Earticle

In order to discuss different types of network anonymity and the correlations among them, this paper separates network anonymity into two variables on the basis of subject object dichotomy. One is network technical anonymity, referring to the amount of information concealed that lead to difficulties in identifying the subject; the other is perceptive anonymity, which means how anonymous one perceive him/herself has been. Then the author explores how to measure these variables and set up a test model to see if there is any causal relation between them. The data was collected from Sina Weibo, and it is intended for empirical test. This thesis proved that there is an obvious causal relation between the two types of anonymity.

The present study raises the concept of network technical anonymity, and designs its corresponding evaluation indicators and model, in order to provide the basis and methods for the evaluation of how anonymous a behavioral agent is on the net. Network technical anonymity is defined as the difficulty in tracking the real identity of a network agent. Five indicators have been designed as follows: name, valid address, alias and behaviors on the net and social attributions. Besides, based on AHP and the fuzzy theory, we have worked out the relative weights of the evaluation indicators and an evaluation model. With this model, we made evaluation of the network technical anonymity of several network applications that are commonly used now in China. The evaluation indicators and model can be applied to the evaluation of how anonymous a network user is in various kinds of network applications, and serve as references for management and design of web services.