Anonymity – Odinn Security

The people behind malware and cybercrime

By Edward Thomson | March 21, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

As interesting as the techniques used in creating new malware are the people behind the code and the lengths they go to in order to hide themselves. The malware writers are a small but important piece of the puzzle however they are part of a wider category of cybercriminal.

In this piece I explore some of the people behind well known malware and other cybercrimes. Some people, and their actions, may be defined as criminal in a true legal sense but I make no statement on the morality of them. Is cyber-vigilantism justified (“doing right”) even if the actions are illegal? I have my own opinion but here I will try to stick to report facts with some opinion of personalities rather than of their morality.

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Uber’s fake app providing anonymity to drivers?

By Edward Thomson | March 7, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

An interesting revelation was dropped in the news this week about Uber implementing a mechanism to provide some level of protection from law enforcement in cities where Uber is prohibited (if I have understood correctly). It would seem that the mechanism affords the driver a level of anonymity.

Bruce Schneier wrote a comment on the revelation and focussed on the surveillance aspect of this. While I’m a fan of Bruce, I’m less inclined to focus on the surveillance aspect of this story and look more at the ‘anonymising protocol’ employed by the app. Interestingly, while Bruce was critical of Uber it would seem that many of the commenters defended Uber’s actions.

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Investigating the security of anonymous messaging over the Internet

By Edward Thomson | August 27, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

The topic of strongly encrypted communication has been receiving a lot of press coverage over the last few years and is a politically sensitive issue. Adding the possibility of making such communication anonymous makes it more sensitive. This work is based upon the thesis that I submitted for my MSc. The layout of the sections plus some of the wording has been tweaked to fit better as blog posts. The intent is to present the information across several pages.

Anonymity over the internet — Can we be anonymous on the Internet?

In this post I am introducing a new section of the blog which will be devoted to anonymity and privacy.

This blog will investigate to what degree anonymous communication over the Internet is possible. The result is unclear: theoretically possible but unlikely to be true in most real situations. Sources will be provided where necessary and may be acaedmia in nature or from the media. The combination of the two will show the cultural relevant of the topic and to highlight the interface between researchers, software developers and the general public who have no formal training in this area.

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