Chapter Twenty Six. Anonymity Loves Company: Usability and the Network Effect

Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson

OTHER CHAPTERS IN THIS BOOK HAVE TALKED ABOUT HOW USABILITY IMPACTS SECURITY. One class of security software is anonymizing networks overlay networks on the Internet that provide privacy by letting users transact (for example, fetch a web page or send an email) without revealing their communication partners.

In this chapter, we'll focus on the network effects of usability on privacy and security: usability is a factor as before, but the size of the user base also becomes a factor. As we will see, in anonymizing networks, even if you were smart enough and had enough time to use every system perfectly, you would nevertheless be right to choose your system based in part on its usability for other users.