Abstract
A mix is a communication proxy that attempts to hide the correspondence between its incoming and outgoing messages. Timing attacks are a significant challenge for mix-based systems that wish to support interactive, low-latency applications. However, the potency of these attacks has not been studied carefully. In this paper, we investigate timing analysis attacks on low-latency mix systems and clarify the threat they pose. We propose a novel technique, defensive dropping, to thwart timing attacks. Through simulations and analysis, we show that defensive dropping can be effective against attackers who employ timing analysis.
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
Acquisti, A., Dingledine, R., Syverson, P.: On the Economics of Anonymity. In: Wright, R.N. (ed.) FC 2003. LNCS, vol. 2742, pp. 84–102. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Back, A., Goldberg, I., Shostack, A.: Freedom 2.0 Security Issues and Analysis. Zero-Knowledge Systems, Inc., white paper (November 2000)
Berthold, O., Federrath, H., Kohntopp, M.: Project anonymity and unobservability in the internet. In: Proc. Computers Freedom and Privacy (April 2000)
Berthold, O., Pfitzmann, A., Standtke, R.: The Disadvantages of Free Mix- Routes and How to Overcome Them. In: Proc. Intl. Workshop on Design Issues in Anonymity and Unobservability (July 2000)
Bolot, J.: Characterizing End-to-End Packet Delay and Loss in the Internet. Journal of High Speed Networks 2(3) (September 1993)
Chaum, D.: Untraceable Electronic Mail, Return Addresses, and Digital Pseudonyms. Communications of the ACM 24(2), 84–88 (1981)
Dei, W.: Pipenet 1.1 (August. 1996), http://www.eskimo.com/weidai/pipenet.txt
Dingledine, R., Mathewson, N., Syverson, P.: Reliable MIX Cascade Networks through Reputation. In: Proc. Financial Cryptography (2003)
Douceur, J.: The sybil attack. In: Druschel, P., Kaashoek, M.F., Rowstron, A. (eds.) IPTPS 2002. LNCS, vol. 2429, p. 251. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Freedman, M., Morris, R.: Tarzan: A Peer-to-Peer Anonymizing Network Layer. In: Proc. ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (November 2002)
Gribble, S.: UC Berkeley Home IP HTTP Traces (July 1997), http://www.acm.org/sigcomm/ITA/
Jakobsson, M.: Flash mixing. In: Proc. Sym. on Principles of Distributed Computing (May 1999)
Kesdogan, D., Egner, J., Buschkes, R.: Stop-and-go-mixes providing probablilistic anonymity in an open system. In: Proc. Information Hiding (April 1998)
Pfitzmann, A., Pfitzmann, B., Waidner, M.: ISDNMixes: Untraceable Communication with Very Small Bandwidth Overhead. In: Proc. GI/ITG Communication in Distributed Systems (February 1991)
Rackoff, C., Simon, D.R.: Cryptographic defense against traffic analysis. In: Proc. ACM Sym. on the Theory of Computing (May 1993)
Reed, M., Syverson, P., Goldschlag, D.: Anonymous Connections and Onion Routing. IEEE JSAC Copyright and Privacy Protection (1998)
Saroiu, S., Krishna Gummadi, P., Gribble, S.: A Measurement Study of Peer-to- Peer File Sharing Systems. In: Proc. Multimedia Computing and Networking (January 2002)
Serjantov, A., Dingledine, R., Syverson, P.: From a trickle to a flood: active attacks on several mix types. In: Information Hiding (2002)
Syverson, P., Tsudik, G., Reed, M., Landwehr, C.: Towards an Analysis of Onion Routing Security. In: Workshop on Design Issues in Anonymity and Unobservability (July 2000)
Wright, M., Adler, M., Levine, B.N., Shields, C.: An Analysis of the Degradation of Anonymous Protocols. In: Proc. ISOC Sym. on Network and Distributed System Security (Febraury 2002)
Wright, M., Adler, M., Levine, B.N., Shields, C.: Defending Anonymous Communication Against Passive Logging Attacks. In: Proc. IEEE Sym. on Security and Privacy (May 2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Levine, B.N., Reiter, M.K., Wang, C., Wright, M. (2004). Timing Attacks in Low-Latency Mix Systems. In: Juels, A. (eds) Financial Cryptography. FC 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3110. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27809-2_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-27809-2_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22420-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-27809-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive