You Can Yak but You Can't Hide

Abstract

The recent growth of anonymous social network services -- such as 4chan, Whisper, and Yik Yak -- has brought online anonymity into the spotlight. For these services to function properly, the integrity of user anonymity must be preserved. If an attacker can determine the physical location from where an anonymous message was sent, then the attacker can potentially use side information (for example, knowledge of who lives at the location) to de-anonymize the sender of the message.