriate stability (ICC=0.97. Conclusion: The anonymous third-party physicians’ report of exemplar cases of social iatrogenesis questionnaire is reliable and valid and can be used in health care systems.

  11. Effectiveness of narcotics anonymous training programs in personality characters in substance abuse patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Namat Sotodeh Asl

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Substance abuse is one of the most common disorders that exert a high impact on the life of patients and their families. There are many treatment methods for Addiction. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of narcotics anonymous (NA program on personality characters in substance abuse patients.Materials and Methods: This quasi experimental design was performed on 100 patients with substance abuse disorders that they had been randomly selected from those patients who were referred to psychiatric clinics and counseling centers in Esfehan in 2008. Then, the subjects were equally divided into two groups; experimental and control. All the patients carried out Eysenk test prior to any intervention and also a demographic questionnaire were filled out by all the subjects. Then, Eysenk test was performed on all the patients following the intervention. Changing in personality character in the experimental group (before and after the intervention was compared with those of the control group. Results: The findings showed that narcotic program has significant effects on personality characters of experimental group to substance abuse in post test, but these effects are not significant in control group.Conclusion: According to the findings of this work, we suggest the effectiveness of NA program in changing personality characters of the patients with substance abuse

  12. Personality Patterns in Narcotics Anonymous Members versus Individuals with Addiction Receiving Methadone Maintenance Therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akhondzadeh, Shahin; Shabrang, Moslem; Rezaei, Omid; Rezaei, Farzin

    2014-07-01

    Therapeutic interventions can be classified into two distinct approaches: abstinent and maintenance method. Currently, there are no clear criteria for referring addicted patients to one of these modalities. We aimed to compare the personality characteristics of individuals with addiction who attended narcotics anonymous sessions with those who received methadone maintenance therapy. This was a cross- sectional study. The participants were NA members and patients who were undergoing methadone maintenance treatment in outpatient clinics. Using the randomized cluster sampling method, 200 individuals with opioid dependence were selected (each group 100 persons). Data were collected through a demographic questionnaire and the five-factor personality inventory (NEO-FFI). Comparison of the mean scores of NEO-PPI in the two groups was performed by independent t test, and qualitative variables were compared using the Chi-square test. We found a significant difference between the MMT and NA groups with respect to neuroticism, extroversion, and agreeableness. No significant difference was found in the subscales of conscientious and openness. People who regularly attended the NA sessions had lower neuroticism and higher agreeableness than patients who were under the maintenance modality. Whether this is the cause or effect of attending NA sessions requires future large-scale cohort studies.

  13. Personality Patterns in Narcotics Anonymous Members versus Individuals with Addiction Receiving Methadone Maintenance Therapy.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shahin Akhondzadeh

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Therapeutic interventions can be classified into two distinct approaches: abstinent and maintenance method. Currently, there are no clear criteria for referring addicted patients to one of these modalities. We aimed to compare the personality characteristics of individuals with addiction who attended narcotics anonymous sessions with those who received methadone maintenance therapy.This was a cross- sectional study. The participants were NA members and patients who were undergoing methadone maintenance treatment in outpatient clinics. Using the randomized cluster sampling method, 200 individuals with opioid dependence were selected (each group 100 persons. Data were collected through a demographic questionnaire and the five-factor personality inventory (NEO-FFI. Comparison of the mean scores of NEO-PPI in the two groups was performed by independent t test, and qualitative variables were compared using the Chi-square test.We found a significant difference between the MMT and NA groups with respect to neuroticism, extroversion, and agreeableness. No significant difference was found in the subscales of conscientious and openness.People who regularly attended the NA sessions had lower neuroticism and higher agreeableness than patients who were under the maintenance modality. Whether this is the cause or effect of attending NA sessions requires future large-scale cohort studies.

  14. Anonymity Preserving Routing In Location Privacy Schemes In Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R Regin

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Location privacy measures need to be developed to prevent the opponent from determining the physical locations of source sensors and sinks. An opponent can easily intercept network traffic due to the use of a broadcast medium for routing packets and get detailed information such as packet transmission time and frequency to perform traffic analysis and infer the locations of monitored objects and data sinks. On the other hand, sensors usually have limited processing speed and energy supplies. It is very expensive to apply traditional anonymous communication techniques for hiding the communication between sensor nodes and sinks. The existing source-location privacy protects the location of monitored objects to increase the number of messages sent by the source before the object is located by the attacker. The flooding technique has the source node send each packet through numerous paths to a sink making it difficult for an opponent to trace the source. The locations of sinks can be protected from a local eavesdropper by hashing the ID field in the packet header. But opponent can track sinks by carrying out time correlation and rate monitoring attacks. Besides protection some source nodes are transferring relatively large amounts of data in existing system. As a result, these nodes run out of battery faster due to improper position of nodes and sinks. Thus in the proposed system the sinks should be located as optimally as possible to reduce traffic flow and energy consumption for sensor nodes. Hence Sink placement problem is resolved for minimizing the delay as well as maximizing the lifetime of a WSN. Thus proposed system is efficient in terms of overhead and functionality when compared to existing system.

  15. A Policy Based Approach for the Management of Web Browser Resources to Prevent Anonymity Attacks in Tor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navarro-Arribas, Guillermo; Garcia-Alfaro, Joaquin

    Web browsers are becoming the universal interface to reach applications and services related with these systems. Different browsing contexts may be required in order to reach them, e.g., use of VPN tunnels, corporate proxies, anonymisers, etc. By browsing context we mean how the user browsers the Web, including mainly the concrete configuration of its browser. When the context of the browser changes, its security requirements also change. In this work, we present the use of authorisation policies to automatise the process of controlling the resources of a Web browser when its context changes. The objective of our proposal is oriented towards easing the adaptation to the security requirements of the new context and enforce them in the browser without the need for user intervention. We present a concrete application of our work as a plug-in for the adaption of security requirements in Mozilla/Firefox browser when a context of anonymous navigation through the Tor network is enabled.

  16. Learning to Live with Doubt: Kierkegaard, Freire, and Critical Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Peter

    2017-01-01

    What role does doubt play in education? This article addresses this question, initially via an examination of Søren Kierkegaard's "Philosophical Fragments". Kierkegaard, through his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, draws attention to the potentially debilitating and destructive effects of doubt on both teachers and learners. The work of…

  17. Parents' perception of self-advocacy of children with myositis: an anonymous online survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huber Adam M

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Children with complex medical issues experience barriers to the transition of care from pediatric to adult providers. We sought to identify these barriers by elucidating the experiences of patients with idiopathic inflammatory muscle disorders. Methods We collected anonymous survey data using an online website. Patients and their families were solicited from the US and Canada through established clinics for children with idiopathic inflammatory muscle diseases as well as with the aid of a nonprofit organization for the benefit of such individuals. The parents of 45 older children/young adults suffering from idiopathic inflammatory muscle diseases were surveyed. As a basis of comparison, we similarly collected data from the parents of 207 younger children with inflammatory muscle diseases. The survey assessed transition of care issues confronting families of children and young adults with chronic juvenile myositis. Results Regardless of age of the patient, respondents were unlikely to have a designated health care provider assigned to aid in transition of care and were unlikely to be aware of a posted policy concerning transition of care at their pediatrician's office. Additionally, regardless of age, patients and their families were unlikely to have a written plan for moving to adult care. Conclusions We identified deficiencies in the health care experiences of families as pertain to knowledge, self-advocacy, policy, and vocational readiness. Moreover, as children with complex medical issues grow up, parents attribute less self-advocacy to their children's level of independence.

  18. Does Age Moderate the Effect of Spirituality/Religiousness in Accounting for Alcoholics Anonymous Benefit?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montes, K S; Tonigan, J S

    2017-01-01

    Gains in spiritual/religious (S/R) practices among Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members are associated with reductions in drinking. This study had the following aims: (a) examine spirituality/religiousness as a mediator of the relationship between AA attendance and reductions in drinking behavior to replicate past research findings and to (b) examine age-cohort as a moderator of the mediational analyses given that empirical evidence (e.g., generational differences in spirituality) suggests that age may influence the acquisition of gains in spirituality/religiousness during AA as well as the expression of these gains on drinking behavior. Measures were administered to 253 participants recruited from community-based AA and outpatient treatment programs at baseline, 3, 6, 9, and 12-months, and 210 (83%) participants provided complete data to test study aims. Gains in S/R practices mediated the relationship between AA attendance and increased abstinence, but not drinking intensity. Simple slopes analyses indicated a positive association between AA attendance and gains in S/R practices among younger AA affiliates but not older AA affiliates in the moderated-mediational analyses. However, age was not found to moderate the global mediational effect. The results from the current study inform efforts to increase positive change in AA affiliates' drinking behavior by highlighting specific aspects of S/R practices that should be targeted based on the age of an AA affiliate.

  19. Treatment, alcoholics anonymous, and 16-year changes in impulsivity and legal problems among men and women with alcohol use disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blonigen, Daniel M; Timko, Christine; Moos, Bernice S; Moos, Rudolf H

    2009-09-01

    The link between impulsive personality traits and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) is well established. No studies, however, have investigated whether receipt of help for AUDs predicts change in impulsivity or whether such change is associated with relevant outcomes such as legal problems. The present study examined predictive associations between the duration of help for AUDs (Alcoholics Anonymous [AA], professional treatment) and impulsivity and legal problems over 16 years in men and women with AUDs. Participants who were initially untreated for their AUDs (n(men) = 332, n(women) = 296) completed follow-up telephone interviews at 1 and 16 years after their baseline assessment. Impulsivity and legal problems declined between baseline and the 1-year and 16-year follow-ups among both women and men. A longer duration of participation in AA predicted a decline in impulsivity at both follow-up assessments, and, in turn, a decline in impulsivity predicted a decline in legal problems at Years 1 and 16. In addition, a longer duration of participation in AA predicted fewer legal problems at Year 1, and this association was moderated by gender (significant in men) and impulsivity (significant for individuals with higher baseline scores). The results highlight the potential for AA and professional treatment to reduce the expression of impulsivity and related disinhibitory traits and legal problems in individuals with AUDs.

  20. Self-Governance on Trial: A Public Sphere Analysis of News Website Forum Comments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. David Wolfgang

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available The online public sphere offers society an opportunity to pursue self-governance through rational-critical discourse of public issues. However, testing the effectiveness of the sphere involves studying the structure of the online forum (e.g. whether the forum allows for pseudonymous comments or not and the quality of the content in the forum. This research studied online news forums on the topics of gun control and civil unions in Colorado to see what barriers to participating in the forum might exist in the structure of the forum and then what types of content was produced in the forum. The research showed that a forum allowing commenters to use a pseudonym led to comments with more exchange and critique of reasoned normative positions and use of supporting facts. However, neither the pseudonymous forum nor the identified forum had stronger levels of commitment to constructive dialogue in the forum. Also, commenters showed no reflexivity in their comments, meaning that participants were not assessing their own positions or changing their perspectives based on the arguments of others. While this shows that reducing barriers to accessing the forum helps to produce a public sphere environment, there is still work to be done in improving the level of constructive dialogue and stimulating negotiation and consensus building.

  1. Doubt, Despair and Hope in Western Thought: Unamuno and the Promise of Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Peter

    2015-01-01

    This article examines the importance of doubt in Western philosophy, with particular attention to the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno. Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus ventures down the pathway of doubt, finds it perplexing and difficult and discovers that he is unable to return to his pre-doubting self. In…

  2. Characterising the online weapons trafficking on cryptomarkets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rhumorbarbe, Damien; Werner, Denis; Gilliéron, Quentin; Staehli, Ludovic; Broséus, Julian; Rossy, Quentin

    2018-02-01

    Weapons related webpages from nine cryptomarkets were manually duplicated in February 2016. Information about the listings (i.e. sales proposals) and vendors' profiles were extracted to draw an overview of the actual online trafficking of weapons. Relationships between vendors were also inferred through the analysis of online digital traces and content similarities. Weapons trafficking is mainly concentrated on two major cryptomarkets. Besides, it accounts for a very small proportion of the illicit trafficking on cryptomarkets compared to the illicit drugs trafficking. Among all weapon related listings (n=386), firearms only account for approximately 25% of sales proposal since the proportion of non-lethal and melee weapons is important (around 46%). Based on the recorded pseudonyms, a total of 96 vendor profiles were highlighted. Some pseudonyms were encountered on several cryptomarkets, suggesting that some vendors may manage accounts on different markets. This hypothesis was strengthened by comparing pseudonyms to online traces such as PGP keys, images and profiles descriptions. Such a method allowed to estimate more accurately the number of vendors offering weapons across cryptomarkets. Finally, according to the gathered data, the extent of the weapons trafficking on the cryptomarkets appear to be limited compared to other illicit goods. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Identification of genes in anonymous DNA sequences. Annual performance report, February 1, 1991--January 31, 1992

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fields, C.A.

    1996-06-01

    The objective of this project is the development of practical software to automate the identification of genes in anonymous DNA sequences from the human, and other higher eukaryotic genomes. A software system for automated sequence analysis, gm (gene modeler) has been designed, implemented, tested, and distributed to several dozen laboratories worldwide. A significantly faster, more robust, and more flexible version of this software, gm 2.0 has now been completed, and is being tested by operational use to analyze human cosmid sequence data. A range of efforts to further understand the features of eukaryoyic gene sequences are also underway. This progress report also contains papers coming out of the project including the following: gm: a Tool for Exploratory Analysis of DNA Sequence Data; The Human THE-LTR(O) and MstII Interspersed Repeats are subfamilies of a single widely distruted highly variable repeat family; Information contents and dinucleotide compostions of plant intron sequences vary with evolutionary origin; Splicing signals in Drosophila: intron size, information content, and consensus sequences; Integration of automated sequence analysis into mapping and sequencing projects; Software for the C. elegans genome project.

  4. Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Assistive Technology: Action Research Case Study of Reading Supports

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindsey, Pam

    2012-01-01

    This descriptive action research experience with case study procedures examined the use of best practices paired with assistive technologies as interventions to individualize fiction reading instruction for a high-functioning elementary student, JB (pseudonym), diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder. JB's instructional, reading goals were to…

  5. A case study of the Secure Anonymous Information Linkage (SAIL) Gateway: A privacy-protecting remote access system for health-related research and evaluation☆

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Kerina H.; Ford, David V.; Jones, Chris; Dsilva, Rohan; Thompson, Simon; Brooks, Caroline J.; Heaven, Martin L.; Thayer, Daniel S.; McNerney, Cynthia L.; Lyons, Ronan A.

    2014-01-01

    With the current expansion of data linkage research, the challenge is to find the balance between preserving the privacy of person-level data whilst making these data accessible for use to their full potential. We describe a privacy-protecting safe haven and secure remote access system, referred to as the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Gateway. The Gateway provides data users with a familiar Windows interface and their usual toolsets to access approved anonymously-linked datasets for research and evaluation. We outline the principles and operating model of the Gateway, the features provided to users within the secure environment, and how we are approaching the challenges of making data safely accessible to increasing numbers of research users. The Gateway represents a powerful analytical environment and has been designed to be scalable and adaptable to meet the needs of the rapidly growing data linkage community. PMID:24440148

  6. Young, Black, Mathematically Gifted, and Stereotyped

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGee, Ebony

    2013-01-01

    In this paper, I describe the academic dilemma experienced by Tamara (pseudonym), a mathematically high-achieving high school sophomore. Raised in an economically strapped neighborhood, Tamara had the opportunity to attend a prestigious private high school, tuition free. Confronted by being viewed as an affirmative action student Tamara uses this…

  7. A robust anonymous biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ashok Kumar Das

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Several biometric-based remote user authentication schemes using smart cards have been proposed in the literature in order to improve the security weaknesses in user authentication system. In 2012, An proposed an enhanced biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. It was claimed that the proposed scheme is secure against the user impersonation attack, the server masquerading attack, the password guessing attack, and the insider attack and provides mutual authentication between the user and the server. In this paper, we first analyze the security of An’s scheme and we show that this scheme has three serious security flaws in the design of the scheme: (i flaw in user’s biometric verification during the login phase, (ii flaw in user’s password verification during the login and authentication phases, and (iii flaw in user’s password change locally at any time by the user. Due to these security flaws, An’s scheme cannot support mutual authentication between the user and the server. Further, we show that An’s scheme cannot prevent insider attack. In order to remedy the security weaknesses found in An’s scheme, we propose a new robust and secure anonymous biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. Through the informal and formal security analysis, we show that our scheme is secure against all possible known attacks including the attacks found in An’s scheme. The simulation results of our scheme using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications tool ensure that our scheme is secure against passive and active attacks. In addition, our scheme is also comparable in terms of the communication and computational overheads with An’s scheme and other related existing schemes. As a result, our scheme is more appropriate for practical applications compared to other approaches.

  8. Records and reputations : everyday politics of a Philippine Development NGO

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hilhorst, D.

    2000-01-01

    This study looks into the working of policies, practices and accountability of NGOs. It is based on fieldwork with one development NGO in the Cordillera of the Philippines: the Cordillera Women NGO, or CWNGO (a pseudonym). Through this study I wanted to find out why certain groups of actors

  9. The New Literacies of Online Research and Comprehension: Rethinking the Reading Achievement Gap

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leu, Donald J.; Forzani, Elena; Rhoads, Chris; Maykel, Cheryl; Kennedy, Clint; Timbrell, Nicole

    2015-01-01

    Is there an achievement gap for online reading ability based on income inequality that is separate from the achievement gap in traditional, offline reading? This possibility was examined between students in two pseudonymous school districts: West Town (economically advantaged) and East Town (economically challenged; N = 256). Performance-based…

  10. The "Prince of Medicine": Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh and the foundations of the western pharmaceutical tradition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Vos, Paula

    2013-12-01

    This essay examines three medieval pharmaceutical treatises purportedly authored by Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh (anglicized to John Mesue) and traces their immense influence on the development of pharmacy in early modem Europe and the Hispanic world. Despite the importance of these works throughout the early modern period, Mesue is relatively unknown in the history of pharmacy and medicine, and his exact identity remains unclear. This essay argues that "Mesue" was most likely a pseudonym used by an unknown author of the Latin West and that the three works were crafted to meet the demands of the developing "medical marketplace" of late thirteenth-century Europe, where the manuscripts first appeared. At the same time, however, as the Arabic reference of the pseudonym suggests, these treatises were clearly products of the medieval Islamic world, including many innovations that would provide the basis for the theory and practice of pharmacy for centuries and arguably formed part of the artisanal epistemological influence on the Scientific Revolution.

  11. Facilitating post traumatic growth

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cox Helen

    2004-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Whilst negative responses to traumatic injury have been well documented in the literature, there is a small but growing body of work that identifies posttraumatic growth as a salient feature of this experience. We contribute to this discourse by reporting on the experiences of 13 individuals who were traumatically injured, had undergone extensive rehabilitation and were discharged from formal care. All participants were injured through involvement in a motor vehicle accident, with the exception of one, who was injured through falling off the roof of a house. Methods In this qualitative study, we used an audio-taped in-depth interview with each participant as the means of data collection. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically to determine the participants' unique perspectives on the experience of recovery from traumatic injury. In reporting the findings, all participants' were given a pseudonym to assure their anonymity. Results Most participants indicated that their involvement in a traumatic occurrence was a springboard for growth that enabled them to develop new perspectives on life and living. Conclusion There are a number of contributions that health providers may make to the recovery of individuals who have been traumatically injured to assist them to develop new views of vulnerability and strength, make changes in relationships, and facilitate philosophical, physical and spiritual growth.

  12. Poetry and narrative therapy for anxiety about spinal surgery | Naidu ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This case study presents the use of poetry in psychotherapy with an adolescent girl, Buhle (a pseudonym), who needed surgery to correct a curvature of her spine due to adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. She experienced anxiety which prevented surgeons from doing the procedure. Psychotherapists used narrative therapy to ...

  13. Am I Just Not Good Enough? The Creation, Development and Questioning of a High Performance Coaching Identity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Purdy, L. G.; Potrac, P.

    2016-01-01

    While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the critical incidents related to the creation,…

  14. A case study of the Secure Anonymous Information Linkage (SAIL) Gateway: a privacy-protecting remote access system for health-related research and evaluation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Kerina H; Ford, David V; Jones, Chris; Dsilva, Rohan; Thompson, Simon; Brooks, Caroline J; Heaven, Martin L; Thayer, Daniel S; McNerney, Cynthia L; Lyons, Ronan A

    2014-08-01

    With the current expansion of data linkage research, the challenge is to find the balance between preserving the privacy of person-level data whilst making these data accessible for use to their full potential. We describe a privacy-protecting safe haven and secure remote access system, referred to as the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Gateway. The Gateway provides data users with a familiar Windows interface and their usual toolsets to access approved anonymously-linked datasets for research and evaluation. We outline the principles and operating model of the Gateway, the features provided to users within the secure environment, and how we are approaching the challenges of making data safely accessible to increasing numbers of research users. The Gateway represents a powerful analytical environment and has been designed to be scalable and adaptable to meet the needs of the rapidly growing data linkage community. Copyright © 2014 The Aurthors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Brian O’Nolan’s comic and critical reconception of narratives of the embellished Past in independent Ireland, 1938-1966

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gillespie, A.M.R.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/304824135

    2010-01-01

    This dissertation investigates the work of Irish novelist and journalist Flann O’Brien/Myles na Gopaleen (pseudonym of Brian O’Nolan, 1911-1966). Recurrent themes in his popular Irish Times column, “Cruiskeen Lawn,” and his novels are discussed in relation to relevant historical developments of the

  16. A secure and efficient uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Das, Ashok Kumar; Goswami, Adrijit

    2013-06-01

    Connected health care has several applications including telecare medicine information system, personally controlled health records system, and patient monitoring. In such applications, user authentication can ensure the legality of patients. In user authentication for such applications, only the legal user/patient himself/herself is allowed to access the remote server, and no one can trace him/her according to transmitted data. Chang et al. proposed a uniqueness-and-anonymity-preserving remote user authentication scheme for connected health care (Chang et al., J Med Syst 37:9902, 2013). Their scheme uses the user's personal biometrics along with his/her password with the help of the smart card. The user's biometrics is verified using BioHashing. Their scheme is efficient due to usage of one-way hash function and exclusive-or (XOR) operations. In this paper, we show that though their scheme is very efficient, their scheme has several security weaknesses such as (1) it has design flaws in login and authentication phases, (2) it has design flaws in password change phase, (3) it fails to protect privileged insider attack, (4) it fails to protect the man-in-the middle attack, and (5) it fails to provide proper authentication. In order to remedy these security weaknesses in Chang et al.'s scheme, we propose an improvement of their scheme while retaining the original merit of their scheme. We show that our scheme is efficient as compared to Chang et al.'s scheme. Through the security analysis, we show that our scheme is secure against possible attacks. Further, we simulate our scheme for the formal security verification using the widely-accepted AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) tool to ensure that our scheme is secure against passive and active attacks. In addition, after successful authentication between the user and the server, they establish a secret session key shared between them for future secure communication.

  17. A Case Study of a "Collaborative Organizational Innovation" Intervention, Combining Action Research and Design-Thinking Methodologies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wetzler, Jeffrey Richard

    2013-01-01

    For decades, debates have raged about performance management in education. While it is essential to understand the degree of student learning and the nature of teacher impact in education systems, when attempts at managing outcomes go wrong, the consequences can be problematic. National Education Organization (a pseudonym for the organization…

  18. An Efficient User Authentication and User Anonymity Scheme with Provably Security for IoT-Based Medical Care System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Chun-Ta; Wu, Tsu-Yang; Chen, Chin-Ling; Lee, Cheng-Chi; Chen, Chien-Ming

    2017-06-23

    In recent years, with the increase in degenerative diseases and the aging population in advanced countries, demands for medical care of older or solitary people have increased continually in hospitals and healthcare institutions. Applying wireless sensor networks for the IoT-based telemedicine system enables doctors, caregivers or families to monitor patients' physiological conditions at anytime and anyplace according to the acquired information. However, transmitting physiological data through the Internet concerns the personal privacy of patients. Therefore, before users can access medical care services in IoT-based medical care system, they must be authenticated. Typically, user authentication and data encryption are most critical for securing network communications over a public channel between two or more participants. In 2016, Liu and Chung proposed a bilinear pairing-based password authentication scheme for wireless healthcare sensor networks. They claimed their authentication scheme cannot only secure sensor data transmission, but also resist various well-known security attacks. In this paper, we demonstrate that Liu-Chung's scheme has some security weaknesses, and we further present an improved secure authentication and data encryption scheme for the IoT-based medical care system, which can provide user anonymity and prevent the security threats of replay and password/sensed data disclosure attacks. Moreover, we modify the authentication process to reduce redundancy in protocol design, and the proposed scheme is more efficient in performance compared with previous related schemes. Finally, the proposed scheme is provably secure in the random oracle model under ECDHP.

  19. Reform Stall: An Ecological Analysis of the Efficacy of an Urban School Reform Initiative to Improve Students' Reading and Mathematics Achievement

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Marlon C.; Rupley, William H.; Hall, Kristin Kistner; Nichols, Janet Alys; Rasinski, Timothy V.; Harmon, Willie C.

    2016-01-01

    This article examines the efficacy of the implementation of a program titled Consensus Initiative [pseudonym] in an urban school district that served 20,000 linguistically, economically, and racially diverse students situated in the northeast region of the United States. Using a research derived ecological framework from the school reform…

  20. "They Wasn't Makin' My Kinda Music": A Hip-Hop Musician's Perspective on School, Schooling, and School Music

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kruse, Adam J.

    2016-01-01

    This article focuses on a hip-hop perspective of school, schooling, and school music. The study involves applications of ethnographic (including autoethnographic) techniques within the framework of a holistic multiple case study. One case is an adult amateur hip-hop musician named Terrence (pseudonym), and the other is myself (a traditionally…

  1. Staff Perceptions of the Effect of the Leader in Me on Student Motivation and Peer Relationships in Elementary School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tidd, Charlene

    2016-01-01

    Staff and student surveys at Lane Elementary School (pseudonym) confirm that students lack motivation to complete class work and often struggle to interact appropriately with one another. Similar concerns are reported across the United States as indicated by national Gallup Poll results on student motivation, peer relationships, and feelings of…

  2. Clinical records anonymisation and text extraction (CRATE): an open-source software system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cardinal, Rudolf N

    2017-04-26

    Electronic medical records contain information of value for research, but contain identifiable and often highly sensitive confidential information. Patient-identifiable information cannot in general be shared outside clinical care teams without explicit consent, but anonymisation/de-identification allows research uses of clinical data without explicit consent. This article presents CRATE (Clinical Records Anonymisation and Text Extraction), an open-source software system with separable functions: (1) it anonymises or de-identifies arbitrary relational databases, with sensitivity and precision similar to previous comparable systems; (2) it uses public secure cryptographic methods to map patient identifiers to research identifiers (pseudonyms); (3) it connects relational databases to external tools for natural language processing; (4) it provides a web front end for research and administrative functions; and (5) it supports a specific model through which patients may consent to be contacted about research. Creation and management of a research database from sensitive clinical records with secure pseudonym generation, full-text indexing, and a consent-to-contact process is possible and practical using entirely free and open-source software.

  3. Chinese University Students and Their Experiences of Acculturation at an Ethnic Christian Church

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Xiaoyang; Rhoads, Robert A.

    2018-01-01

    This paper examines the experiences of Chinese international students from East Coast University (a pseudonym) in the United States through their participation in a Chinese ethnic-based Christian church (CCC). Employing ethnographic-based fieldwork, the study highlights how Chinese international students see their experiences in CCC as a source of…

  4. The Comparison of Attention Biases to Opiates in Substance Dependent and Treated Clients of Therapeutic Clinics and Narcotics Anonymous Memberships

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javad Enayat

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the attention bias about tempting incentives related to opium materials in treated, addicted and normal people. Duration of consumption and treating were also considered. Method: In this causal-comparative study population was all addicted people who were referred to the rehabilitation offices, addiction treatment clinic, rebirthing centers and Narcotics Anonymous of East Azerbaijan. This study consisted of five groups of men, including addicted to opium materials which are divided into two groups namely: long consumption period and people with short consumption period, also, treated people including long term treated and short term treated, and a normal control group. Altogether, 103 selected people were studied. Sample groups were similar in terms of age, education, and sex. For measuring attention bias towards tempting stimuli related opiates, a words recognition test was used. This test included three subtests and one recognition test. The recognition scores for the three categories of words were measured. Results: The findings indicated that there was a difference in attention against opium material incentives between control group and the mild and severe consumers groups. Also there were significant differences between treated people with the short time distance and control group, and control group had less temptation and biases in comparison to the other groups. Finally, those who have mild consumption are threatened more in comparison with the control group. Conclusion: The findings have applied implications.

  5. Homework Policy and Student Choice: Findings from a Montessori Charter School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Catherine M.; Glaze, Nelda

    2017-01-01

    The use of homework has been a controversial topic in education for many years: what types of homework to give, how much, and how often. In previous years, Ocean Montessori School (a pseudonym), the site of this study, offered homework like that of traditional public schools, such as worksheets and rote skill practice. Feeling conflicted about the…

  6. Thinking like a Forensic Scientist: Learning with Academic and Everyday Texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guzzetti, Barbara

    2009-01-01

    In this article, the author describes how one high school chemistry teacher, Sharon (pseudonym), implemented a literacy-based unit that appealed to her students by capitalizing on their out-of-school interests in forensics and how her students responded to that unit. The author also describes how two colleagues at her school joined her in teaching…

  7. An initial fMRI study on neural correlates of prayer in members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galanter, Marc; Josipovic, Zoran; Dermatis, Helen; Weber, Jochen; Millard, Mary Alice

    2017-01-01

    Many individuals with alcohol-use disorders who had experienced alcohol craving before joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) report little or no craving after becoming long-term members. Their use of AA prayers may contribute to this. Neural mechanisms underlying this process have not been delineated. To define experiential and neural correlates of diminished alcohol craving following AA prayers among members with long-term abstinence. Twenty AA members with long-term abstinence participated. Self-report measures and functional magnetic resonance imaging of differential neural response to alcohol-craving-inducing images were obtained in three conditions: after reading of AA prayers, after reading irrelevant news, and with passive viewing. Random-effects robust regressions were computed for the main effect (prayer > passive + news) and for estimating the correlations between the main effect and the self-report measures. Compared to the other two conditions, the prayer condition was characterized by: less self-reported craving; increased activation in left-anterior middle frontal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, bilateral precuneus, and bilateral posterior middle temporal gyrus. Craving following prayer was inversely correlated with activation in brain areas associated with self-referential processing and the default mode network, and with characteristics reflecting AA program involvement. AA members' prayer was associated with a relative reduction in self-reported craving and with concomitant engagement of neural mechanisms that reflect control of attention and emotion. These findings suggest neural processes underlying the apparent effectiveness of AA prayer.

  8. An Efficient User Authentication and User Anonymity Scheme with Provably Security for IoT-Based Medical Care System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Tsu-Yang; Chen, Chin-Ling; Lee, Cheng-Chi; Chen, Chien-Ming

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, with the increase in degenerative diseases and the aging population in advanced countries, demands for medical care of older or solitary people have increased continually in hospitals and healthcare institutions. Applying wireless sensor networks for the IoT-based telemedicine system enables doctors, caregivers or families to monitor patients’ physiological conditions at anytime and anyplace according to the acquired information. However, transmitting physiological data through the Internet concerns the personal privacy of patients. Therefore, before users can access medical care services in IoT-based medical care system, they must be authenticated. Typically, user authentication and data encryption are most critical for securing network communications over a public channel between two or more participants. In 2016, Liu and Chung proposed a bilinear pairing-based password authentication scheme for wireless healthcare sensor networks. They claimed their authentication scheme cannot only secure sensor data transmission, but also resist various well-known security attacks. In this paper, we demonstrate that Liu–Chung’s scheme has some security weaknesses, and we further present an improved secure authentication and data encryption scheme for the IoT-based medical care system, which can provide user anonymity and prevent the security threats of replay and password/sensed data disclosure attacks. Moreover, we modify the authentication process to reduce redundancy in protocol design, and the proposed scheme is more efficient in performance compared with previous related schemes. Finally, the proposed scheme is provably secure in the random oracle model under ECDHP. PMID:28644381

  9. What are the physical and psychological health effects of suicide bereavement on family members? Protocol for an observational and interview mixed-methods study in Ireland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spillane, Ailbhe; Larkin, Celine; Corcoran, Paul; Matvienko-Sikar, Karen; Arensman, Ella

    2017-03-30

    Research indicates that experiencing the suicide of a relative can have a significant impact on family members' emotional health. However, research incorporating the impact of suicide bereavement on family members' physical health is sparse. This paper details the protocol for a mixed-methods study of suicide-bereaved family members. The study will primarily examine the physical and mental health needs of those bereaved by suicide. A secondary objective of the study is to describe the support service needs of family members bereaved by suicide. A mixed-methods approach, using semistructured interviews and self-report questionnaires, will be used. Interviews will be conducted with a group of 15-20 relatives who experienced suicide bereavement. This protocol will follow the COREQ checklist criteria for the reporting of qualitative research interviews. Thematic analysis will be used to examine experiences and impact of bereavement on psychological and physical health. Self-report quantitative data on well-being will be analysed using descriptive statistics. Ethical approval to conduct this study has been granted from the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Cork Teaching Hospitals. Pseudonyms will be given to participants to protect anonymity. It will be explained to participants that participation in the study is voluntary and they have to right to withdraw at any time. The findings of this research will be disseminated to regional, national and international audiences through publication in peer-reviewed international journals and presentations at scientific conferences. This research also forms part of a PhD thesis. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  10. Microbiological examination of ready-to-eat burgers sampled anonymously at the point of sale in the United Kingdom.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Little, C L; Gillespie, I A; Mitchell, R T

    2001-12-01

    During May and June 1999 a microbiological study of ready-to-eat burgers purchased anonymously from burger outlets (combined take-away and burger restaurants, take-away-only fixed premises, mobile vendors, temporary stalls and other burger outlets) was undertaken. The intention was to determine the microbiological quality of ready-to-eat burgers as purchased by customers of take-away premises and to ascertain, where information was available, whether the Chief Medical Officer's advice on cooking burgers was being followed. Examination of 3,128 ready-to-eat burgers found that 2,868 (92%) were of acceptable quality and 260 (8%) were of unsatisfactory quality. Unsatisfactory results were mostly due to high aerobic colony counts (ACCs). Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp. and Escherichia coli O157 were not detected in any of the samples examined. Acceptable microbiological quality of ready-to-eat burgers was associated with outlets, such as combined take-away and burger restaurants and in particular national franchise outlets, which had management food hygiene training and hazard analysis in place. Poor microbiological quality was associated with undercooking and local outlets as indicated by Local Authority Inspectors' Consumers at Risk scores.

