Privacy
The online activities of the user can be revealed if all Mixes of a cascade work together by keeping log files and correlating their logs. However, all Mix operators have to sign a voluntary commitment not to keep such logs, and for any observer it is difficult to infiltrate all operators in a long cascade.
In 2003, the German BKA obtained a warrant to force the Dresden Mix operators to log access to a specific web address and to introduce a crime detection function in the server software making this possible. Coincidentally (at the same time, but for other reasons), a mandatory update for the JonDonym client software was released. This led to reports in Internet media about a backdoor directly built into the client. JAP's developers claim that the additional feature that was added to the Mix server code enables operators to revoke anonymity if they all work together and recompile their software, and that this is completely covered by the AN.ON threat model and not a security leak by itself. Currently, further research is being done by AN.ON to make this functionality more privacy-friendly.
As a reaction to the threat from local authorities, the system has spread internationally. If the Mixes of a cascade are spread over several countries, the law enforcement agencies of all these countries would have to work together to reveal someone's identity.
Since May 2005, JonDonym can also be used as a client for the Tor and since 2006 also for the Mixminion network. These features are still in an early stage and only available in the beta version of the software.
Read more about this topic: Java Anon Proxy
Famous quotes containing the word privacy:
“... privacy is ... connected to a politics of domination.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“You may well ask how I expect to assert my privacy by resorting to the outrageous publicity of being one’s actual self on paper. There’s a possibility of it working if one chooses the terms, to wit: outshouting image-gimmick America through a quietly desperate search for self.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)