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PRIVACY IN CYBERSPACE

Privacy Enhancing Technologies

People have difficulty putting a dollar value on their privacy rights; hence, the widespread popularity of supermarket discount cards which track your purchases, for example. Many of the largest commercial Internet operations have weak privacy policies (e.g., amazon.com, ebay.com) without a noticeable effect on their ability to attract customers. Since people are generally unwilling to spend money or give up discounts in order to protect their privacy, the proprietary software industry has done little to develop privacy enhancing tools. The free software world, however, is replete with technologies that undermine or subvert privacy invasive forces on the Internet. Because market demand is only peripherally related to the development of free software, the movement is in a unique position to come to the aid of individuals seeking to protect their privacy who may not have the technological skills to develop their own protections.

This section discusses a number of free software/open source privacy enhancing technologies. The goal is to give you a sense of the breadth of tools available and the communities surrounding the development of these tools. Following is a brief list that only presents a tiny fraction of the tools available.

Related Readings

• Introducing PITs and PETs: Technologies Affecting Privacy, by Roger Clarke, Australian professor, specialist in international informational technology issues. Professor Clarke develops a taxonomy of “PITS” (Privacy-Invasive Technologies) and “PETS” (Privacy-Enhancing Technologies) in this widely cited essay.

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