Industry Insights

In our blog we provide you with industry insights on privacy, anonymization, analytics and of course information about our solution Aircloak Insights.

Category: Aircloak Attack Challenge



May 27, 2020 by Felix Bauer

The World’s Only Anonymization Bug Bounty – Round Two!

Aircloak is pleased to announce the data anonymization bounty program for Diffix Dogwood, the anonymization technology at the core of Aircloak Insights. The MPI-SWS/Diffix Bounty 2020 program is sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS), Aircloak’s research partner. The total purse is $30,000, and top prize is $10,000. The bounty program uses the General Data Anonymization measurement … read more


August 27, 2019 by Felix Bauer

Introducing a version-based naming system of Diffix

Building a useful analytics system with strong anonymity is difficult. It is an iterative process: ideas are generated, flaws are discovered, and new ideas emerge in response. Aircloak is dedicated to transparency. We openly publish our anonymization technology and encourage white-hat attacks on our system through our bounty program and free academic licenses. We allow our white-hat attackers to publish … read more

Pillars

February 11, 2019 by Paul Francis

The 4 Pillars of GDPR Compliance Assurance in Data Anonymization

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that anonymous data is not personal data, and therefore does not fall under the purview of GDPR. The GDPR, in Recital 26, defines anonymous as: “…information which does not relate to an identified or identifiable natural person or to personal data rendered anonymous in such a manner that the data subject … read more

GDA Score Logo

January 28, 2019 by Nicolas Sartor

The General Data Anonymity Score – How to Make Anonymization Methods Comparable

In theory, many anonymization methods may work well. In practice, anonymized results are usually either usable or strongly anonymized, but not both. Data scientists have been struggling for years with the tradeoff between data quality and privacy. To make things worse, there are currently no common certifications or testing methods for anonymization solutions that define whether the anonymization carried out … read more


October 17, 2018 by Paul Francis

Fix for the MIT/Georgetown Univ Attack on Diffix-Birch

One of the two successful attacks from the first round of the Aircloak bounty program was from researchers Aloni Cohen and Kobbi Nissim from MIT and Georgetown University respectively. Our fix for the attack was deployed in Aircloak’s release 18.3 on July 27th. Aloni and Kobbi had asked Aircloak and myself not to reveal the details of the attack so … read more


August 22, 2018 by Felix Bauer

Break my Life’s Work and I’ll Pay You Handsomely

Because expert validation of anonymization approaches is really difficult, Aircloak started a bug-bounty program for its product – the Aircloak Attack Challenge. In the wake of this, a new method of measuring privacy was established and can be used for various functions in the future. Nobody has a clue about Anonymization It’s summer 2017 in Helsinki; some of the brightest … read more


July 23, 2018 by Nicolas Sartor

Data Compliance in the GDPR – How anonymization allows you to stay compliant in your data analysis

Data protection is becoming increasingly relevant in the public debate. Numerous examples have recently shown that companies are confronted with serious consequences in the event of data breaches. Ensuring proper data protection is therefore more important than ever. In order to strengthen the rights of the user and to protect privacy, we must generally change how we handle data. The … read more