Anon_Terminology_v0.21 - Anonymity Unobservability...

Anonymity, Unobservability, Pseudonymity, and Identity
Management – A Proposal for Terminology
Archives of this Document
http://dud.inf.tu-dresden.de/Literatur_V1.shtml (v0.5 and all succeeding versions)
Change History
Draft v0.1 July 28, 2000 Andreas Pfitzmann, [email protected]
Draft v0.2 Aug. 25, 2000 Marit Köhntopp, [email protected]
Draft v0.3 Sep. 01, 2000 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
Draft v0.4 Sep. 13, 2000 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
Changes in sections Anonymity, Unobservability, Pseudonymity
Draft v0.5 Oct. 03, 2000 Adam Shostack, [email protected],
Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
Changed definitions, unlinkable pseudonym
Draft v0.6 Nov. 26, 2000 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
Changed order, role-relationship pseudonym, references
Draft v0.7 Dec. 07, 2000 Marit Köhntopp, Andreas Pfitzmann
Draft v0.8 Dec. 10, 2000 Relationship to Information Hiding Terminology
Draft v0.9 April 01, 2001 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
IHW review comments
Draft v0.10 April 09, 2001 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Köhntopp
Clarifying remarks
Draft v0.11 May 18, 2001 Marit Köhntopp, Andreas Pfitzmann
Draft v0.12 June 17, 2001 Annotations from IHW discussion
Draft v0.13 Oct. 21, 2002 Andreas Pfitzmann
Some footnotes added in response to comments
By David-Olivier Jaquet-Chiffelle, [email protected]
Draft v0.14 May 27, 2003 Marit Hansen, [email protected], Andreas Pfitzmann
Minor corrections and clarifying remarks
Draft v0.15 June 03, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of comments by Claudia Diaz; Extension of title and
addition of identity management terminology
Draft v0.16 June 23, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of lots of comments by Giles Hogben, Thomas
Kriegelstein, David-Olivier Jaquet-Chiffelle, and Wim Schreurs;
relation between anonymity sets and identifiability sets clarified
Draft v0.17 July 15, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Triggered by questions of Giles Hogben, some footnotes added
concerning quantification of terms; Sandra Steinbrecher caused a
clarification in defining pseudonymity
Draft v0.18 July 22, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of comments by Mike Bergmann, Katrin Borcea,
Simone Fischer-Hübner, Giles Hogben, Stefan Köpsell, Martin
Rost, Sandra Steinbrecher, and Marc Wilikens
Draft v0.19 Aug. 19, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of comments by Adolf Flüeli;
footnotes added explaining pseudonym = nym and
identity of individual generalized to identity of entity
Draft v0.20 Sep. 02, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of comments by Jozef Vyskoc;
figures added to ease reading
Draft v0.21 Sep. 03, 2004 Andreas Pfitzmann, Marit Hansen
Incorporation of comments at the PRIME meeting and by
Thomas Kriegelstein; two additional figures added

- 2 -
Abstract
Based on the nomenclature of the early papers in the field, we propose a terminology which is
both expressive and precise. More particularly, we define anonymity , unlinkability ,
unobservability , pseudonymity ( pseudonyms and digital pseudonyms , and their attributes), and
identity management .