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Security & privacy technology research and engineering

Tracking Protection Working Group

1 Privacy Considerations for Web Protocols

For example, an observer or eavesdropper that conducts traffic analysis may be able to determine what type of traffic is present (real-time communications or bulk file transfers, for example) or which protocols are in use, even if the observed communications are encrypted or the communicants are unidentifiable. This kind of surveillance can adversely impact the individuals involved by causing them to become targets for further investigation or enforcement activities

Privacy

A common solution for thefirst problem is to assume that there exists a centralizeddirectory that knows all network members.

n this case, decentralization enables them toexchange encrypted data and obtain the sought after re-sult without relying on any particular entity to preservetheir privacy.

This implies that any component in a decentralizedsystem is potentially adversarial