Paul Ohm

Bio: Paul Ohm is an academic researcher from Georgetown University Law Center. The author has contributed to research in topics: Information privacy & Privacy by Design. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 25 publications receiving 1188 citations. Previous affiliations of Paul Ohm include University of Colorado Boulder & University of Colorado Denver.

Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization

Abstract: Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often 'reidentify' or 'deanonymize' individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.

Legal issues surrounding monitoring during network research

Abstract: This work was motivated by a discussion that two of the coauthors (computer science professors) had with the other coauthor (a law professor and a former computer crime Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice), in which it was pointed out that some of the network measurements that the computer scientists were thinking of making might potentially violate Federal laws.Several Federal laws prohibit or restrict network monitoring and the sharing of records of network activity. These laws are designed to protect online privacy. They apply both to private parties and government agents, although the details vary depending on who is doing the monitoring. The most important thing to note is that none of these laws contain any specific exceptions or safe harbors for scientific or academic research. The laws are complex, but they follow a basic pattern. First, certain types of network monitoring and data access are prohibited. People who violate the prohibitions may be sued by the people whose privacy they invade and potentially prosecuted and convicted of federal crimes (i.e., misdemeanor and felony convictions).In this paper, we will examine these laws and consider what they might mean for the network measurement community. Although we focus on U.S. Federal Law, we also highlight general trends and approaches in state and international laws that impact network researchers. We will examine the steps commonly taken in prior research in network measurement to respect user privacy, and we will compare those approaches to the evolving legal rules. We will also consider whether legislative reform is needed, describe steps that researchers might take when pursuing such work in light of the legal rules, and propose future technical and policy-related steps the community can take to focus more attention on user privacy.

The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance

Abstract: Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, advertisers and copyright owners have been tempting them to put their users' secrets up for sale, and judging from a recent flurry of reports, ISPs are giving in to the temptation and experimenting with new forms of spying. This is only the leading edge of a coming storm of unprecedented and invasive ISP surveillance. This Article proposes an innovative new theory of communications privacy to help policymakers strike the proper balance between user privacy and ISP need. We cannot simply ban aggressive monitoring, because ISPs have legitimate reasons for scrutinizing communications on an Internet teeming with threats. Using this new theory, policymakers will be able to distinguish between an ISP's legitimate needs and mere desires.In addition, this Article injects privacy into the network neutrality debate - a debate about who gets to control innovation on the Internet. Despite the thousands of pages that have already been written about the topic, nobody has recognized that we already enjoy mandatory network neutrality in the form of expansive wiretapping laws. The recognition of this idea will flip the status quo and reinvigorate a stagnant debate by introducing privacy and personal autonomy into a discussion that has only ever been about economics and innovation.

The Myth of the Superuser: Fear, Risk, and Harm Online

Abstract: Fear of the powerful computer user, "the Superuser," dominates debates about online conflict. This mythic figure is difficult to find, immune to technological constraints, and aware of legal loopholes. Policymakers, fearful of his power, too often overreact, passing overbroad, ambiguous laws intended to ensnare the Superuser, but which are used instead against inculpable, ordinary users. This response is unwarranted because the Superuser is often a marginal figure whose power has been greatly exaggerated. The exaggerated attention to the Superuser reveals a pathological characteristic of the study of power, crime, and security online, which springs from a widely-held fear of the Internet. Building on the social science fear literature, this Article challenges the conventional wisdom and standard assumptions about the role of experts. Unlike dispassionate experts in other fields, computer experts are as susceptible as lay-people to exaggerate the power of the Superuser, in part because they have misapplied Larry Lessig's ideas about code. The experts in computer security and Internet law have failed to deliver us from fear, resulting in overbroad prohibitions, harms to civil liberties, wasted law enforcement resources, and misallocated economic investment. This Article urges policymakers and partisans to stop using tropes of fear; calls for better empirical work on the probability of online harm; and proposes an anti-Precautionary Principle, a presumption against new laws designed to stop the Superuser.

