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authorPaul Syverson <syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil>2003-10-28 11:29:46 +0000
committerPaul Syverson <syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil>2003-10-28 11:29:46 +0000
commitf6eb16e479b13ee05869bea003e786bf5e1098c2 (patch)
tree42a907fc97b6027d472b722b043a0e598ce10b9b
parent0c9bce8c8874a30a7503a9f2fa4f204a5cb15c5a (diff)
downloadtor-f6eb16e479b13ee05869bea003e786bf5e1098c2.tar
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A few changes to related work before heading back to CCS.
svn:r687
-rw-r--r--doc/tor-design.tex37
1 files changed, 28 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/doc/tor-design.tex b/doc/tor-design.tex
index 236232788..5bb00d0af 100644
--- a/doc/tor-design.tex
+++ b/doc/tor-design.tex
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@ every request, and also presented
a threat to anonymity (see Section~\ref{maintaining-anonymity}).
\footnote{The first Onion Routing design \cite{or-ih96} protected against
this threat to some
-extent by encouraging users to hide network access behind an onion
+extent by requiring users to hide network access behind an onion
router/firewall that was also forwarding traffic from other nodes.
However, it is desirable for users to
benefit from Onion Routing even when they can't run their own
@@ -295,10 +295,7 @@ variation in traffic shape. This can have prohibitive bandwidth costs
and/or performance limitations. One can also use a cascade (fixed
shared route) with a relatively fixed set of users. This assumes a
significant degree of agreement and provides an easier target for an active
-attacker since the endpoints are generally known. However, a practical
-network with both of these features and thousands of active users has
-been run for many years (the Java Anon Proxy, aka Web MIXes,
-\cite{web-mix}).
+attacker since the endpoints are generally known.
The simplest low-latency designs are single-hop proxies such as the
Anonymizer \cite{anonymizer}, wherein a single trusted server removes
@@ -314,9 +311,24 @@ requires public-key cryptography, whereas relaying packets along a tunnel is
comparatively inexpensive. Because a tunnel crosses several servers, no
single server can learn the user's communication partners.
+The Java Anon Proxy (aka JAP aka WebMIXes) is based on the cascade
+approach mentioned above. Like a single-hop proxy a single cascade has
+the advantage of concentrating all the concurrent users in one
+communication pipe, making for potentially large anonymity sets.
+Also, like a single-hop proxy, it is easy to know where any
+communication is entering or leaving the network. Thus, though there
+is no single trusted server, it is potentially easy to simply bridge
+the entire cascade, i.e., to obviate its purpose. The design prevents
+this by padding between end users and the head of the cascade
+\cite{web-mix}. However, the current implementation does not do such
+padding and thus remains vulnerable to both active and passive
+bridging.
+
%[Ouch: We haven't said what an onion is yet, but we use the word here! -NM]
Systems such as earlier versions of Freedom and the original Onion Routing
-build the anonymous channel all at once (using an onion).
+build the anonymous channel all at once (using an onion of public-key
+encrypted messages, each layer of which provided a session key and pointer
+to the address corresponding to the next layer's key).
Later designs of Freedom and Tor as described herein build
the channel in stages, as does AnonNet
\cite{anonnet}. Amongst other things, this makes perfect forward
@@ -361,12 +373,15 @@ jondos on any one net- work (using IP address), the attacker would be
forced to launch jondos using many different identities and on many
different networks to succeed'' \cite{crowds-tissec}.
-Another low latency design that was proposed independently and at
+Another low-latency design that was proposed independently and at
about the same time as the original Onion Routing was PipeNet
\cite{pipenet}. It provided anonymity protections that were stronger
than Onion Routing's, but at the cost of allowing a single user to
shut down the network simply by not sending. It was also never
-implemented or formally published.
+implemented or formally published. Low-latency anonymous communication
+has also been designed for other types of systems, including
+ISDN \cite{isdn-mixes}, and mobile applications such as telephones and
+active badging systems \cite{federrath-ih96,reed-protocols97}.
Tor is not primarily designed for censorship resistance but rather
for anonymous communication. However, Tor's rendezvous points, which
@@ -390,11 +405,15 @@ communication. Crowds and [XXX] provide anonymity for HTTP requests; [...]
[XXX Mention error recovery?]
STILL NOT MENTIONED:
-isdn-mixes\\
real-time mixes\\
rewebbers\\
cebolla\\
+Rewebber was mentioned in an earlier version along with Eternity,
+which *must* be mentioned if we cite anything at all
+in censorship resistance.
+
+
[XXX Close by mentioning where Tor fits.]
\Section{Design goals and assumptions}