Unlinkability is a privacy property that prevents an adversary from determining whether two or more items of interest, such as messages, transactions or sessions, are related to the same entity. It is a core goal of privacy-enhancing technologies and is achieved through techniques such as pseudonym rotation, mixing, blinding and zero-knowledge constructions. Unlinkability protects against profiling and correlation while still permitting legitimate use of a system.
Overview
- Unlinkability is situated within the security domain and is defined as a subclass of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies.
- It connects to the wider knowledge graph through 20 typed relations spanning structural, functional and contrastive predicates.
- As a emerging concept, it represents established knowledge with stable terminology and well-understood boundaries.
Key aspects
- Relationship to Privacy-Enhancing Technologies situates this concept within its operational and conceptual context.
- Relationship to Pseudonymity situates this concept within its operational and conceptual context.
- Relationship to Cryptography situates this concept within its operational and conceptual context.
- Relationship to Zero-Knowledge Proof situates this concept within its operational and conceptual context.
- Relationship to Privacy situates this concept within its operational and conceptual context.
Mechanisms
- The concept is realised through its constituent parts and the standards, methods and dependencies enumerated in its relations.
- It both requires upstream capabilities and enables downstream capabilities, forming part of a directed chain of dependencies in the graph.
Applications
- Practical use of Unlinkability appears wherever its enabled and supported concepts are deployed.
- It is referenced by existing classes in the graph, anchoring those edges to a defined, rooted node.