Pseudonymity in the light of evidence-based trust

privacy, trust, distributed systems, anonymity, pseudonymity

This position paper discusses the relation of privacy, namely pseudonymity, to evidence-based trust (or rather reputation). Critical concepts of evidence-based trust/reputation systems are outlined first, followed by an introduction to the four families of the Common Criteria (for security evaluation) Privacy Class: Unobservability, Anonymity, Unlinkability, and Pseudonymity. The paper then discusses the common problem of many papers that narrow the considerations of privacy to anonymity only, and elaborates on the concept of pseudonymity through aspects of evidence storing, attacks and some of their implications, together with other related issues like use of mixes.