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				|  |  | -<title> Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router </title>
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				|  |  | - 
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				|  |  | -<h1 align="center">Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router </h1> 
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<h3 align="center">
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				|  |  | -Roger Dingledine, The Free Haven Project, <tt>arma@freehaven.net</tt><br>
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				|  |  | -Nick Mathewson, The Free Haven Project, <tt>nickm@freehaven.net</tt><br>
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				|  |  | -Paul Syverson, Naval Research Lab, <tt>syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil</tt> </h3>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<h2> Abstract</h2>
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				|  |  | -We present Tor, a circuit-based low-latency anonymous communication
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				|  |  | -service. This second-generation Onion Routing system addresses limitations
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				|  |  | -in the original design by adding perfect forward secrecy, congestion
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				|  |  | -control, directory servers, integrity checking, configurable exit policies,
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				|  |  | -and a practical design for location-hidden services via rendezvous
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				|  |  | -points. Tor works on the real-world
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				|  |  | -Internet, requires no special privileges or kernel modifications, requires
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				|  |  | -little synchronization or coordination between nodes, and provides a
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				|  |  | -reasonable tradeoff between anonymity, usability, and efficiency.
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				|  |  | -We briefly describe our experiences with an international network of
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				|  |  | -more than 30 nodes. We close with a list of open problems in anonymous communication.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc1">
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				|  |  | -<a name="sec:intro">
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				|  |  | -1</a>  Overview</h2>
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				|  |  | -</a>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -Onion Routing is a distributed overlay network designed to anonymize
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				|  |  | -TCP-based applications like web browsing, secure shell,
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				|  |  | -and instant messaging. Clients choose a path through the network and
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				|  |  | -build a <em>circuit</em>, in which each node (or "onion router" or "OR")
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				|  |  | -in the path knows its predecessor and successor, but no other nodes in
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				|  |  | -the circuit.  Traffic flows down the circuit in fixed-size
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				|  |  | -<em>cells</em>, which are unwrapped by a symmetric key at each node
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				|  |  | -(like the layers of an onion) and relayed downstream. The
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				|  |  | -Onion Routing project published several design and analysis
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				|  |  | -papers [<a href="#or-ih96" name="CITEor-ih96">27</a>,<a href="#or-jsac98" name="CITEor-jsac98">41</a>,<a href="#or-discex00" name="CITEor-discex00">48</a>,<a href="#or-pet00" name="CITEor-pet00">49</a>]. While a wide area Onion
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				|  |  | -Routing network was deployed briefly, the only long-running
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				|  |  | -public implementation was a fragile
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				|  |  | -proof-of-concept that ran on a single machine. Even this simple deployment
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				|  |  | -processed connections from over sixty thousand distinct IP addresses from
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				|  |  | -all over the world at a rate of about fifty thousand per day.
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				|  |  | -But many critical design and deployment issues were never
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				|  |  | -resolved, and the design has not been updated in years. Here
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				|  |  | -we describe Tor, a protocol for asynchronous, loosely federated onion
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				|  |  | -routers that provides the following improvements over the old Onion
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				|  |  | -Routing design:
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Perfect forward secrecy:</b> In the original Onion Routing design,
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				|  |  | -a single hostile node could record traffic and
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				|  |  | -later compromise successive nodes in the circuit and force them
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				|  |  | -to decrypt it. Rather than using a single multiply encrypted data
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				|  |  | -structure (an <em>onion</em>) to lay each circuit,
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				|  |  | -Tor now uses an incremental or <em>telescoping</em> path-building design,
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				|  |  | -where the initiator negotiates session keys with each successive hop in
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				|  |  | -the circuit.  Once these keys are deleted, subsequently compromised nodes
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				|  |  | -cannot decrypt old traffic.  As a side benefit, onion replay detection
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				|  |  | -is no longer necessary, and the process of building circuits is more
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				|  |  | -reliable, since the initiator knows when a hop fails and can then try
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				|  |  | -extending to a new node.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Separation of "protocol cleaning" from anonymity:</b>
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				|  |  | -Onion Routing originally required a separate "application
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				|  |  | -proxy" for each supported application protocol — most of which were
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				|  |  | -never written, so many applications were never supported.  Tor uses the
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				|  |  | -standard and near-ubiquitous SOCKS [<a href="#socks4" name="CITEsocks4">32</a>] proxy interface, allowing
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				|  |  | -us to support most TCP-based programs without modification.  Tor now
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				|  |  | -relies on the filtering features of privacy-enhancing
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				|  |  | -application-level proxies such as Privoxy [<a href="#privoxy" name="CITEprivoxy">39</a>], without trying
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				|  |  | -to duplicate those features itself.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>No mixing, padding, or traffic shaping (yet):</b> Onion
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				|  |  | -Routing originally called for batching and reordering cells as they arrived,
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				|  |  | -assumed padding between ORs, and in
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				|  |  | -later designs added padding between onion proxies (users) and
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				|  |  | -ORs [<a href="#or-ih96" name="CITEor-ih96">27</a>,<a href="#or-jsac98" name="CITEor-jsac98">41</a>].  Tradeoffs between padding protection
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				|  |  | -and cost were discussed, and <em>traffic shaping</em> algorithms were
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				|  |  | -theorized [<a href="#or-pet00" name="CITEor-pet00">49</a>] to provide good security without expensive
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				|  |  | -padding, but no concrete padding scheme was suggested.
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				|  |  | -Recent research [<a href="#econymics" name="CITEeconymics">1</a>]
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				|  |  | -and deployment experience [<a href="#freedom21-security" name="CITEfreedom21-security">4</a>] suggest that this
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				|  |  | -level of resource use is not practical or economical; and even full
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				|  |  | -link padding is still vulnerable [<a href="#defensive-dropping" name="CITEdefensive-dropping">33</a>]. Thus,
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				|  |  | -until we have a proven and convenient design for traffic shaping or
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				|  |  | -low-latency mixing that improves anonymity against a realistic
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				|  |  | -adversary, we leave these strategies out.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Many TCP streams can share one circuit:</b> Onion Routing originally
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				|  |  | -built a separate circuit for each
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				|  |  | -application-level request, but this required
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				|  |  | -multiple public key operations for every request, and also presented
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				|  |  | -a threat to anonymity from building so many circuits; see
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				|  |  | -Section <a href="#sec:maintaining-anonymity">9</a>.  Tor multiplexes multiple TCP
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				|  |  | -streams along each circuit to improve efficiency and anonymity.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Leaky-pipe circuit topology:</b> Through in-band signaling
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				|  |  | -within the circuit, Tor initiators can direct traffic to nodes partway
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				|  |  | -down the circuit. This novel approach
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				|  |  | -allows traffic to exit the circuit from the middle — possibly
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				|  |  | -frustrating traffic shape and volume attacks based on observing the end
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				|  |  | -of the circuit. (It also allows for long-range padding if
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				|  |  | -future research shows this to be worthwhile.)
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Congestion control:</b> Earlier anonymity designs do not
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				|  |  | -address traffic bottlenecks. Unfortunately, typical approaches to
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				|  |  | -load balancing and flow control in overlay networks involve inter-node
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				|  |  | -control communication and global views of traffic. Tor's decentralized
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				|  |  | -congestion control uses end-to-end acks to maintain anonymity
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				|  |  | -while allowing nodes at the edges of the network to detect congestion
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				|  |  | -or flooding and send less data until the congestion subsides.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Directory servers:</b> The earlier Onion Routing design
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				|  |  | -planned to flood state information through the network — an approach
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				|  |  | -that can be unreliable and complex. Tor takes a simplified view toward distributing this
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				|  |  | -information. Certain more trusted nodes act as <em>directory
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				|  |  | -servers</em>: they provide signed directories describing known
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				|  |  | -routers and their current state. Users periodically download them
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				|  |  | -via HTTP.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Variable exit policies:</b> Tor provides a consistent mechanism
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				|  |  | -for each node to advertise a policy describing the hosts
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				|  |  | -and ports to which it will connect. These exit policies are critical
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				|  |  | -in a volunteer-based distributed infrastructure, because each operator
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				|  |  | -is comfortable with allowing different types of traffic to exit
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				|  |  | -from his node.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>End-to-end integrity checking:</b> The original Onion Routing
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				|  |  | -design did no integrity checking on data. Any node on the
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				|  |  | -circuit could change the contents of data cells as they passed by — for
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				|  |  | -example, to alter a connection request so it would connect
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				|  |  | -to a different webserver, or to `tag' encrypted traffic and look for
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				|  |  | -corresponding corrupted traffic at the network edges [<a href="#minion-design" name="CITEminion-design">15</a>].
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				|  |  | -Tor hampers these attacks by verifying data integrity before it leaves
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				|  |  | -the network.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -<b>Rendezvous points and hidden services:</b>
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				|  |  | -Tor provides an integrated mechanism for responder anonymity via
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				|  |  | -location-protected servers.  Previous Onion Routing designs included
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				|  |  | -long-lived "reply onions" that could be used to build circuits
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				|  |  | -to a hidden server, but these reply onions did not provide forward
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				|  |  | -security, and became useless if any node in the path went down
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				|  |  | -or rotated its keys.  In Tor, clients negotiate <i>rendezvous points</i>
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				|  |  | -to connect with hidden servers; reply onions are no longer required.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -Unlike Freedom [<a href="#freedom2-arch" name="CITEfreedom2-arch">8</a>], Tor does not require OS kernel
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				|  |  | -patches or network stack support.  This prevents us from anonymizing
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				|  |  | -non-TCP protocols, but has greatly helped our portability and
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				|  |  | -deployability.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -We have implemented all of the above features, including rendezvous
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				|  |  | -points. Our source code is
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				|  |  | -available under a free license, and Tor
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				|  |  | -is not covered by the patent that affected distribution and use of
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				|  |  | -earlier versions of Onion Routing.
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				|  |  | -We have deployed a wide-area alpha network
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				|  |  | -to test the design, to get more experience with usability
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				|  |  | -and users, and to provide a research platform for experimentation.
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				|  |  | -As of this writing, the network stands at 32 nodes spread over two continents.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -We review previous work in Section <a href="#sec:related-work">2</a>, describe
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				|  |  | -our goals and assumptions in Section <a href="#sec:assumptions">3</a>,
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				|  |  | -and then address the above list of improvements in
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				|  |  | -Sections <a href="#sec:design">4</a>, <a href="#sec:rendezvous">5</a>, and <a href="#sec:other-design">6</a>.
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				|  |  | -We summarize
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				|  |  | -in Section <a href="#sec:attacks">7</a> how our design stands up to
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				|  |  | -known attacks, and talk about our early deployment experiences in
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				|  |  | -Section <a href="#sec:in-the-wild">8</a>. We conclude with a list of open problems in
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				|  |  | -Section <a href="#sec:maintaining-anonymity">9</a> and future work for the Onion
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				|  |  | -Routing project in Section <a href="#sec:conclusion">10</a>.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc2">
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				|  |  | -<a name="sec:related-work">
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				|  |  | -2</a>  Related work</h2>
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				|  |  | -</a>
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -Modern anonymity systems date to Chaum's <b>Mix-Net</b>
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				|  |  | -design [<a href="#chaum-mix" name="CITEchaum-mix">10</a>]. Chaum
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				|  |  | -proposed hiding the correspondence between sender and recipient by
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				|  |  | -wrapping messages in layers of public-key cryptography, and relaying them
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				|  |  | -through a path composed of "mixes."  Each mix in turn
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				|  |  | -decrypts, delays, and re-orders messages before relaying them
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				|  |  | -onward.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -Subsequent relay-based anonymity designs have diverged in two
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				|  |  | -main directions. Systems like <b>Babel</b> [<a href="#babel" name="CITEbabel">28</a>],
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				|  |  | -<b>Mixmaster</b> [<a href="#mixmaster-spec" name="CITEmixmaster-spec">36</a>],
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				|  |  | -and <b>Mixminion</b> [<a href="#minion-design" name="CITEminion-design">15</a>] have tried
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				|  |  | -to maximize anonymity at the cost of introducing comparatively large and
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				|  |  | -variable latencies. Because of this decision, these <em>high-latency</em>
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				|  |  | -networks resist strong global adversaries,
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				|  |  | -but introduce too much lag for interactive tasks like web browsing,
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				|  |  | -Internet chat, or SSH connections.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -Tor belongs to the second category: <em>low-latency</em> designs that
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				|  |  | -try to anonymize interactive network traffic. These systems handle
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				|  |  | -a variety of bidirectional protocols. They also provide more convenient
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				|  |  | -mail delivery than the high-latency anonymous email
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				|  |  | -networks, because the remote mail server provides explicit and timely
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				|  |  | -delivery confirmation. But because these designs typically
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				|  |  | -involve many packets that must be delivered quickly, it is
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				|  |  | -difficult for them to prevent an attacker who can eavesdrop both ends of the
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				|  |  | -communication from correlating the timing and volume
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				|  |  | -of traffic entering the anonymity network with traffic leaving it [<a href="#SS03" name="CITESS03">45</a>].
