Journal of Communications and Networks

The Korean Institute of Commucations and Information Sciences (한국통신학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

The TOR Data Communication System

  • Haraty, Ramzi A. (Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Lebanese American University) ;
  • Zantout, Bassam (Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Lebanese American University)
  • Received : 2014.04.12
  • Published : 2014.08.30
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Since the day the Internet became a common and reliable mechanism for communication and data transfer, security officers and enthusiasts rallied to enforce security standards on data transported over the globe. Whenever a user tries communicating with another recipient on the Internet, vital information is sent over different networks until the information is dropped, intercepted, or normally reaches the recipient. Critical information traversing networks is usually encrypted. In order to conceal the sender's identity, different implementations have proven successful - one of which is the invention of anonymous networks. This paper thoroughly investigates one of the most common and existing techniques used during data communication for avoiding traffic analysis as well as assuring data integrity - the onion router (TOR). The paper also scrupulously presents the benefits and drawbacks of TOR.

Keywords

References

  1. S. Syverson, D. Goldschlog, and M. Reeds, "Anonymous connections and onion routing," in Proc. IEEE SP, Oakland, USA, 1997, pp. 482-494.
  2. (2014, June 20) TOR - Onion routing online documentation [Online]. Available: https://www.torproject.org/
  3. B. Choi, D. Xuan, C. Li, R. Bettati, and W. Zhao, "Efficient traffic camouflaging in mission-critical QoS guaranteed networks," in Proc. IEEE Information Assurance and Security Workshop, West Point, Virginia, USA, 2000, pp. 143-149.
  4. R. Dingeldine, "TOR: the second-generation onion router," in Proc. Usenix Security Symposium, San Diego, USA, 2004.
  5. D. Chaum, "Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms," ACM Commun., 24(2), pp. 84-88, 1981. https://doi.org/10.1145/358549.358563
  6. (2014, Apr. 30) How anonymizers work [Online]. Available: http://www.livinginternet.com/i/is anon work.htm
  7. (2014, Apr. 30) JAP anonymity and privacy [Online]. Available: http://jap.inf.tu-dresden.de/index en.html
  8. G. Danezis, R. Dingeldine, and N. Mathewson, "Mixminion: design of a type III anonymous remailer protocol," in Proc. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Berkeley, USA, 2003, pp. 2-13.
  9. M. Freedman, S. Sit, J. Cates and R. Morris, "Introducing Tarzan, a peer-to-peer anonymizing network layer," in Proc. First Int. Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Syst., Cambridge, 2002.
  10. M. Rennhard and B. Plattner, "Introducing MorphMix: peer-to-peer based anonymous internet usage with collusion detection," in Proc. ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, Washington, USA, 2002, pp. 91-102.
  11. P. Syvneron, G. Tsudik, M. Reed, and C. Landwehr, "Towards Analysis of Onion Routing Security," in Designing Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Workshop on Design Issue in Anonymity and Unobservability, Springer-Verlag, LNCS, 2009, pp. 96-114.
  12. B. Zantout and Ramzi A. Haraty. Avoiding Traffic Analysis and Assuring Data Integrity using a Quorum-based Approach. The Fifth International Workshop on Advanced Computations for Engineering Applications. Taif, Saudi Arabia. Mar. 2010.
  13. B. Zantout and R. Haraty, "A comparative study of Bittorrent and Net-Camo data communication systems," International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, volume 1, number 2, March 2010.
  14. S. Chakravarty, "Traffic Analysis Attacks and Defenses in Low Latency Anonymous Communication," Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univ. 2014.
  15. S. J.Murdoch and G. Danezis, "Low-cost traffic analysis of TOR," in Proc. IEEE Security and Privacy Symp., May 2006.
  16. K. Bauer, D. McCoy, D. Grunwald, S. Douglas, and K. Tadayoshi, "Low resource, routing attacks against anonymous systems," Tech. Rep. CU-CS-1025-07, University of Colorado, USA, 2007.
  17. A. Hints, "Fingerprinting websites using traffic analysis," in Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2482, 2002, pp. 171-178.
  18. B. Zantout and R. Haraty, "I2P data communication system," in Proc. 10th Int. Conf. Netw., 2011, pp. 401-409.