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I have a system which keeps all actions of a user in the database. The problem is that now I can track which data belongs to which user. How to make users not identifiable in the database? One of the solutions I was thinking of is to store hashed user_id in the database, or create some middle table that will hashed user id.

mayya
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  • Why are you concerned about making users not identifiable in the database? – Jared Ng Aug 16 '11 at 00:17
  • I realize this is off-topic, but I read the title as 'atomizing users in django', and was wondering what sort of death-rays Stack Overflow was going to suggest... – Don Werve Aug 16 '11 at 00:24
  • If you can't identify users in your DB, you can't store or retrieve information about users in your DB. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Plausible denyability, encryption for data at rest, or just access controls so not all users can see all data? The last is solved in the app, not in the DB. – Jürgen Strobel Aug 16 '11 at 01:29
  • Under the ethics guidance I am not allowed to associate specific information in my data with specific user. But you are right, my system should store and retrieve information about users. So there should be some layer in between Django's User table and all their data I am collecting about users. – mayya Aug 17 '11 at 19:51

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Hashing it will not solve this problem as it can still be brought back to the user.

Are cookies or IPs something you could use?

At the end of the day if you want to be able to relate data back to a specific user it will in some way have to be linked to the user. Perhaps you could mimic other security authentication systems, such as having a user generate public and private keys and manually encrypting their data with their public key and then they'll be the only ones with access to it.

There are possibilities it depends on what your restrictions are.

dennmat
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  • Thanks for the answer. The task is that I as an administrator should not be able to relate data back to a specific user. You are right, if a group is small hashing is not the best solution. But private/public keys could be a good one. I will consider it. Thanks again! – mayya Aug 17 '11 at 19:45