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				|  |  | -These
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				|  |  | -protocols are similarly vulnerable to an active adversary who introduces
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				|  |  | -timing patterns into traffic entering the network and looks
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				|  |  | -for correlated patterns among exiting traffic.
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				|  |  | -Although some work has been done to frustrate these attacks, most designs
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				|  |  | -protect primarily against traffic analysis rather than traffic
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				|  |  | -confirmation (see Section <a href="#subsec:threat-model">3.1</a>).
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -The simplest low-latency designs are single-hop proxies such as the
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				|  |  | -<b>Anonymizer</b> [<a href="#anonymizer" name="CITEanonymizer">3</a>]: a single trusted server strips the
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				|  |  | -data's origin before relaying it.  These designs are easy to
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				|  |  | -analyze, but users must trust the anonymizing proxy.
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				|  |  | -Concentrating the traffic to this single point increases the anonymity set
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				|  |  | -(the people a given user is hiding among), but it is vulnerable if the
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				|  |  | -adversary can observe all traffic entering and leaving the proxy.
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				|  |  | -
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				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -More complex are distributed-trust, circuit-based anonymizing systems.
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				|  |  | -In these designs, a user establishes one or more medium-term bidirectional
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				|  |  | -end-to-end circuits, and tunnels data in fixed-size cells.
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				|  |  | -Establishing circuits is computationally expensive and typically
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				|  |  | -requires public-key
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				|  |  | -cryptography, whereas relaying cells is comparatively inexpensive and
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				|  |  | -typically requires only symmetric encryption.
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				|  |  | -Because a circuit crosses several servers, and each server only knows
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				|  |  | -the adjacent servers in the circuit, no single server can link a
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				|  |  | -user to her communication partners.
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				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The <b>Java Anon Proxy</b> (also known as JAP or Web MIXes) uses fixed shared
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -routes known as <em>cascades</em>.  As with a single-hop proxy, this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approach aggregates users into larger anonymity sets, but again an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacker only needs to observe both ends of the cascade to bridge all
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the system's traffic.  The Java Anon Proxy's design
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -calls for padding between end users and the head of the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cascade [<a href="#web-mix" name="CITEweb-mix">7</a>]. However, it is not demonstrated whether the current
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -implementation's padding policy improves anonymity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>PipeNet</b> [<a href="#back01" name="CITEback01">5</a>,<a href="#pipenet" name="CITEpipenet">12</a>], another low-latency design proposed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -around the same time as Onion Routing, gave
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stronger anonymity but allowed a single user to shut
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -down the network by not sending. Systems like <b>ISDN
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -mixes</b> [<a href="#isdn-mixes" name="CITEisdn-mixes">38</a>] were designed for other environments with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -different assumptions.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -In P2P designs like <b>Tarzan</b> [<a href="#tarzan:ccs02" name="CITEtarzan:ccs02">24</a>] and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>MorphMix</b> [<a href="#morphmix:fc04" name="CITEmorphmix:fc04">43</a>], all participants both generate
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic and relay traffic for others. These systems aim to conceal
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -whether a given peer originated a request
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or just relayed it from another peer. While Tarzan and MorphMix use
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -layered encryption as above, <b>Crowds</b> [<a href="#crowds-tissec" name="CITEcrowds-tissec">42</a>] simply assumes
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an adversary who cannot observe the initiator: it uses no public-key
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -encryption, so any node on a circuit can read users' traffic.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Hordes</b> [<a href="#hordes-jcs" name="CITEhordes-jcs">34</a>] is based on Crowds but also uses multicast
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -responses to hide the initiator. <b>Herbivore</b> [<a href="#herbivore" name="CITEherbivore">25</a>] and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>P</b><sup><b>5</b></sup> [<a href="#p5" name="CITEp5">46</a>] go even further, requiring broadcast.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -These systems are designed primarily for communication among peers,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -although Herbivore users can make external connections by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -requesting a peer to serve as a proxy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Systems like <b>Freedom</b> and the original Onion Routing build circuits
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -all at once, using a layered "onion" of public-key encrypted messages,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -each layer of which provides session keys and the address of the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -next server in the circuit. Tor as described herein, Tarzan, MorphMix,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Cebolla</b> [<a href="#cebolla" name="CITEcebolla">9</a>], and Rennhard's <b>Anonymity Network</b> [<a href="#anonnet" name="CITEanonnet">44</a>]
