Privacy in the Cloud: Anonymous Tax Preparation

Abstract

We present a distributed tax preparation application as an example of anonymous processing in the cloud where processing units are interconnected anonymously via intermediaries. This example uses the double-locked box which was used in the anonymous credit card in the 1990s. However, unlike the anonymous credit card our application automates the distribution of the double-locked boxes and the connection of involved participants with minimal user interaction. We also introduce an entropy-based metric. As processing units are compromised, loss of anonymity is measured using this entropy metric.