  11. Toolbox for Research, or how to facilitate a central data management in small-scale research projects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bialke, Martin; Rau, Henriette; Thamm, Oliver C; Schuldt, Ronny; Penndorf, Peter; Blumentritt, Arne; Gött, Robert; Piegsa, Jens; Bahls, Thomas; Hoffmann, Wolfgang

    2018-01-25

    In most research projects budget, staff and IT infrastructures are limiting resources. Especially for small-scale registries and cohort studies professional IT support and commercial electronic data capture systems are too expensive. Consequently, these projects use simple local approaches (e.g. Excel) for data capture instead of a central data management including web-based data capture and proper research databases. This leads to manual processes to merge, analyze and, if possible, pseudonymize research data of different study sites. To support multi-site data capture, storage and analyses in small-scall research projects, corresponding requirements were analyzed within the MOSAIC project. Based on the identified requirements, the Toolbox for Research was developed as a flexible software solution for various research scenarios. Additionally, the Toolbox facilitates data integration of research data as well as metadata by performing necessary procedures automatically. Also, Toolbox modules allow the integration of device data. Moreover, separation of personally identifiable information and medical data by using only pseudonyms for storing medical data ensures the compliance to data protection regulations. This pseudonymized data can then be exported in SPSS format in order to enable scientists to prepare reports and analyses. The Toolbox for Research was successfully piloted in the German Burn Registry in 2016 facilitating the documentation of 4350 burn cases at 54 study sites. The Toolbox for Research can be downloaded free of charge from the project website and automatically installed due to the use of Docker technology.

  12. Smart practice: smart card design considerations in health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindley, R A; Pacheco, F

    1995-01-01

    Recent innovations in microelectronics and advances in cryptography are driving the appearance of a new generation of smart cards with wider applications; this has important repercussions for our society in the coming years. Essentially, these breakthroughs include built-in microprocessors capable of generating cryptographic transactions (e.g.,Jelectronic blinded signatures, digital pseudonyms, and digital credentials), developments toward a single electronic card offering multi-access to services such as transport, telecommunications, health, financial, and entertainment (Universal Access Services), and incorporation of personal identification technologies such as voice, eye, or skin pattern recognition. For example, by using electronic representatives or cryptographic blinded signatures, a smart card can be used for multi transactions across different organizations and under different generated pseudonyms. These pseudonyms are capable of recognizing an individual unambiguously, while none of her records can be linked [1]. Moreover, tamper-proof electronic observers would make smart cards a very attractive technology for high-security based applications, such as those in the health care field. New trends in smart card technology offer excellent privacy and confidentiality safeguards. Therefore, smart cards constitute a promising technology for the health sector in Australia and other countries around the world in their pursuit of technology to support the delivery of quality care services. This paper addresses the main issues and the key design criteria which may be of strategic importance to the success of future smart card technology in the health care sector.

  13. Election Verifiability: Cryptographic Definitions and an Analysis of Helios and JCJ

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-08-06

    Computer Society, 2014. To appear. [26] David Chaum . Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms. Communications of the ACM...24(2):84–88, 1981. [27] David Chaum . Secret-ballot receipts: True voter-verifiable elections. IEEE Security and Privacy, 2(1):38–47, 2004. [28... David Chaum , Richard Carback, Jeremy Clark, Aleksander Essex, Stefan Popoveniuc, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Emily Shen, and Alan T. Sherman

  14. Working with previously anonymous gamete donors and donor-conceived adults: recent practice experiences of running the DNA-based voluntary information exchange and contact register, UK DonorLink.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crawshaw, Marilyn; Gunter, Christine; Tidy, Christine; Atherton, Freda

    2013-03-01

    This article describes recent practice experiences with donor conceived adults, donors, non-donor-conceived adult children of donors using the voluntary DNA-based register, UK DonorLink. It highlights additional complexities faced when using DNA rather than paper records for searching, in particular from the risk of false positives, low chances of success and potential inclusion of biological parents' DNA. Professionals' experiences in supporting those being "linked" suggest challenges as well as rewards. Registration carries the potential to be therapeutic for donor-conceived adults and donors and to enhance their political awareness regardless of links being made. Registrants value both peer and professional support, providing the latter can respond flexibly and be delivered by staff experienced in intermediary work. Given that the majority of those affected by donor conception internationally come from anonymous donation systems, these findings are highly pertinent and argue the need for political and moral debate about such service provision.

  15. Vigilância e anonimato em aplicativos mobile: um estudo sobre a privacidade em relações homoafetivas no digital | Surveillance and anonymity in mobile applications: a study about the privacy in digital same sex relations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuela do Corral Vieira

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available RESUMO Este artigo busca compreender de que forma homens que utilizam os aplicativos de relacionamento Tinder, Grindr e Scruff – considerando seus pontos de semelhanças e de especificidades, conforme serão detalhadas ao longo deste estudo – experienciam facetas de suas identidades e constroem práticas de sociabilidade, fazendo uso ou não do anonimato, na vivência de relações homoafetivas. Além disso, a pesquisa analisa de que forma estas plataformas digitais se configuram como heterotopias e “armários digitais”, nos quais os sujeitos desenvolvem formas de resistência e proteção a práticas de vigilâncias sociais on e off-lines. Palavras-chave: Privacidade; Anonimato; Identidade; Sociabilidade; Aplicativos de Relacionamento. ABSTRACT This article seeks to understand how men who use the relationship applications Tinder, Grindr and Scruff – considering their similarities points and specificities, as will be detailed in the course of this study – experience facets of their identities and build sociability practices making use or not of anonymity, in experiences of same sex relations. Furthermore, the research examines how these digital platforms are configured as heterotopias and "digital lockers" in which subjects develop forms of resistance and protection to the surveillances practices on and off-lines. Keywords: Privacy; Anonymity; Identity; Sociability; Relationship Applications.

  16. An investigation of the universe and anatomy of work

    OpenAIRE

    Beruvides, Mario G

    1993-01-01

    This research study investigated eight specific work characteristics (outputs, inputs, work type, discretion level, work pursuit level, level of endeavor, decision type and maturity level), on three sub-populations of workers (production personnel, office/secretarial personnel, and university engineering professors). Thirty one production personnel from two organizations (the Print Shop and ABC Corporation-pseudonyms) located in southwest Virginia were used for the first group (B group). The...

  17. The migration of drugs-of-abuse from Europe to Denmark – Analysis of pooled anonymous urine from urinals at Roskilde Festival 2016

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hoegberg, Lotte Christine Groth; Christiansen, Cecilie; Soe, Jesper

    or through police seizures [2]. We carried out a cross-sectional study of collected pooled anonymous urine, sampled from urinals at the biggest music festival during the year, Roskilde Festival, with the aim to detect classic recreational drugs and NPS. The aim of this study was to identify recreational...... drugs currently used and predict the emergence of NPS by comparing study data with seizure data from the previous year published by EMCDDA [1]. Methods: In total 44 urine samples were collected from three urinals at Roskilde Festival 2016. Two urinals were placed at music stages with late-night concerts...... drugs were identified in pooled urine samples. While the widespread use of these drugs at the festival was confirmed, the prevalence of NPS was not as comprehensive as expected based on the EMCDDA report [1] and the Danish report on illegal drugs [2]. The limited use of NPS and the substantial dilution...

  18. The migration of drugs-of-abuse from Europe to Denmark – Analysis of pooled anonymous urine from urinals at Roskilde Festival 2016

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hoegberg, Lotte Christine Groth; Christiansen, Cecilie; Soe, Jesper

    of NPS, traditional treatment guidelines are challenged. Thus, information of the emergence of new arrivals is of great value. Our knowledge on the actual range of drugs used and NPS available in Denmark is limited as identification is possible only when consumers become patients in the healthcare system...... or through police seizures [2]. We carried out a cross-sectional study of collected pooled anonymous urine, sampled from urinals at the biggest music festival during the year, Roskilde Festival, with the aim to detect classic recreational drugs and NPS. The aim of this study was to identify recreational...... drugs currently used and predict the emergence of NPS by comparing study data with seizure data from the previous year published by EMCDDA [1]. Methods: In total 44 urine samples were collected from three urinals at Roskilde Festival 2016. Two urinals were placed at music stages with late-night concerts...

  19. Painters in the Splendor of Tunja: Naming Unrecognized Artists to Bring them out of Anonymity (XVI and XVII centuries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura Liliana Vargas Murcia

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Tunja has stood out as one of the riches cities of New Kingdom of Granada, regarding the presence of painting in the last decades of the XVI century and the first half of the XVIIth. Its painters were of importance not only in this city but in the rest of the Province as well, with the churches and museums of Boyacá containing images that were essential elements in the indoctrination of indigenous communities. Civil mural works of art in Tunja have been an object of study mostly for their interpretation, and less regarding the identities of their makers. As far as easel painting, Angelino Medoro eclipsed the names of other artists who contributed to making Tunja one the the most representative cities of the Mannerism and Renaissance of Hispanic America. This article presents the names of some of the active painters of this period, their lives and production, seeking the recognition of these characters, whose names have been brought out of anonymity in the latest years. The starting point for the information search was the research of Magdalena Corradine Mora on the inhabitants of Tunja in the first decades of the XVII century, and the search for information in the Boyacá Regional Historical Archive. In calling attention upon these artists, we hope that, in the future, the identification of their works may be initiated as well as the research, conservation and dissemination of these works, due to the fact that this heritage is not always in ideal conditions, nor is it perceived and valued as is deserved.

  20. An evaluation framework for pre-distribution strategies of certificates in VANETs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Feiri, Michael; Petit, Jonathan; Kargl, Frank

    Security and privacy in vehicular communication are expected to be ensured by the pervasive use of pseudonymous certificates and signed messages. The design and establishment of necessary public key infrastructure and hierarchies of cer- tificate authorities is ongoing in industry consortia, such as

  1. A Phenomenological Study of Sexual Harassment and Violence among Girls Attending High Schools in Urban Slums, Nairobi, Kenya

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abuya, Benta A.; Onsomu, Elijah O.; Moore, DaKysha; Sagwe, Jackline

    2012-01-01

    In 2003, 31% of young Kenyan women ages 15-24 reported sexual harassment and violence (SHV), with a majority experiencing sexual debut due to coercion (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Data were obtained from a sample of 20 girls attending school in Kamu and Lafamu (pseudonyms used for the study sites), 10 girls who had dropped out of school,…

  2. Isolation of anonymous DNA sequences from within a submicroscopic X chromosomal deletion in a patient with choroideremia, deafness, and mental retardation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nussbaum, R.L.; Lesko, J.G.; Lewis, R.A.; Ledbetter, S.A.; Ledbetter, D.H.

    1987-01-01

    Choroideremia, an X-chromosome linked retinal dystrophy of unknown pathogenesis, causes progressive nightblindness and eventual central blindness in affected males by the third to fourth decade of life. Choroideremia has been mapped to Xq13-21 by tight linkage to restriction fragment length polymorphism loci. The authors have recently identified two families in which choroideremia is inherited with mental retardation and deafness. In family XL-62, an interstitial deletion Xq21 is visible by cytogenetic analysis and two linked anonymous DNA markers, DXYS1 and DXS72, are deleted. In the second family, XL-45, an interstitial deletion was suspected on phenotypic grounds but could not be confirmed by high-resolution cytogenetic analysis. They used phenol-enhanced reassociation of 48,XXXX DNA in competition with excess XL-45 DNA to generate a library of cloned DNA enriched for sequences that might be deleted in XL-45. Two of the first 83 sequences characterized from the library were found to be deleted in probands from family XL-45 as well as from family XL-62. Isolation of these sequences proves that XL-45 does contain a submicroscopic deletion and provides a starting point for identifying overlapping genomic sequences that span the XL-45 deletion. Each overlapping sequence will be studied to identify exons from the choroideremia locus

  3. A secure chaotic maps and smart cards based password authentication and key agreement scheme with user anonymity for telecare medicine information systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Chun-Ta; Lee, Cheng-Chi; Weng, Chi-Yao

    2014-09-01

    Telecare medicine information system (TMIS) is widely used for providing a convenient and efficient communicating platform between patients at home and physicians at medical centers or home health care (HHC) organizations. To ensure patient privacy, in 2013, Hao et al. proposed a chaotic map based authentication scheme with user anonymity for TMIS. Later, Lee showed that Hao et al.'s scheme is in no provision for providing fairness in session key establishment and gave an efficient user authentication and key agreement scheme using smart cards, in which only few hashing and Chebyshev chaotic map operations are required. In addition, Jiang et al. discussed that Hao et al.'s scheme can not resist stolen smart card attack and they further presented an improved scheme which attempts to repair the security pitfalls found in Hao et al.'s scheme. In this paper, we found that both Lee's and Jiang et al.'s authentication schemes have a serious security problem in that a registered user's secret parameters may be intentionally exposed to many non-registered users and this problem causing the service misuse attack. Therefore, we propose a slight modification on Lee's scheme to prevent the shortcomings. Compared with previous schemes, our improved scheme not only inherits the advantages of Lee's and Jiang et al.'s authentication schemes for TMIS but also remedies the serious security weakness of not being able to withstand service misuse attack.

  4. [The usage of protective gloves for routine disinfection of patient contact areas : An anonymous survey of work doctors and hygienists (infection control nurses, link nurses and physicians)].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dittmann, Kathleen; Morch-Röder, Alexandra; Kramer, Axel; Kagel, Verena; Hübner, Nils-Olaf

    2017-10-01

    Disinfection, routinely carried out in healthcare facilities and known as "ongoing disinfection" or "untargeted disinfection", covers areas that are suspected of being contaminated with pathogen-containing material without being recognizable or visible in individual cases. The use of chemical resistant protective gloves is indispensable for surface disinfection. However, it is unclear if healthcare facilities set specific requirements regarding the selection and application of gloves. The usage of protective gloves for routine disinfection of patient contact areas was assessed in an anonymous cross-sectional study. Work doctors and hygienists (infection control nurses, link nurses and physicians) were queried by questionnaire. Disposable gloves were predominantly used, in most cases largely in accordance with EN 374. The most common glove material was nitrile. Glove change was mostly reported between rooms. Reprocessing of reusable gloves is inconsistent. Several professions are responsible for selecting protective gloves. Procedures for glove selection and application for disinfection of contact surfaces vary between the surveyed institutions. Therefore, more attention has to be paid to these three aspects in the future and these must be included in the hygiene plans.

  5. Přehled dopisovatelů Lidových novin z Podkarpatské Rusi

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Řehák, Daniel

    2015-01-01

    Roč. 23, č. 2 (2015), s. 179-184 ISSN 1211-9768 Institutional support: RVO:68378068 Keywords : Lidové noviny * correspondents * journalists * Carpathian Ruthenia * acronyms * pseudonyms * 1st half of the 20th century Subject RIV: AJ - Letters, Mass-media, Audiovision

  6. Anonimiteit en pseudonimiteit van Bybelse geskrifte | Lombard | HTS ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The literary phenomenon of pseudonymity creates the most substantial problems among literary critics, since all cultures and authors' conventions emphatically reject plagiarism and forgeries. An assessment of this literary technique should be conducted with reference to the motives and objectives behind the utilization of ...

  7. The management of reduced fetal movements in an uncomplicated pregnancy at term: results from an anonymous national online survey in the Republic of Ireland.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Unterscheider, J

    2012-01-31

    There is currently inconsistent evidence and clinical guidance on how to best manage a pregnancy complicated by reduced fetal movements. This novel, web-based, anonymous questionnaire evaluated 96 assessment and management approaches from doctors working in obstetrics in the Republic of Ireland who were presented with a clinical scenario of a primigravida concerned about reduced fetal movements at 39+3 weeks\\' gestation. This study identified a lack of clinical practice guidelines available in maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland. We demonstrated that almost all clinicians applied more than one assessment method and that most incorporated a cardiotocograph into their assessment. There was a low uptake of simple symphysio-fundal height measurement and high usage of kickcharts. The minority of clinicians admitted or induced their patients. This survey identified the need for national and international guidelines to ensure safe antepartum care and delivery.

  8. The management of reduced fetal movements in an uncomplicated pregnancy at term: results from an anonymous national online survey in the Republic of Ireland.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Unterscheider, J

    2010-01-01

    There is currently inconsistent evidence and clinical guidance on how to best manage a pregnancy complicated by reduced fetal movements. This novel, web-based, anonymous questionnaire evaluated 96 assessment and management approaches from doctors working in obstetrics in the Republic of Ireland who were presented with a clinical scenario of a primigravida concerned about reduced fetal movements at 39+3 weeks\\' gestation. This study identified a lack of clinical practice guidelines available in maternity hospitals in the Republic of Ireland. We demonstrated that almost all clinicians applied more than one assessment method and that most incorporated a cardiotocograph into their assessment. There was a low uptake of simple symphysio-fundal height measurement and high usage of kickcharts. The minority of clinicians admitted or induced their patients. This survey identified the need for national and international guidelines to ensure safe antepartum care and delivery.

  9. Does Alcoholics Anonymous work differently for men and women? A moderated multiple-mediation analysis in a large clinical sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, John F; Hoeppner, Bettina B

    2013-06-01

    Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) began as a male organization, but about one third is now female. Studies have found that women participate at least as much as men and benefit equally from AA, but it is unclear whether women benefit from AA in the same or different ways as men. This study tested whether gender moderated the mechanisms through which AA aids recovery. A cohort study of alcohol dependent adults (N=1726; 24% female; Project MATCH) was assessed on AA attendance during treatment; with mediators at 9 months; outcomes (Percent Days Abstinent [PDA] and Drinks per Drinking Day [DDD]) at 15 months. Multiple mediator models tested whether purported mechanisms (i.e., self-efficacy, depression, social networks, spirituality/religiosity) explained AA's effects differently for men and women controlling for baseline values, mediators, treatment, and other confounders. For PDA, the proportion of AA's effect accounted for by the mediators was similar for men (53%) and women (49%). Both men and women were found to benefit from changes in social factors but these mechanisms were more important among men. For DDD, the mediators accounted for 70% of the effect of AA for men and 41% for women. Again, men benefitted mostly from social changes. Independent of AA's effects, negative affect self-efficacy was shown to have a strong relationship to outcome for women but not men. The recovery benefits derived from AA differ in nature and magnitude between men and women and may reflect differing needs based on recovery challenges related to gender-based social roles and drinking contexts. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. A Focused Comparison of Soviet and American National Interests in Southwest Asia

    Science.gov (United States)

    1986-06-01

    Friedrich and Zblgniew K. Brzezi nski. Toialitarie~o Dictatorship and Autocracyj, 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger, 1 965). Hannah Arendt , The Origins of...the role of legitimate ..-tate interests, The Soviet system has been described by Spiro, Priedrichi, Brzezinski and Arendt , as a totalitarian system...establish "a republican system, consistent with the true spirit of Islam. to ’ Hannah Negaran (pseudonym), "Afghanistan: A Marxist Regime in a Muslim

  11. Describing and developing terminology for multiple identity collections

    OpenAIRE

    Taylor, Rebekah

    2016-01-01

    This paper introduces the start of a cataloguing project, involving research into terminology and description, controlled vocabulary, and ways to improve collections' searchability. This focuses on the Working Press archive, books by and about working class artists, 1986-1996, the related book and zine collections, whose authors are often unidentified, or with pseudonyms, and the Tessa Boffin, 1980s-1990s photography LGBTQ. These collections deal with multiple identities –subjects include rac...

  12. Molecular characterization of a new Babesia bovis thrombospondin-related anonymous protein (BbTRAP2.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohamad Alaa Terkawi

    Full Text Available A gene encoding a Babesia bovis protein that shares significant degree of similarity to other apicomplexan thrombospondin-related anonymous proteins (TRAPs was found in the genomic database and designated as BbTRAP2. Recombinant protein containing a conserved region of BbTRAP2 was produced in E. coli. A high antigenicity of recombinant BbTRAP2 (rBbTRAP2 was observed with field B. bovis-infected bovine sera collected from geographically different regions of the world. Moreover, antiserum against rBbTRAP2 specifically reacted with the authentic protein by Western blot analysis and an indirect fluorescent antibody test. Three bands corresponding to 104-, 76-, and 44-kDa proteins were identified in the parasite lysates and two bands of 76- and 44-kDa proteins were detected in the supernatant of cultivated parasites, indicating that BbTRAP2 was proteolytically processed and shed into the culture. Apical and surface localizations of BbTRAP2 were observed in the intracellular and extracellular parasites, respectively, by confocal laser microscopic examination. Moreover, native BbTRAP2 was precipitated by bovine erythrocytes, suggesting its role in the attachment to erythrocytes. Furthermore, the specific antibody to rBbTRAP2 inhibited the growth of B. bovis in a concentration-dependent manner. Consistently, pre-incubation of the free merozoites with the antibody to rBbTRAP2 resulted in an inhibition of the parasite invasion into host erythrocytes. Interestingly, the antibody to rBbTRAP2 was the most inhibitive for the parasite's growth as compared to those of a set of antisera produced against different recombinant proteins, including merozoite surface antigen 2c (BbMSA-2c, rhoptry-associated protein 1 C-terminal (BbRAP-1CT, and spherical body protein 1 (BbSBP-1. These results suggest that BbTRAP2 might be a potential candidate for development of a subunit vaccine against B. bovis infection.

