No description available.

Hot spots policing is a popular and effective evidence-based police intervention with several benefits. However, since the primary resource of the intervention is intensified police presence leading to an increase in citizen-police interactions, critics have argued that the intervention negatively affects police-citizen relationships and public perceptions and attitudes toward the police. To advance research on the effects of hot spots policing, this study examines the impacts of the hot spots policing intervention on residents’ trust in, and fear of, the police. The study utilized a secondary dataset from a U.S. DOJ/NIJ-funded project in New York City, NY (2012-2018) examining the effects of hot spots policing and police-resident familiarity on offender decision making and crime prevention. The results of chi-square test of association and ordinal logistic regression analyses show that the hot spots policing intervention has no significant impact on residents’ reported level of trust in, and fear of, the police. In addition, the impacts of residents’ age, race, gender, as well as familiarity are also analyzed. Further, the interaction between the intervention and police-resident familiarity does not significantly moderate the relationship between hot spots policing and residents’ reported level of trust in, and fear towards, the police. The implications of these findings are also discussed.

While distributed databases offer great promise their decentralized nature poses a number of security and privacy issues. In what ways can parties misbehave? If a database is truly distributed can a malicious actor hide their misdeeds by presenting conflicting views of the database? Can we overcome such deceit and either prevent it by eliminating trust assumptions or detect such perfidy and hold the malicious party to account? We study these questions across two distributed databases: RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure), which is used to authenticate the allocation and announcement of IP prefixes; and Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that utilizes a permissionless database called a blockchain to track the transfer and ownership of bitcoins. The first part of this dissertation focuses on RPKI and the potential of RPKI authorities to misbehave. We consider the methods, motivations, and impact of this misbehavior and how an RPKI authority can present inconsistent views to hide this misbehavior. After studying the problem we propose solutions to detect and identify such misbehavior. Now we turn our attention to Bitcoin. We look at ways an attacker can manipulate Bitcoin's Peer-to-Peer network to cause members of the network to have inconsistent views of Bitcoin's blockchain and subvert Bitcoin's core security guarantees. We then propose countermeasures to harden Bitcoin against such attacks. The final part of this dissertation discusses the problem of privacy in Bitcoin. Many of the protocols developed to address Bitcoin's privacy limitations introduce trusted parties. We instead design privacy enhancing protocols that use an untrusted intermediary to mix \aka anonymize, bitcoin transactions via blind signatures. To do this we must invent a novel blind signature fair-exchange protocol that runs on Bitcoin's blockchain. This dissertation favors a dirty slate design process. We work to layer protections on existing protocols and when we must make changes to the underlying protocol we carefully weigh compatibility and deployment considerations. This philosophy has resulted in some of the research described in this dissertation influencing the design of deployed protocols. In the case of Bitcoin our research is currently used to harden a network controlling approximately a trillion dollars.

Empirically based on a series of focus groups with college-age women, this thesis examines how the affordances of anonymity and audience specificity facilitate both intimate personal expression and political participation on the Tumblr platform. In dialogue with literature on self disclosure and privacy, I seek to broaden our understanding of the mediated contexts that provide space for women’s voices online. The privacy afforded by Tumblr’s registration policies allows users more flexibility in terms of self-presentation than sites such as Facebook, which are necessarily linked to one’s offline identity through “real name only” policies. The use of pseudonyms contributes to a larger culture of anonymity on the platform, emboldening users to express themselves more freely and with less consequence. Specifically, Tumblr norms encourage the communication of emotions other than happiness or significant “life events” – instead providing a space for girls to express culturally devalued emotions such as sadness and anger. These kinds of intimate and cathartic expressions were made to an (imagined) audience of close friends and strangers in which parents and acquaintances were importantly absent. The reduced pressure of explanation, a limited (often like-minded) audience and the lowered-stakes of anonymity, are all also key features that encouraged feminist expression online. For focus group participants, the possibility of back-and-forth Facebook debates with relatives or former classmates kept them quiet. They described these interactions as exhausting, not as true conversations but as times when they needed to give long explanatory defenses as to why their concerns were issues at all. While debate is often assumed to be as a positive, constructive element of political discourse, this research calls into question the ways in which these ideals contribute to the silencing of women online and ask us to rethink what it means to say that “the personal is political.”

Despite the considerable harm caused by corporate crimes, this area remains relatively overlooked within the field of criminology. Anchored in an interest of enhancing initiatives targeting corporate crimes, this study investigates the nonobligatory component of anonymous reporting options in internal whistleblower schemes. Utilizing a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods, the study builds its findings on survey data collected on 104 respondents and interviews with selected survey respondents. The findings reveal that the option of anonymity has a significant impact on reporting intentions, particularly in scenarios involving a more severe context. Anonymity is found to be important as it diminishes employees' perceived fear associated with reporting, positively impacting the weighted cost-benefits connected to the decision-making process. These results carry implications for organizational policy and practice, emphasizing the need for proactive measures to ensure the effectiveness of internal whistleblower schemes in addressing corporate crime

L’époque où il n'existait qu'un choix restreint de modes de paiement est à présent révolue. En effet, de l'apparition de la monnaie fiduciaire aux trente glorieuses, ils n’avaient que très peu évolué. Or, depuis quelques décennies, nous assistons à l’apparition de nombreux moyens de paiement, tous plus différents les uns des autres. Notre présente étude a non seulement pour objectif d’en confronter les principaux en vue d’identifier le plus adéquat face à une situation donnée, mais aussi et surtout de discuter de l’anonymat que ces derniers procurent ou non. Pour ce faire, nous avons d’abord présenté chacun de ces moyens tout en en définissant les fonctionnements et les technologies. Par la suite, une comparaison par l'entremise d'une analyse indépendante a été réalisée sur la base d’éléments précis tels que la protection de la vie privée ou encore les propriétés ACID. Des critères omme la confiance des utilisateurs (sécurité) et les attentes qu'ont les institutions financières vis-à-vis de ces derniers ont aussi été considérés. Et enfin, trois méthodes de paiement qui sont en réalité des approches-solutions pour pallier aux problèmes liés à l’anonymat que présentent certains principaux moyens de paiement connus, ont été présentées à leur tour. Ainsi, le premier système de paiement proposé est axé sur les comptes bancaires anonymes, tandis que le second est, lui inspiré du système des jetons; Si bien qu’une combinaison de ces deux approches a conduit à une troisième, afin d’en regrouper les avantages. / The time we used to only have one option of method payment is now long gone. As a matter of fact, from the apparition of currency until the « thirty glorious years », nothing new in this field appeared. It is true, in the last decades we are witnessing the birth of many of means of payment, all more different from each other. This study, therefore, aims to confront the principal means of payment but also to discuss about the question of anonymity that may come with it. To do so, will be presented each of every means of payment separately while describing all their functions and technologies. Then, a comparison will be presented through an independent analysis that was carried out on specific elements such as: the protection of private life and properties ACID. Other elements like users'trust (security) and expectations from the financial institutions will also be considered. Finally, three problems solving in relation to the anonymity of the current means payment known today, will constitute the last section. The first solution focuses on the anonymous bank accounts, the second is inspired from the token system; The last, but not least, combines the two first systems in order to combine the advantages.

L’avènement de l’ère digitale a changé la façon dont les individus communiquent à travers le monde, et a amené de nouvelles problématiques en terme de vie privée. La notion d’anonymat la plus répandue pour les communications sur Internet consiste à empêcher tout acteur du réseau de connaître à la fois l’expéditeur d’un message et son destinataire. Bien que ce niveau de protection soit adéquat pour l’utilisateur d’Internet moyen, il est insuffisant lorsqu’un individu peut être condamné pour le simple envoi de documents à une tierce partie. C’est le cas en particulier des lanceurs d’alerte, prenant des risques personnels pour informer le public de pratiques illégales ou antidémocratiques menées par de grandes organisations. Dans cette thèse, nous envisageons un niveau d’anonymat plus fort, où l’objectif est de dissimuler le fait même qu’un utilisateur envoie ou reçoive des données. Pour cela, nous délaissons l’architecture client-serveur couramment utilisée dans les réseaux anonymes, en faveur d’une architecture entièrement distribuée et homogène, où chaque utilisateur remplit également le rôle de serveur relai, lui permettant de dissimuler son propre trafic dans celui qu’il relai pour les autres. Dans cette optique, nous proposons un nouveau protocole pour les communications pairs à pairs sur Internet. À l’aide de récents outils de preuves cryptographiques, nous prouvons que ce protocole réalise les propriétés d’anonymat désirées. De plus, nous montrons par une étude pratique que, bien que le protocole induise une grande latence dans les communications, il assure un fort anonymat, même pour des réseaux de petite taille. / With the development of online communications in the past decades, new privacy concerns have emerged. A lot of research effort have been focusing on concealing relationships in Internet communications. However, most works do not prevent particular network actors from learning the original sender or the intended receiver of a communication. While this level of privacy is satisfactory for the common citizen, it is insufficient in contexts where individuals can be convicted for the mere sending of documents to a third party. This is the case for so-called whistle-blowers, who take personal risks to alert the public of anti-democratic or illegal actions performed by large organisations. In this thesis, we consider a stronger notion of anonymity for peer-to-peer communications on the Internet, and aim at concealing the very fact that users take part in communications. To this end, we deviate from the traditional client-server architecture endorsed by most existing anonymous networks, in favor of a homogeneous, fully distributed architecture in which every user also acts as a relay server, allowing it to conceal its own traffic in the traffic it relays for others. In this setting, we design an Internet overlay inspired from previous works, that also proposes new privacy-enhancing mechanisms, such as the use of relationship pseudonyms for managing identities. We formally prove with state-of-the-art cryptographic proof frameworks that this protocol achieves our privacy goals. Furthermore, a practical study of the protocol shows that it introduces high latency in the delivery of messages, but ensures a high anonymity level even for networks of small size.

Titel: Relationen mellan brand awareness och eWOM i förhållande till tillit Nivå: Examensarbete på Grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Daniel Jonsson och Gabriel-Johan Saliba Handledare: Akmal Hyder och Michelle Rydback Datum: Juni 2019 Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka om relationen mellan trovärdigheten av eWOM och tillit är starkare än relationen mellan brand awareness och tillit.  Metod: I denna studie har vi använt en kvantitativ metod och en webbaserad enkätundersökning för att bekräfta eller förkasta våra fyra hypoteser. Vi fick totalt in 85 svar inklusive diverse bortfall. Dessa svar analyserades sedan i SPSS där deskriptiv analys, korrelationsanalys, faktoranalys och T-test genomfördes. Resultat och Slutsats: När det kom till korrelationen mellan brand awareness och tillit, visade vår empiriska data att det inte fanns en stark korrelation mellan dessa variabler. Detta innebär att vår hypotes som påstod att brand awareness var starkt kopplad till tillit förkastades. De andra tre hypoteserna gällande sambandet mellan eWOM och tillit kunde bekräftas då vi fann en hög korrelation vilket påvisade ett starkt samband mellan dessa variabler. Vi fann att låg trovärdighet påverkade tilliten negativt och hög trovärdighet påverkade tilliten positivt. Vi kunde också bekräfta att anonymitet påverkade trovärdigheten negativt och därmed också tilliten. Detta uppfyllde också studiens syfte. Enligt vår studie kom vi slutligen fram till att eWOM som ansågs trovärdig ansågs som mer tillitsingivande än brand awareness. Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar främst till teorin och understryker tidigare forsknings påståenden. Låg trovärdighet påverkar tilliten negativt, hög trovärdighet påverkar tilliten positivt och anonymitet påverkar trovärdigheten på ett negativt sätt vilket leder till låg tillit. Empirin vi producerat ger framtida forskare en plattform att utgå ifrån när det gäller kommande kvantitativ forskning inom liknande forskningsområden. Vi bevisar också att eWOM som betraktas som trovärdig har en starkare korrelation till tillit än vad brand awareness har, vilket kan ge tips och stöd till forskare och företag. Ytterligare presenteras en metodkritik med förslag till förbättringar gällande metod som kan underlätta andra forskares arbeten. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Det blev uppenbart för oss att vi hade behövt lägga mer tid på att få in fler svar och förbereda ett bredare urval för att få ett mer representativt resultat. Vi tror dessutom att fler faktorer behöver undersökas i samband med brand awareness (exempelvis brand equity) för att se en bredare bild av hur tillit skapas till eWOM som sprids via sociala medier. Vi tror att med hjälp av en annan utformning på enkäten och med hjälp av ytterligare variabler skulle kunnat bevisa att brand awareness faktiskt påverkar tilliten till eWOM. Nyckelord: eWOM, tillit, brand awareness, WOM, trovärdighet, anonymitet. / Title: The relation between brand awareness and eWOM relative to trust Level: Student thesis, final assignment for Bachelor’s Degrees in Business Administration Author: Daniel Jonsson and Gabriel-Johan Saliba Supervisor: Akmal Hyder and Michelle Rydback Date: June 2019 Aim: The aim of this research is to examine if the relation between the credibility of eWOM and trust is stronger than the relation between brand awareness and trust. Method: In this study we applied a quantitative method with the help of a web-based survey to test our four hypotheses. We gathered a total of 85 answers including the non-usable surveys. This empirical data was later analyzed using SPSS. We performed a descriptive analysis, a correlation analysis, a factor analysis and a T-test to prove or reject our hypotheses. Result and Conclusions: The connection between brand awareness and trust was according to our study not strongly correlated. However, we could prove a connection between low credibility and low trust and vice versa. We also found that anonymity played a part and influenced credibility in a way that made eWOM less trustworthy. This proved three of our four hypotheses. We also fulfilled our purpose and proved that eWOMs relation was stronger with trust than the relation between brand awareness and trust. Contribution of the thesis: This research further confirms previous researchers’ findings. Low credibility of eWOM results in low levels of trust and high credibility of eWOM results in high levels of trust.  The anonymity of eWOM affects the credibility in a negative manner, and therefore it also leads to lower levels of trust. We believe that our empiric data should give future researchers a platform to build similar quantitative trust research upon.  We have also proved that eWOM which is seen as credible has a stronger relation with trust than brand awareness has. This finding alone could give inspiration, tips, and guidelines to researchers and companies. We have also included a method criticism which should give future researchers some guidance as well. Suggestions for future research: Future research should however focus on gathering a more representative sample of respondents, which we believe would lead to a better result. To acknowledge more factors and to take more variables into account when researching trust (for example brand equity) would also help future researchers to develop a deeper understanding of this subject. We do believe that a future quantitative survey could further specify their questions and by doing so find a stronger relation between brand awareness and trust than we managed to. Key words: eWOM, trust, brand awareness, WOM, credibility, anonymity.

