We propose a variant mix-net method, which we call a “marked mix-net” . Marked mix-nets avoid the extra cost associated with verifiability (producing a proof of correct mixing operation), while offering additional assurances about the privacy of the messages, compared to a non-verifiable mix-net. With a marked mix-net, each mix-server adds an extra secret mark in each ciphertext, and the input ...

Anonymity means that the identity of the user performing a certain action is maintained secret. The protocols for ensuring anonymity often use random mechanisms which can be described probabilistically. In this paper we propose a notion of weak probabilistic anonymity, where weak refers to the fact that some amount of probabilistic information may be revealed by the protocol. This information c...

We examine experimentally how a person's generosity depends on the sex of that person, on the sex of the person who is the target of the generous act, and on the degree of anonymity between the interacting parties. In our data fewer men than women give non-zero amounts; men receive less than women; and less is given when subjects receive money publicly on stage than when payments are private. T...

Ensuring anonymity in wireless and hoc networks is a major security goal. Using traffic analysis, the attacker can compromise the network functionality by correlating data flow patterns to event locations/active areas. In this paper we present a novel Scalable Anonymous Protocol that hides the location of nodes and obscure the correlation between event zones and data flow from snooping adversar...

In the post-genomic era, large-scale personal DNA sequences are produced and collected for genetic medical diagnoses and new drug discovery, which, however, simultaneously poses serious challenges to the protection of personal genomic privacy. Existing genomic privacy-protection methods are either time-consuming or with low accuracy. To tackle these problems, this paper proposes a sequence simi...

Like many peer-to-peer applications, anonymous communication systems are vulnerable to freeriders, peers that use the system while providing little or no service to others. To complicate matters, the identity of the free-rider is obscured by the very anonymity such systems are designed to provide, imposing challenging design constraints for incentive mechanisms to discourage free-riding. We arg...

We present Mixminion, a message-based anonymous remailer protocol with secure single-use reply blocks. Mix nodes cannot distinguish Mixminion forward messages from reply messages, so forward and reply messages share the same anonymity set. We add directory servers that allow users to learn public keys and performance statistics of participating remailers, and we describe nymservers that provide...

Fowler, Baker, and Dawes (2008) recently showed in two independent studies of twins that voter turnout has very high heritability. Here we investigate two specific genes that may contribute to variation in voting behavior. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we show that individuals with a polymorphism of the MAOA gene are significantly more likely to have vote...

Building on the literature that investigates citizen and voter trust in government, we analyze the topic of voter confidence in the American electoral process. Our data comes from two national telephone surveys where voters were asked the confidence they have that their vote for president in the 2004 election was recorded as intended. We present preliminary evidence that suggests confidence in ...