Abstract
In this paper we propose a method to prevent so called “intersection attacks” on anonymity services. Intersection attacks are possible if not all users of such a service are active all the time and part of the transfered messages are linkable. Especially in real systems, the group of users (anonymity set) will change over time due to online and off-line periods.
Our proposed solution is to send pregenerated dummy messages to the communication partner (e.g. the web server), during the user’s off-line periods.
For a detailed description of our method we assume a cascade of Chaumian MIXes as anonymity service and respect and fulfill the MIX attacker model.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adam Back, Ulf Moller, and Anton Stiglic. Traffic analysis attacks and trade-offs in anonymity providing systems. In Information Hiding, pages 245–257, 2001.
Oliver Berthold, Hannes Federrath, and Stefan Köpsell. Web MIXes: A system for anonymous and unobservable Internet access. In Hannes Federrath, editor, Designing Privacy Enhancing Technologies, volume 2009 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 115–129, Berkeley, CA, USA, July 2000. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Germany.
O. Berthold, S. Clauβ, S. Köpsell, and A. Pfitzmann. Efficiency improvements of the private message service. In Information Hiding. 4th International Workshop, IHW 2001, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, April 25–27, 2001. Proceedings, ISBN: 3540427333, LNCS 2137, Springer, Berlin, 2001.
David L. Chaum. Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms. Communications of the ACM, 24(2), February 1981. Also availabel at http://world.std.com/~franl/crypto/chaum-acm-1981.html.
David L. Chaum. Blind signature systems. Advances in Cryptology-CRYPTO’ 83, International Association for Cryptologic Research, North-Holland/Elsevier, 1983.
David A. Cooper and Kenneth Birman. Preserving privacy in a network of mobile computers. In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pages 26–38, May 1995. Also available at http://cs-tr.cs.cornell.edu/Dienst/UI/1.0/Display/ncstrl.cornell/TR95-1%490.
D. Kesdogan, J. Egner, and R. Bueschkes. Stop-and-Go-MIXes providing probabilistic anonymity in an open system. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1525:83–98, 1998.
Jean-Francois Raymond. Traffic analysis: Protocols, attacks, design issues and open problems.
Michael K. Reiter and Aviel D. Rubin. Crowds: anonymity for Web transactions. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, 1(1):66–92, 1998.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Berthold, O., Langos, H. (2003). Dummy Traffic against Long Term Intersection Attacks. In: Dingledine, R., Syverson, P. (eds) Privacy Enhancing Technologies. PET 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2482. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36467-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36467-6_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00565-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36467-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive