Pseudonym Generation

In entici, we distinguish between internal and external pseudonyms. The internal pseudonym is the default pseudonym which will be generated whenever a new resource is pseudonymized. Therefore, the relation between resource and internal pseudonym is 1:1.

In addition, an arbitrary number of external pseudonyms may be generated for one resource. This mechanism enables project-based pseudonymization. Therefore, the relation between resource and external pseudonym is 1:N.

All pseudonyms are generated via a cryptographically strong random numbergenerator (RNG). In the unlikely case of a collision, a fall-back mechanism is in place to guarantee unique pseudonyms.

Internal pseudonyms are always Base64 encoded random strings of length 11. However, the generation of external pseudonyms may be influenced by configuring the used alphabet as well as the length of the resulting pseudonyms.