Privacy on the Internet

In recent years, large-scale computer networks have become an essential aspect of our daily computing environment. We often rely on a global information infrastructure for ebusiness activities such as home banking, ATM transactions, or shopping online. One of the main scientific and technological challenges in this setting has been to provide security to individuals who operate in possibly untrusted and unknown environments. However, beside threats directly related to computer intrusions, epidemic diffusion of malwares, and outright frauds conducted online, a more subtle though increasing erosion of individuals’ privacy has progressed and multiplied. Such an escalating violation of privacy has some direct harmful consequences—for example, identity theft has spread in recent years—and negative effects on the general perception of insecurity that many individuals now experience when dealing with online services. Nevertheless, protecting personal privacy from the many parties—business, government, social, or even criminal—that examine the value of personal information is an old concern of modern society, now increased by the features of the digital infrastructure. In this chapter, we address these privacy issues in the digital society from different points of view, investigating: - The various aspects of the notion of privacy and the debate that the intricate essence of privacy has stimulated - The most common privacy threats and the possible economic aspects that may influence the way privacy is (and especially is not, in its current status) managed in most firms - The efforts in the computer science community to face privacy threats, especially in the context of distributed networks - The network-based technologies available to date to provide anonymity in user communications over a private network.