On the Transit Obfuscation Problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Transit Obfuscation Problem, focusing on concealing specific transit points during travel, and proposes algorithms to ensure transit anonymity against adversaries with full path knowledge.

Contribution

It defines transit anonymity as a new privacy guarantee and develops algorithms to achieve this in route planning scenarios.

Findings

Proposed algorithms effectively conceal transit points.

Transit anonymity can be quantitatively guaranteed.

Algorithms withstand adversaries with complete path knowledge.

Abstract

Concealing an intermediate point on a route or visible from a route is an important goal in some transportation and surveillance scenarios. This paper studies the Transit Obfuscation Problem, the problem of traveling from some start location to an end location while "covering" a specific transit point that needs to be concealed from adversaries. We propose the notion of transit anonymity, a quantitative guarantee of the anonymity of a specific transit point, even with a powerful adversary with full knowledge of the path planning algorithm. We propose and evaluate planning/search algorithms that satisfy this anonymity criterion.