  13. Volunteer feedback and perceptions after participation in a phase I, first-in-human Ebola vaccine trial: An anonymous survey.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julie-Anne Dayer

    Full Text Available The continued participation of volunteers in clinical trials is crucial to advances in healthcare. Few data are available regarding the satisfaction and impressions of healthy volunteers after participation in phase I trials, many of which lead to unexpected adverse events. We report feedback from over 100 adult volunteers who took part in a first-in-human trial conducted in a high-income country testing an experimental Ebola vaccine causing significant reactogenicity, as well as unexpected arthritis in one fifth of participants. The anonymous, internet-based satisfaction survey was sent by email to all participants upon their completion of this one-year trial; it asked 24 questions concerning volunteers' motivations, impressions of the trial experience, and overall satisfaction. Answers were summarized using descriptive statistics. Of the 115 trial participants, 103 (90% filled out the survey. Fifty-five respondents (53% were male. Thirty-five respondents (34% were healthcare workers, many of whom would deploy to Ebola-affected countries. All respondents cited scientific advancement as their chief motivation for participation, while 100/103 (97% and 61/103 (59% reported additional "humanitarian reasons" and potential protection from Ebolavirus, respectively. Although investigators had documented adverse events in 97% of trial participants, only 74 of 103 respondents (72% recalled experiencing an adverse event. All reported an overall positive experience, and 93/103 (90% a willingness to participate in future trials. Given the high level of satisfaction, no significant associations could be detected between trial experiences and satisfaction, even among respondents reporting adverse events lasting weeks or months. Despite considerable reactogenicity and unexpected vaccine-related arthritis, all survey respondents reported overall satisfaction. While this trial's context was unique, the positive feedback is likely due at least in part to the

  14. The Role of Faculty in Global Society: Carving out the Public Purpose of Our Work

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonzales, Leslie D.; Rincones, Rodolfo

    2008-01-01

    This qualitative analysis investigates the role of tenure-track faculty at Towne University (pseudonym), a regional institution with a long-standing public service mission. Towne has played an important role in the production and continued development of teachers for local schools through extensive K-20 collaboration. Recently, however, Towne…

  15. Secure Secondary Use of Clinical Data with Cloud-based NLP Services. Towards a Highly Scalable Research Infrastructure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christoph, J; Griebel, L; Leb, I; Engel, I; Köpcke, F; Toddenroth, D; Prokosch, H-U; Laufer, J; Marquardt, K; Sedlmayr, M

    2015-01-01

    The secondary use of clinical data provides large opportunities for clinical and translational research as well as quality assurance projects. For such purposes, it is necessary to provide a flexible and scalable infrastructure that is compliant with privacy requirements. The major goals of the cloud4health project are to define such an architecture, to implement a technical prototype that fulfills these requirements and to evaluate it with three use cases. The architecture provides components for multiple data provider sites such as hospitals to extract free text as well as structured data from local sources and de-identify such data for further anonymous or pseudonymous processing. Free text documentation is analyzed and transformed into structured information by text-mining services, which are provided within a cloud-computing environment. Thus, newly gained annotations can be integrated along with the already available structured data items and the resulting data sets can be uploaded to a central study portal for further analysis. Based on the architecture design, a prototype has been implemented and is under evaluation in three clinical use cases. Data from several hundred patients provided by a University Hospital and a private hospital chain have already been processed. Cloud4health has shown how existing components for secondary use of structured data can be complemented with text-mining in a privacy compliant manner. The cloud-computing paradigm allows a flexible and dynamically adaptable service provision that facilitates the adoption of services by data providers without own investments in respective hardware resources and software tools.

  16. Are You Sure You Want to Contact Us? Quantifying the Leakage of PII via Website Contact Forms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Starov Oleksii

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The majority of commercial websites provide users the ability to contact them via dedicated contact pages. In these pages, users are typically requested to provide their names, email addresses, and reason for contacting the website. This effectively makes contact pages a gateway from being anonymous or pseudonymous, i.e., identified via stateful and stateless identifiers, to being eponymous. As such, the environment where users provide their personally identifiable information (PII has to be trusted and free from intentional and unintentional information leaks. In this paper, we report on the first large-scale study of PII leakage via contact pages of the 100,000 most popular sites of the web. We develop a reliable methodology for identifying and interacting with contact forms as well as techniques that allow us to discover the leakage of PII towards thirdparties, even when that information is obfuscated. Using these methods, we witness the leakage of PII towards third-parties in a wide range of ways, including the leakage through third-party form submissions, third-party scripts that collect PII information from a first-party page, and unintended leakage through a browser’s Referer header. To recover the lost control of users over their PII, we design and develop Formlock, a browser extension that warns the user when contact forms are using PII-leaking practices, and provides the ability to comprehensively lock-down a form so that a user’s details cannot be, neither accidentally, nor intentionally, leaked to third parties

  17. Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine – family matters

    OpenAIRE

    Peters, F

    2017-01-01

    This article traces themes and preoccupations that work across Ruth Rendell’s work, writing both as Rendell and also as Barbara Vine. It investigates the ways in which the\\ud use of a pseudonym allows her to delve deeper into areas that she also explores as Rendell – the dysfunctional family and heredity, both in relation to physical disease and the fruitless search for origins, the latter discussed by her through the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis.

  18. Secure anonymity-preserving password-based user authentication and session key agreement scheme for telecare medicine information systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutrala, Anil Kumar; Das, Ashok Kumar; Odelu, Vanga; Wazid, Mohammad; Kumari, Saru

    2016-10-01

    Information and communication and technology (ICT) has changed the entire paradigm of society. ICT facilitates people to use medical services over the Internet, thereby reducing the travel cost, hospitalization cost and time to a greater extent. Recent advancements in Telecare Medicine Information System (TMIS) facilitate users/patients to access medical services over the Internet by gaining health monitoring facilities at home. Amin and Biswas recently proposed a RSA-based user authentication and session key agreement protocol usable for TMIS, which is an improvement over Giri et al.'s RSA-based user authentication scheme for TMIS. In this paper, we show that though Amin-Biswas's scheme considerably improves the security drawbacks of Giri et al.'s scheme, their scheme has security weaknesses as it suffers from attacks such as privileged insider attack, user impersonation attack, replay attack and also offline password guessing attack. A new RSA-based user authentication scheme for TMIS is proposed, which overcomes the security pitfalls of Amin-Biswas's scheme and also preserves user anonymity property. The careful formal security analysis using the two widely accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic and the random oracle models is done. Moreover, the informal security analysis of the scheme is also done. These security analyses show the robustness of our new scheme against the various known attacks as well as attacks found in Amin-Biswas's scheme. The simulation of the proposed scheme using the widely accepted Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool is also done. We present a new user authentication and session key agreement scheme for TMIS, which fixes the mentioned security pitfalls found in Amin-Biswas's scheme, and we also show that the proposed scheme provides better security than other existing schemes through the rigorous security analysis and verification tool. Furthermore, we present the formal security

  19. Transitional Experiences of Post-16 Sports Education: Jack's Story

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aldous, David C. R.; Sparkes, Andrew C.; Brown, David H. K.

    2014-01-01

    This paper explores the layered transitional experiences of a semi-professional athlete named Jack (a pseudonym) between the fields of professional sport and further and higher education. Our analysis is framed by the quadripartite framework of structuration and focuses on Jack's "in-situ" practices at his college and university in order…

  20. Youth Perspectives of Achievement: Is Money Everything?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matope, Jasmine; Badroodien, Azeem

    2015-01-01

    This article draws from a qualitative research project completed at Victoria High School (pseudonym) in Cape Town in 2012 which explored 13 learners' perspectives of achievement and its influence on their lives and thinking. The piece problematises and analyses taken-for-granted connections between money, achievement, youth aspirations and views…

  1. The Return Home: Transitioning from a 28-Day Remote Outdoor Education Programme

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNatty, Shannon

    2016-01-01

    This article addresses the challenges for students transitioning from the remote Te Kahu (pseudonym) outdoor education programme back into their home and school city environments. Students must develop methods of coping and readjust to society to continue the personal growth and process the learning affected through the 28-day programme. The…

  2. Airplane pilot mental health and suicidal thoughts: a cross-sectional descriptive study via anonymous web-based survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Alexander C; Donnelly-McLay, Deborah; Weisskopf, Marc G; McNeely, Eileen; Betancourt, Theresa S; Allen, Joseph G

    2016-12-15

    The Germanwings Flight 9525 crash has brought the sensitive subject of airline pilot mental health to the forefront in aviation. Globally, 350 million people suffer from depression-a common mental disorder. This study provides further information on this important topic regarding mental health especially among female airline pilots. This is the first study to describe airline pilot mental health-with a focus on depression and suicidal thoughts-outside of the information derived from aircraft accident investigations, regulated health examinations, or identifiable self-reports, which are records protected by civil aviation authorities and airline companies. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study via an anonymous web-based survey administered between April and December 2015. Pilots were recruited from unions, airline companies, and airports via convenience sampling. Data analysis included calculating absolute number and prevalence of health characteristics and depression scores. One thousand eight hundred thirty seven (52.7%) of the 3485 surveyed pilots completed the survey, with 1866 (53.5%) completing at least half of the survey. 233 (12.6%) of 1848 airline pilots responding to the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9), and 193 (13.5%) of 1430 pilots who reported working as an airline pilot in the last seven days at time of survey, met depression threshold-PHQ-9 total score ≥ 10. Seventy-five participants (4.1%) reported having suicidal thoughts within the past two weeks. We found a significant trend in proportions of depression at higher levels of use of sleep-aid medication (trend test z = 6.74, p sexual harassment (z = 3.18, p = 0.001) or verbal harassment (z = 6.13, p < 0.001). Hundreds of pilots currently flying are managing depressive symptoms perhaps without the possibility of treatment due to the fear of negative career impacts. This study found 233 (12.6%) airline pilots meeting depression threshold and 75 (4.1%) pilots

  3. Enduring Injustice: A Case Study of Retirement from Professional Rugby Union

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKenna, Jim; Thomas, Howard

    2007-01-01

    Garth Armstrong (pseudonym) agreed to participate based on a pre-existing "career-guidance-and-support" relationship with the researcher, to explore the realities of career transition. An account-making approach was used over the last eight months of his professional rugby-playing career (termination) and for a further ten months into…

  4. Pen- Name in Persian and Arabic Poetry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ebrahim Khodayar

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available  Abstract Pen-name (Takhalloss is one of the main features of Persian poetry. It has been a matter of concern among many of Persian language geography poets in the orient at least up to the Mashrouteh era. Pen-name has been promoted among the other Muslim nations throuph Persian poetry. Although it is not as famous in the Arab nations as in the Persian speaking nations, it is known as “Alqab-o-shoara” among the Arab nations and, through this way, it has affected the poetrical wealth of the Arabic poets.   The Present paper, using description-analystic approach, compares the pen-names of Persian and Arabic poets under the title of “pen-names” and investigates their features in both cultures. The main research question is: What are the similarities and differences of poetic-names, in Persian and Arabic poets in terms of the type of name, position and importance? The results showed that Pseudonym by its amazing expansion in Persian poetry has also influenced Arabic poetry. In addition to the factors affecting in the choice of pen-names (like pseudonym, pen-name, nickname..., sometimes such external factors as events, commends, community benefactors and climate, as well as internal factors including the poets’ inner beliefs are associated too. .

  5. Alcoholics Anonymous

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Venezuela Virgin Islands Zimbabwe INFORMATION ABOUT A.A. What Is ... Young People's Animation Video On the Beach A Group of People Just Like Me Full-Length Videos ...

  6. Celan and his 'escape' Celan e sua "fuga"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leandro Konder

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Presentation of the poem "Todesfuge" by Celan, pseudonym of Paul Pessach Antschel, Romenian Jew, written in German and published in Mohn und Gedächtnis, 1952. Keywords: Fascism. Judaism. Literature. Apresentação do poema "Fuga da Morte" de Celan, pseudônimo de Paul Pessach Antschel, judeu romeno de língua alemã, publicado no livro de poesia Ópio e Memória, de 1952. Palavras-chave: Fascismo. Judaísmo. Literatura.

  7. A Gap Analysis of Employee Satisfaction within the National Parks: Anuenue National Park

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pang, Bryan Daniel Kwai Sun

    2014-01-01

    Utilizing Clark and Estes' (2008) Gap Analysis Model, the purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge, motivation, and organization causes of and solutions for low employee satisfaction ratings at one particular park, referred to by its pseudonym, Anuenue (Hawaiian word for "Rainbow," and pronounced "Ah-noo-ay-noo-ay")…

  8. A Gendered Point of View on the Challenges of Women Academics in The People's Republic of China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rhoads, Robert A.; Gu, Diane Yu

    2012-01-01

    The authors conducted a qualitative study of women's experiences as faculty members at Northern Research University, a pseudonym for a top 40 university in The People's Republic of China. Based on 27 semi-structured interviews with women (15) and men (12), and drawing from feminist standpoint theory and symbolic interactionism, the authors…

  9. Principal-Generated YouTube Video as a Method of Improving Parental Involvement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richards, Joey

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to evaluate the involvement level of parents and reveal whether principal-generated YouTube videos for regular communication would enhance levels of parental involvement at one North Texas Christian Middle School (pseudonym). The following questions guided this study: 1. What is the beginning level of parental…

  10. Use of Graphic Organizers in a Language Teachers' Professional Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chien, Chin-Wen

    2012-01-01

    Starting from 2009 academic year, the instructional coaches in a school district in a northwest American city began to provide Workshop II (pseudonym) to elementary school English teachers. This study aims to discuss the use of graphic organizers in English teachers' professional development. Different types of graphic organizers such as…

  11. The advantage of higher-order theory of mind in the game of limited bidding

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Weerd, H.; Verheij, B.; van Eijck, J.; Verbrugge, L. C.

    2011-01-01

    Higher-order theory of mind is the ability to recursively model mental states of other agents. It is known that adults in general can reason adequately at the second order (covering attributions like "Alice knows that Bob knows that she wrote a novel under pseudonym"), but there are cognitive limits

  12. Multimodal Instruction in Pre-Kindergarten: An Introduction to an Inclusive Early Language Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Regalla, Michele; Peker, Hilal

    2016-01-01

    During the 2013-2014 school year, a charter school in Central Florida (which will be given the pseudonym "The Unity School") known for its practice of full inclusion launched an unconventional project. The Unity School, which serves children from preschool through grade five, began offering foreign language to all pre-kindergarten…

  13. Playing around in Lewis Carroll's "Alice" Books

    Science.gov (United States)

    Susina, Jan

    2010-01-01

    Mathematician Charles Dodgson's love of play and his need for rules came together in his use of popular games as part of the structure of the two famous children's books, "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass," he wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The author of this article looks at the interplay between…

  14. SCPR: Secure Crowdsourcing-Based Parking Reservation System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Changsheng Wan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The crowdsourcing-based parking reservation system is a new computing paradigm, where private owners can rent their parking spots out. Security is the main concern for parking reservation systems. However, current schemes cannot provide user privacy protection for drivers and have no key agreement functions, resulting in a lot of security problems. Moreover, current schemes are typically based on the time-consuming bilinear pairing and not suitable for real-time applications. To solve these security and efficiency problems, we present a novel security protocol with user privacy called SCPR. Similar to protocols of this field, SCPR can authenticate drivers involved in the parking reservation system. However, different from other well-known approaches, SCPR uses pseudonyms instead of real identities for providing user privacy protection for drivers and designs a novel pseudonym-based key agreement protocol. Finally, to reduce the time cost, SCPR designs several novel cryptographic algorithms based on the algebraic signature technique. By doing so, SCPR can satisfy a number of security requirements and enjoy high efficiency. Experimental results show SCPR is feasible for real world applications.

  15. Redescription of Tripaphylus musteli (van Beneden, 1851) (Copepoda: Sphyriidae) and the relegation of Paeon Wilson, 1919 to synonymy with Tripaphylus Richiardi in Anonymous, 1878.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benz, George W; Boxshall, Geoffrey A

    2017-07-01

    Tripaphylus musteli (van Beneden, 1851) (Copepoda, Siphonostomatoida, Sphyriidae) is redescribed from an adult female collected from the branchial chamber of a starry smooth-hound, Mustelus asterias Cloquet (Carcharhiniformes, Triakidae), captured in the English Channel off Portland, UK. The new account of T. musteli is the first based on a complete adult female and highlighted the lack of a robust distinction separating Tripaphylus Richiardi, in Anonymous, 1878 and Paeon Wilson, 1919 prompting us to relegate Paeon to a junior subjective synonym of Tripaphylus. In the light of this synonymy the eight former species of Paeon are transferred to Tripaphylus as follows: T. ferox (Wilson, 1919) new combination, T. elongatus (Wilson, 1932) new combination, T. vassierei (Delamare Deboutteville & Nuñes-Ruivo, 1954) new combination, T. lobatus (Kirtisinghe, 1964) new combination, T. asymboli (Turner, Kyne & Bennett, 2003) new combination, T. versicolor (Wilson, 1919) new combination, T. australis (Kabata, 1993) new combination, and T. triakis (Castro Romero, 2001) new combination. Comparisons between terminology used in this report and that in the literature indicate that all transformed adult females of Tripaphylus probably possess a full complement of cephalic appendages and maxillipeds. All limbs, with the exception of the maxillae share a general morphological similarity to the corresponding appendages of conspecific males. The maxilla of the transformed adult female of Tripaphylus is a small digitiform protuberance associated with a swelling in some species.

  16. The Invisible Reality of Whiteness: An Examination of Whiteness in Jesuit Higher Education Student Affairs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmitz, Diane Shirley

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to promote an ethic of care and justice through the examination of the manifestations of whiteness within student affairs on a Jesuit Catholic university campus. To achieve this purpose a qualitative, exploratory case study was used to examine a student affairs division at Western Jesuit University (pseudonym), an…

  17. The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Amy Suzanne

    2010-01-01

    This article considers the uses of literacy within the Jones family (all names are pseudonyms), an African American family who lives in the rural South of the United States. Drawing on life history data with three women in the Jones family--Harriet Jones (grandmother), Sally Harris (mother), and Lola Harris (granddaughter)--the author traces how…

  18. Jump Start: International High School Students From Other Countries Earning Early U.S. College Credits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Jiayi; Hagedorn, Linda Serra

    2015-01-01

    This study analyzes data from one of the larger credit-based college transition programs for international students, the U.S. Bound College Credit Program or USBC2 Program (a pseudonym), mainly offered to high school students around the globe who are planning on attending American colleges or universities. Upon successful program completion, these…

  19. Human Dignity and the Commercial Appropriation of Personality: Towards a Cosmopolitan Consensus in Publicity Rights?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olaf Weber

    2004-03-01

    Full Text Available This article is concerned with the commercial appropriation of human personality and its regulation in different legal systems. Where accepted, so called “publicity rights” allow for the exclusive commercial exercise of a persona’s publicity values. A tradable worth can be found in many personal characteristics such as voice, signature or pseudonym. Predominantly, however, it accrues to one’s name and likeness. It is argued that such potential rights are inherent in every human being.

  20. "I Found out the Hard Way": Micro-Political Workings in Professional Football

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Andrew; Potrac, Paul; Jones, Robyn

    2015-01-01

    This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's…

  1. Latent Feature Models for Uncovering Human Mobility Patterns from Anonymized User Location Traces with Metadata

    KAUST Repository

    Alharbi, Basma Mohammed

    2017-04-10

    In the mobile era, data capturing individuals’ locations have become unprecedentedly available. Data from Location-Based Social Networks is one example of large-scale user-location data. Such data provide a valuable source for understanding patterns governing human mobility, and thus enable a wide range of research. However, mining and utilizing raw user-location data is a challenging task. This is mainly due to the sparsity of data (at the user level), the imbalance of data with power-law users and locations check-ins degree (at the global level), and more importantly the lack of a uniform low-dimensional feature space describing users. Three latent feature models are proposed in this dissertation. Each proposed model takes as an input a collection of user-location check-ins, and outputs a new representation space for users and locations respectively. To avoid invading users privacy, the proposed models are designed to learn from anonymized location data where only IDs - not geophysical positioning or category - of locations are utilized. To enrich the inferred mobility patterns, the proposed models incorporate metadata, often associated with user-location data, into the inference process. In this dissertation, two types of metadata are utilized to enrich the inferred patterns, timestamps and social ties. Time adds context to the inferred patterns, while social ties amplifies incomplete user-location check-ins. The first proposed model incorporates timestamps by learning from collections of users’ locations sharing the same discretized time. The second proposed model also incorporates time into the learning model, yet takes a further step by considering time at different scales (hour of a day, day of a week, month, and so on). This change in modeling time allows for capturing meaningful patterns over different times scales. The last proposed model incorporates social ties into the learning process to compensate for inactive users who contribute a large volume

  2. A Single Transcriptome of a Green Toad (Bufo viridis Yields Candidate Genes for Sex Determination and -Differentiation and Non-Anonymous Population Genetic Markers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jörn F Gerchen

    Full Text Available Large genome size, including immense repetitive and non-coding fractions, still present challenges for capacity, bioinformatics and thus affordability of whole genome sequencing in most amphibians. Here, we test the performance of a single transcriptome to understand whether it can provide a cost-efficient resource for species with large unknown genomes. Using RNA from six different tissues from a single Palearctic green toad (Bufo viridis specimen and Hiseq2000, we obtained 22,5 Mio reads and publish >100,000 unigene sequences. To evaluate efficacy and quality, we first use this data to identify green toad specific candidate genes, known from other vertebrates for their role in sex determination and differentiation. Of a list of 37 genes, the transcriptome yielded 32 (87%, many of which providing the first such data for this non-model anuran species. However, for many of these genes, only fragments could be retrieved. In order to allow also applications to population genetics, we further used the transcriptome for the targeted development of 21 non-anonymous microsatellites and tested them in genetic families and backcrosses. Eleven markers were specifically developed to be located on the B. viridis sex chromosomes; for eight markers we can indeed demonstrate sex-specific transmission in genetic families. Depending on phylogenetic distance, several markers, which are sex-linked in green toads, show high cross-amplification success across the anuran phylogeny, involving nine systematic anuran families. Our data support the view that single transcriptome sequencing (based on multiple tissues provides a reliable genomic resource and cost-efficient method for non-model amphibian species with large genome size and, despite limitations, should be considered as long as genome sequencing remains unaffordable for most species.

  3. Confessions of an Ethics Committee Chair

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halse, Christine

    2011-01-01

    This essay examines the possibilities of being/becoming an ethical researcher in the academy. It tackles this task through the lens of an ethics application by Mary [pseudonym], a PhD student in sociology whose research thesis was investigating the reasons why married men with children use prostitutes. Two analyses are offered of Mary's story. The…

  4. Performance Evaluation of Fusing Protected Fingerprint Minutiae Templates on the Decision Level

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raymond N. J. Veldhuis

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available In a biometric authentication system using protected templates, a pseudonymous identifier is the part of a protected template that can be directly compared. Each compared pair of pseudonymous identifiers results in a decision testing whether both identifiers are derived from the same biometric characteristic. Compared to an unprotected system, most existing biometric template protection methods cause to a certain extent degradation in biometric performance. Fusion is therefore a promising way to enhance the biometric performance in template-protected biometric systems. Compared to feature level fusion and score level fusion, decision level fusion has not only the least fusion complexity, but also the maximum interoperability across different biometric features, template protection and recognition algorithms, templates formats, and comparison score rules. However, performance improvement via decision level fusion is not obvious. It is influenced by both the dependency and the performance gap among the conducted tests for fusion. We investigate in this paper several fusion scenarios (multi-sample, multi-instance, multi-sensor, multi-algorithm, and their combinations on the binary decision level, and evaluate their biometric performance and fusion efficiency on a multi-sensor fingerprint database with 71,994 samples.

  5. Performance Evaluation of Fusing Protected Fingerprint Minutiae Templates on the Decision Level

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Bian; Busch, Christoph; de Groot, Koen; Xu, Haiyun; Veldhuis, Raymond N. J.

    2012-01-01

    In a biometric authentication system using protected templates, a pseudonymous identifier is the part of a protected template that can be directly compared. Each compared pair of pseudonymous identifiers results in a decision testing whether both identifiers are derived from the same biometric characteristic. Compared to an unprotected system, most existing biometric template protection methods cause to a certain extent degradation in biometric performance. Fusion is therefore a promising way to enhance the biometric performance in template-protected biometric systems. Compared to feature level fusion and score level fusion, decision level fusion has not only the least fusion complexity, but also the maximum interoperability across different biometric features, template protection and recognition algorithms, templates formats, and comparison score rules. However, performance improvement via decision level fusion is not obvious. It is influenced by both the dependency and the performance gap among the conducted tests for fusion. We investigate in this paper several fusion scenarios (multi-sample, multi-instance, multi-sensor, multi-algorithm, and their combinations) on the binary decision level, and evaluate their biometric performance and fusion efficiency on a multi-sensor fingerprint database with 71,994 samples. PMID:22778583

  6. 1997 NRL Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    1997-04-01

    She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, Genetic Engineering, and Applied Biochemistry & Biotechnology. DAVID A. STENGER...Discussion: Onion routers are similar to site concerned about traffic analysis should control Chaum MIXES [2], which also reorder and change an onion...the way for the complete auto- 2. D. Chaum , "Untraceable Electronic Mail, mation of the routing process. Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms

  7. Anonym ærlighed

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kazankov, Andrey; Vest Christiansen, Ask

    2018-01-01

    Mindst en tredjedel af topatleter bryder antidopingreglerne i løbet af et år, antyder en omfattende spørgeundersøgelse. "Dopingtests afslører ikke doping så effektivt, som man håber, de gør," konstaterer forskeren bag studiet, Ask Vest Christiansen......Mindst en tredjedel af topatleter bryder antidopingreglerne i løbet af et år, antyder en omfattende spørgeundersøgelse. "Dopingtests afslører ikke doping så effektivt, som man håber, de gør," konstaterer forskeren bag studiet, Ask Vest Christiansen...

  8. Francis Bacon's Valerius Terminus and the Voyage to the "Great Instauration".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serjeantson, Richard

    2017-01-01

    Francis Bacon's earliest surviving natural philosophical treatise (composed circa 1603) bears the title Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature. This study, resting on fresh attention to the surviving authorial manuscript, has three goals. It begins by identifying a lost precursor work apparently entitled "Of Active Knowledge." It then examines the significance of the pseudonyms Bacon chose to introduce his ideas, considering especially his invocation of Erasmus's emblem, the Roman deity Terminus. Finally, it shows how the Valerius Terminus's global vision of contemporary knowledge ultimately helped shape the iconography of Bacon's published Instauratio magna.

  9. Bitcoin-NG: A Scalable Blockchain Protocol

    OpenAIRE

    Eyal, Ittay; Gencer, Adem Efe; Sirer, Emin Gun; van Renesse, Robbert

    2015-01-01

    Cryptocurrencies, based on and led by Bitcoin, have shown promise as infrastructure for pseudonymous online payments, cheap remittance, trustless digital asset exchange, and smart contracts. However, Bitcoin-derived blockchain protocols have inherent scalability limits that trade-off between throughput and latency and withhold the realization of this potential. This paper presents Bitcoin-NG, a new blockchain protocol designed to scale. Based on Bitcoin's blockchain protocol, Bitcoin-NG is By...

  10. Sich (keinen Namen machen: Die Židovská jména der Honza K.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natascha Drubek

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Even though the anthology Jewish Names, often called the beginning of Czech alternative culture, was published in 1995, several central questions concerning this seminal collection from the early 1950s remain unclear: Who initiated it, when was it assembled, and what is its connection with the causa of the ‘Trotzkyites’ in Prague and later anti-semitic show trials? Answers can be found if one appreciates the pivotal role of Honza Krejcarová in this unique project. The article connects dots between Czech history during the Protectorate when young Honza witnessed her mother Milena Jesenská’s resistance activities, and the late 1940s of Stalinist Czechoslovakia when the State Security started surveilling and persecuting Krejcarová. Based on archival studies the article argues for the parallelism between secret service practices (interrogation, the revealing of names in the form of denunciation and automatic surrealist writing techniques. Drawing on the example of the name of the Author it analyses the paratextual structure of the anthology connected to its literary models, mainly from France. Jewish Names is a rich collection of fictitious ‘Jewish’ pseudonyms attributed to real Czech writers, stressing the vulnerability of the literary intelligentsia, their mineurité. And it is this paratextual construction which can be considered as the most daring and auto-referential aspect of this illegal publishing project. The article reveals problematic aspects of the chosen path of pseudonymy and anonymity. Changing or omitting one’s name is a common trait of female biographies, complicating the attribution of authorship. The article shows how pseudonymy takes its toll on an existential, gender, political, and historical level — precluding until today the proper names from entering Czech literary history

  11. Collaborative learning about e-health for mental health professionals and service users in a structured anonymous online short course: pilot study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ashurst Emily J

    2012-05-01

    -esteem and general self-efficacy, all seemed reliable and seemed to show some increase. Conclusions Collaborative learning between MHSUs and MHPs in a structured online anonymous environment over a one-week course is feasible, may be more practical and less costly than face-face methods, and is worthy of further study.

  12. Collaborative learning about e-health for mental health professionals and service users in a structured anonymous online short course: pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashurst, Emily J; Jones, Ray B; Williamson, Graham R; Emmens, Tobit; Perry, Jon

    2012-05-31

    seemed to show some increase. Collaborative learning between MHSUs and MHPs in a structured online anonymous environment over a one-week course is feasible, may be more practical and less costly than face-face methods, and is worthy of further study.

  13. Good lamps are the best police: darkness increases dishonesty and self-interested behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, Chen-Bo; Bohns, Vanessa K; Gino, Francesca

    2010-03-01

    Darkness can conceal identity and encourage moral transgressions; it may also induce a psychological feeling of illusory anonymity that disinhibits dishonest and self-interested behavior regardless of actual anonymity. Three experiments provided empirical evidence supporting this prediction. In Experiment 1, participants in a room with slightly dimmed lighting cheated more and thus earned more undeserved money than those in a well-lit room. In Experiment 2, participants wearing sunglasses behaved more selfishly than those wearing clear glasses. Finally, in Experiment 3, an illusory sense of anonymity mediated the relationship between darkness and self-interested behaviors. Across all three experiments, darkness had no bearing on actual anonymity, yet it still increased morally questionable behaviors. We suggest that the experience of darkness, even when subtle, may induce a sense of anonymity that is not proportionate to actual anonymity in a given situation.

  14. The Yellow Star and Everyday Life under Exceptional Circumstances: Diaries of 1944-1945 Budapest

    OpenAIRE

    Louise O. Vasvári

    2016-01-01

    In this article, a follow-up of her 2014 contribution in this journal on Hungarian women’s Holocaust diaries, Vasvári discusses six war diaries from 1944-45, which until recently lay forgotten in archives or in private hands. Two of the diaries are by Jewish victims, Anna, Mrs. Sándor Devényi (referred to in the article by her pseudonym, Margit Stellar, Mrs. József Krauss) and Jenő Lévai, who describe their persecution, while the others are by one cleric, Pius István Zimándi, and by three gen...

  15. Examining Workplace Discrimination in a Discrimination-Free Environment

    OpenAIRE

    Braxton, Shawn Lamont

    2010-01-01

    Examining Workplace Discrimination in a Discrimination-Free Environment Shawn L. Braxton Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore how racial and gender discrimination is reproduced in concrete workplace settings even when anti-discrimination policies are present, and to understand the various reactions utilized by those who commonly experience it. I have selected a particular medical center, henceforth referred to by a pseudonym, â The Bliley Medical Centerâ as my case ...

  16. Web anonymization efficiency study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sochor, Tomas

    2017-11-01

    The analysis of TOR, JonDo and CyberGhost efficiency (measured the as latency increase and transmission speed decrease) is presented in the paper. Results showed that all tools have relatively favorable latency increase (no more than 60% RTT increase). The transmission speed increase was much more significant (more than 60%), and even more for JonDo (above 90%).

  17. One Hundred Years

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2016-01-01

    Sustainability may be considered a contemporary ideology or theory, however, within the built environment, sustainable architecture – under many other pseudonyms – has been present for many decades. Throughout history, sustainable architecture has manifested in a variety of forms, which extend be...... as a catalyst for changes in our built environment. This piece illustrates the relationships and complexity between the many factors of our past, which can inspire for a more holistic sustainable future.”...

  18. Deniable Anonymous Group Authentication

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-02-13

    t12, t13q. 4.9 Server’s Proof: Exposing a misbehaving client To create a tag Tj , server j needs to reconstruct and then remove the secret sj it...aspects of DAGA, but currently does not support exposing misbehaving clients nor any of the extensions to DAGA, discussed in Section 4.9 and Section...1S c j “ Sv2j´1S c j “ t3 Then, we verify the challenge c ?“ h, which gives h “ h. 8.2.3 PKserver2 : Exposing a misbehaving client Completeness. The

  19. The Identity of Anonymous

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dobusch, Leonhard; Schoeneborn, Dennis

    Paper presented at the Conference Panel, "Challenges of Creating Inclusivity and Exclusivity: Insights Into the Communicative Constitution of Organizational Boundaries in Various Cultural Contexts"....

  20. Factors associated with shooting accuracy and wounding rate of four managed wild deer species in the UK, based on anonymous field records from deer stalkers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas J Aebischer

    Full Text Available The amount of wounding during routine culling is an important factor in the welfare of wild deer. Little information exists on factors determining shooting accuracy and wounding rates under field conditions in the UK. In this study, 102 anonymous stalkers collected data on the outcomes and circumstances of 2281 shots. Using hot-deck imputation and generalised linear mixed modelling, we related the probability that a shot hit its target, and the probability that the shot killed the deer if it was hit, to 28 variables describing the circumstances of the shot. Overall, 96% of deer were hit, of which 93% were killed outright. A reduced probability of hitting the target was associated with an uncomfortable firing position, too little time available, shooting off elbows or freehand, taking the head or upper neck as point of aim, a heavily obscured target, a distant target, shooting at females, lack of shooting practice and a basic (or no stalker qualification. An increase in the likelihood of wounding was associated with an uncomfortable firing position, shooting with insufficient time, a distant target (only when time was not sufficient, a bullet weight below 75 grains, a target concealed in thicket or on the move and an area rarely stalked. To maximise stalking success and deer welfare, we recommend that stalkers ensure a comfortable firing position, use a gun rest, aim at the chest, use bullets heavier than 75 grains, avoid taking a rushed shot, shoot a distant animal only if there is plenty of time, fire only when the target is stationary, avoid shooting at an obscured animal, take care when the ground is unfamiliar, and do shooting practice at least once a month. The high miss rate of basic-level stalkers suggests that training should include additional firing practice under realistic shooting conditions.