Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • December 6, 2014 2:39 PM

@ Bruce,

As has been noted in the past there are two main angles to privacy.

The first of which is “trust” the second is “linking to an individual”.

That is an organisation requests as much –if not more– personal information to establish either an ID or a Profile which they then evaluate to decide some form of “trust value”, the fact the likes of Governments encorage this to involve a real person is purely a “leagle nicety” based on a lazy viewpoint not a necessity.

The organisations then further market the information directly or indirectly to others as they link the ID to an existing profile or add data to make a profile or amplify a profile. As we know there is a hugh market for content rich profiles linked to verified IDs that then get used for targeted action against an individual. Even though it should be clear, it needs to be said again none of the actions are benign they all have an adverse effect on the individual directly or indirectly and are discriminatory at best.

The argument behind this is “trust” is not “two way trust” but trust on the terms of those who hold what they consider the advantage or whip hand, and thus believe like the Kings of old they have “A devin right” to act as they wish, against those they regard as “vasals or villains” and thus sub servant to their whims and wishes.

There is however an effective and fairly reliable way to decouple “trust” from ID and thus enable privacy to be regained and it is little different to that which mankind established several thousand years ago with traders names, and in more recent centuries in business partnership / company names.

That is you as an individual have multiple “arms length” entities, where the entity identity is unique but not attached to your personal ID. This can be –reasonably– reliably done using self signed certificates. In effect all transactions the entity carries out are signed, and are not attached to any PII. The entity establishes it’s own “reputation” profile by it’s behaviour.

An individual can have as many entities as they wish and would if sensible use them for the various roles in their lives that require some kind of “trust relationship” of value. As with companies these entities could be “limited in liability” in return for providing a certain legal minimum of information about the entity such as having valid liability insurance etc, or as in partnerships etc they take no liability limitation and this is clear to any that enter into a trust relationship with them.

Over time entities will build reputation irrespective of the unknown person behind them. However any entity casting doubt on an other entity must be prepared to put their reputation on the line by so doing and sign their accusation and defend it if challenged.

Whilst it is not perfect as a system, I doubt anything is, just as in normal real world life, trust relationships can and do break down for various reasons, it’s in human nature. That said few breach trust for gain and for those with that intent no system is going to stop them, again as in real life, criminal sanctions usually fail to prevent re-offending when that mind set is prevalent. The best prevention as in real life is to make the cost of throwing away a reputation to high to be lightly considered let alone done.

Clive Robinson • December 6, 2014 8:20 PM

@ Sancho_P,

As far as I’m aware in most jurisdictions it is not illegal to say you are someone else. It only becomes a crime when it is used to facilitate other crimes.

If that were not the case you could not have “Stage Names” or “Pen Names” –which sometimes are required to avoid commiting other offenses– or have companies owned by other companies etc. Likewise it’s actually quite common to have “agent names” for the likes of “landlords”, “recruitment agents”, “sales agents”, “event organisers”, “managers” and all sorts of other agents who want a catchy but simple name that is memorable and “sexy”. You also have lots and lots of people from foreign countries using “local names” so an unpronoucible name is swaped with a similar pronouncable name. It happens that both “Clive” and “Robinson” are unpronounceable to many orientals so if I was to go and work in Hong Kong I would seriously consider using a “local name” or one that they could easily pronounce.

In the EU they have the expression “any person legal or natural” to cover the many forms of “entities” that are permissable.

Whilst traditional banks may get “sniffy” about opening accounts for new companies, there are plenty of other financial arangments / instruments available. One of which is “pre-pay” for both phones and credit/debit/charge cards with these you can rent “office space” and “dial through receptionists” through “business clubs” and the like and get as many “post office” boxes as you want. Once you have a “company” getting “company credit cards” is usually not difficult, there was a time when certain CC companies would issue what was jokingly refered to as “pet cards”, that is they would put just about any half reasonable name on a Company CC with no questions asked.

You could thus have several entities that appear in paper only to be associated with what is in effect one or more “umbrella companies” etc with post office box addresses. This used to be very common in asia and Australia and New Zealand large chunks of Europe Africa and quite a few places in South America.

Thus setting up a “paper organisation” or series of “paper entities” is not particularly difficult. Having done so “renting” shared computer facilities can be suprisingly cheap and putting up an stunnel bridge to create the “far end” point of a VPN is not difficult. Likewise buying several different Mobile Broadband USB dongles with different service providers and using them with different versions of Live Linux CDs etc.

The hard part is the OpSec part of keeping the entities segregated from each other in “your head and actions”.