
From my viewpoint, what is needed is some cryptographic-based mechanism that assures that there is no possibility of linkage been me and my answers. From the perspective of the person running the survey, there is also a need to assure that a single person does not submit more than one response to the survey.
Searching around the Internet, I have discovered just such a solution called Anonize, developed by a professor (Rafael Pass) and his students (Susan Hohenberger, Steven Myers, and Abhi Shelat) at Cornell Tech, an outpost of Cornell University in New York CIty. They have written several academic papers about the scheme. Wired Magazine has published a more accessible description of the problem. The Wired description still does not provide enough intuitive details about how the solution works.
Acceptance of such mechanisms by the Internet survey industry will have the same resistance until to things happen:
- The general public starts demanding such a solution.
- The mechanism is explained in simple, intuitive terms the general public can understand and trust.
Articles for the General Public:
- New Crypto Tool Makes Anonymous Surveys Truly Anonymous, Wired Magazine (9/17/2015)
Papers for Computer Scientists:
- ANONIZE: A Large-Scale Anonymous Survey System, International Association for Cryptologic Research (7/6/2015)
- An Overview of ANONIZE: A Large-Scale Anonymous Survey System, IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, (7/26/2015)