Twitterize: Anonymous Micro-blogging

Privacy, in particular anonymity, is required to increase the acceptance of users for the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is built upon sensors that encompass us in each step we take. Hence, they can collect sensitive, privacy-invading data that can be used to establish complete user profiles. For this reason, sensing in the IoT needs to provide means of privacy-protection. In this paper, we discuss an approach for sharing smartphone sensor data and user-generated content in a privacy-protecting manner via the Micro-blogging platform (MbP) Twitter. For that, we discuss privacy needs of users in Micro-blogging platforms (MbPs) and that privacy should not only ensure confidentiality but also anonymity. We discuss related work and systems along these requirements and conclude that anonymity is hardly considered. We introduce our construction Twitterize that integrates well with the MbP Twitter and allows users and sensors to share information normally as well as privacy-preserving with a single application. Twitterize establishes overlay networks for hashtags over Twitters' social network and neither depends on additional infrastructure nor peer-to-peer communication.