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information

Abstract: Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behaviorsilently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point of being invasive. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with this information? The Black Box Society argues that we all need to be able to do soand to set limits on how big data affects our lives. Hidden algorithms can make (or ruin) reputations, decide the destiny of entrepreneurs, or even devastate an entire economy. Shrouded in secrecy and complexity, decisions at major Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms were long assumed to be neutral and technical. But leaks, whistleblowers, and legal disputes have shed new light on automated judgment. Self-serving and reckless behavior is surprisingly common, and easy to hide in code protected by legal and real secrecy. Even after billions of dollars of fines have been levied, underfunded regulators may have only scratched the surface of this troubling behavior. Frank Pasquale exposes how powerful interests abuse secrecy for profit and explains ways to rein them in. Demanding transparency is only the first step. An intelligible society would assure that key decisions of its most important firms are fair, nondiscriminatory, and open to criticism. Silicon Valley and Wall Street need to accept as much accountability as they impose on others.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Abstract: Weapons of Math Destruction presents a careful and sustained criticism of big data's dark side, the remarkable ability if its algorithms to “calculat[e] our potential as students, workers, lovers, ...

Privacy in the digital age: a review of information privacy research in information systems

Abstract: Information privacy refers to the desire of individuals to control or have some influence over data about themselves. Advances in information technology have raised concerns about information privacy and its impacts, and have motivated Information Systems researchers to explore information privacy issues, including technical solutions to address these concerns. In this paper, we inform researchers about the current state of information privacy research in IS through a critical analysis of the IS literature that considers information privacy as a key construct. The review of the literature reveals that information privacy is a multilevel concept, but rarely studied as such. We also find that information privacy research has been heavily reliant on studentbased and USA-centric samples, which results in findings of limited generalizability. Information privacy research focuses on explaining and predicting theoretical contributions, with few studies in journal articles focusing on design and action contributions. We recommend that future research should consider different levels of analysis as well as multilevel effects of information privacy. We illustrate this with a multilevel framework for information privacy concerns. We call for research on information privacy to use a broader diversity of sampling populations, and for more design and action information privacy research to be published in journal articles that can result in IT artifacts for protection or control of information privacy.

Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare

Abstract: Driven by the confluence between the need to collect data about people's physical, physiological, psychological, cognitive, and behavioral processes in spaces ranging from personal to urban and the recent availability of the technologies that enable this data collection, wireless sensor networks for healthcare have emerged in the recent years. In this review, we present some representative applications in the healthcare domain and describe the challenges they introduce to wireless sensor networks due to the required level of trustworthiness and the need to ensure the privacy and security of medical data. These challenges are exacerbated by the resource scarcity that is inherent with wireless sensor network platforms. We outline prototype systems spanning application domains from physiological and activity monitoring to large-scale physiological and behavioral studies and emphasize ongoing research challenges.

The Economics of Privacy

Abstract: This article summarizes and draws connections among diverse streams of theoretical and empirical research on the economics of privacy. We focus on the economic value and consequences of protecting and disclosing personal information, and on consumers' understanding and decisions regarding the trade-offs associated with the privacy and the sharing of personal data. We highlight how the economic analysis of privacy evolved over time, as advancements in information technology raised increasingly nuanced and complex issues associated with the protection and sharing of personal information. We find and highlight three themes that connect diverse insights from the literature. First, characterizing a single unifying economic theory of privacy is hard, because privacy issues of economic relevance arise in widely diverse contexts. Second, there are theoretical and empirical situations where the protection of privacy can both enhance, and detract from, individual and societal welfare. Third, in digital economies, consumers' ability to make informed decisions about their privacy is severely hindered, because consumers are often in a position of imperfect or asymmetric information regarding when their data is collected, for what purposes, and with what consequences. We conclude the article by highlighting some of the ongoing issues in the privacy debate of interest to economists.