Flashback is one of the most well known internet forums in Sweden. People visit the site to discuss different topics, to share information, to express opinions or to read posts by others. On Flashback’s ‘crime forum’ the users gather to share information but also to express opinions. These discussions have a tendency to become heated and with the increased wave of gangrelated violence and shootings in Malmö, Sweden 2018, forums like Flashback play an important role in what information is available to the public. This case was used to form the study’s main questions; How are facts used in threads and what are their sources? How do users interpret these events and how is it expressed through reasoning and personal opinions? How are opinions, behaviour and virtual community formed in an environment based on anonymity? To form a case and further investigate these questions we have organized different Flashback posts related to the Malmö-shootings and categorized them into themes. The interpretations would later on show various conclusions. Some conclusions were predicted, while other conclusions were shown when analyzing the material. The results showed that flashback-users use facts when sharing a link, to strengthen the shared information, to support theories about the case and sometimes when discussing the victims or suspects involved. How users interpret the events on Flashback is based on the intention of the individual. Some users are more likely to discuss political aspects. Other users intend to discuss the matter with an humours tone, these posts can be seen as an disinhibition effect (Suler 2004). Identity has shown to be a useful factor when analyzing an internet-forum. A conclusion from analyzing identity shows that behaviours are encouraged when the fear of being exposed is averted. Overall the result shows that the foundation of the virtual community on Flashback is the information that is shared between users.

Data anonymization is a relevant and important field within data privacy, which tries to find a good balance between utility and privacy in data. The field is especially relevant since the GDPR came into force, because the GDPR does not regulate anonymous data. This thesis focuses on anonymization of directory-structured data, which means data structured into a tree of directories. In the thesis, four of the most common models for anonymization of tabular data, k-anonymity, ℓ-diversity, t-closeness and differential privacy, are adapted for anonymization of directory-structured data. This adaptation is done by creating three different approaches for anonymizing directory-structured data: SingleTable, DirectoryWise and RecursiveDirectoryWise. These models and approaches are compared and evaluated using five metrics and three attack scenarios. The results show that there is always a trade-off between utility and privacy when anonymizing data. Especially it was concluded that the differential privacy model when using the RecursiveDirectoryWise approach gives the highest privacy, but also the highest information loss. On the contrary, the k-anonymity model when using the SingleTable approach or the t-closeness model when using the DirectoryWise approach gives the lowest information loss, but also the lowest privacy. The differential privacy model and the RecursiveDirectoryWise approach were also shown to give best protection against the chosen attacks. Finally, it was concluded that the differential privacy model when using the RecursiveDirectoryWise approach, was the most suitable combination to use when trying to follow the GDPR when anonymizing directory-structured data.