'Anonymisation' schemes are a little like encryption, in that they just get monotonically weaker over time as people work out attacks. But the attacks tend to b

'Anonymisation' schemes are a little like encryption, in that they just get monotonically weaker over time as people work out attacks. But the attacks tend to be much worse. I work in academic open data publishing, and the netflix prize (https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0610105 https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0610105) hangs over our heads. But what this illustrates to me is that researchers are just really careless, despite everything we make them agree to in data transfer agreements. It seems absurd to have little cubicles like this https://safepodnetwork.ac.uk/ https://safepodnetwork.ac.uk/ (think Mission Impossible 1) but I do despair.