Preprint
Holding all the ASes: Identifying and Circumventing the Pitfalls of AS-aware Tor Client Design
ArXiv.org
05/11/2016
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.1605.03596
Abstract
Traffic correlation attacks to de-anonymize Tor users are possible when an adversary is in a position to observe traffic entering and exiting the Tor network. Recent work has brought attention to the threat of these attacks by network-level adversaries (e.g., Autonomous Systems). We perform a historical analysis to understand how the threat from AS-level traffic correlation attacks has evolved over the past five years. We find that despite a large number of new relays added to the Tor network, the threat has grown. This points to the importance of increasing AS-level diversity in addition to capacity of the Tor network.
We identify and elaborate on common pitfalls of AS-aware Tor client design and construction. We find that succumbing to these pitfalls can negatively impact three major aspects of an AS-aware Tor client – (1) security against AS-level adversaries, (2) security against relay-level adversaries, and (3) performance. Finally, we propose and evaluate a Tor client – Cipollino– which avoids these pitfalls using state-of-the-art in network-measurement. Our evaluation shows that Cipollino is able to achieve better security against network-level adversaries while maintaining security against relay-level adversaries and performance characteristics comparable to the current Tor client.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Holding all the ASes: Identifying and Circumventing the Pitfalls of AS-aware Tor Client Design
- Creators
- Rishab NithyanandRachee SinghShinyoung ChoPhillipa Gill
- Resource Type
- Preprint
- Publication Details
- ArXiv.org
- DOI
- 10.48550/arXiv.1605.03596
- ISSN
- 2331-8422
- Language
- English
- Date posted
- 05/11/2016
- Academic Unit
- Center for Social Science Innovation; Computer Science; Public Policy Center (Archive)
- Record Identifier
- 9984285653702771
Metrics
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