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -build circuits
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in stages, extending them one hop at a time.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#subsubsec:constructing-a-circuit">4.2</a> describes how this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approach enables perfect forward secrecy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Circuit-based designs must choose which protocol layer
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to anonymize. They may intercept IP packets directly, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relay them whole (stripping the source address) along the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit [<a href="#freedom2-arch" name="CITEfreedom2-arch">8</a>,<a href="#tarzan:ccs02" name="CITEtarzan:ccs02">24</a>].  Like
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor, they may accept TCP streams and relay the data in those streams,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ignoring the breakdown of that data into TCP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -segments [<a href="#morphmix:fc04" name="CITEmorphmix:fc04">43</a>,<a href="#anonnet" name="CITEanonnet">44</a>]. Finally, like Crowds, they may accept
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -application-level protocols such as HTTP and relay the application
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -requests themselves.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Making this protocol-layer decision requires a compromise between flexibility
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and anonymity.  For example, a system that understands HTTP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can strip
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -identifying information from requests, can take advantage of caching
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to limit the number of requests that leave the network, and can batch
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or encode requests to minimize the number of connections.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -On the other hand, an IP-level anonymizer can handle nearly any protocol,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -even ones unforeseen by its designers (though these systems require
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -kernel-level modifications to some operating systems, and so are more
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -complex and less portable). TCP-level anonymity networks like Tor present
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a middle approach: they are application neutral (so long as the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -application supports, or can be tunneled across, TCP), but by treating
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -application connections as data streams rather than raw TCP packets,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -they avoid the inefficiencies of tunneling TCP over
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -TCP.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Distributed-trust anonymizing systems need to prevent attackers from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adding too many servers and thus compromising user paths.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor relies on a small set of well-known directory servers, run by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -independent parties, to decide which nodes can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -join. Tarzan and MorphMix allow unknown users to run servers, and use
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a limited resource (like IP addresses) to prevent an attacker from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -controlling too much of the network.  Crowds suggests requiring
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -written, notarized requests from potential crowd members.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Anonymous communication is essential for censorship-resistant
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -systems like Eternity [<a href="#eternity" name="CITEeternity">2</a>], Free Haven [<a href="#freehaven-berk" name="CITEfreehaven-berk">19</a>],
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Publius [<a href="#publius" name="CITEpublius">53</a>], and Tangler [<a href="#tangler" name="CITEtangler">52</a>]. Tor's rendezvous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -points enable connections between mutually anonymous entities; they
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are a building block for location-hidden servers, which are needed by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Eternity and Free Haven.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc3">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:assumptions">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -3</a>  Design goals and assumptions</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Goals</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Like other low-latency anonymity designs, Tor seeks to frustrate
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attackers from linking communication partners, or from linking
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -multiple communications to or from a single user.  Within this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -main goal, however, several considerations have directed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor's evolution.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Deployability:</b> The design must be deployed and used in the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -real world.  Thus it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -must not be expensive to run (for example, by requiring more bandwidth
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -than volunteers are willing to provide); must not place a heavy
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -liability burden on operators (for example, by allowing attackers to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -implicate onion routers in illegal activities); and must not be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -difficult or expensive to implement (for example, by requiring kernel
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -patches, or separate proxies for every protocol).  We also cannot
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -require non-anonymous parties (such as websites)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to run our software.  (Our rendezvous point design does not meet
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this goal for non-anonymous users talking to hidden servers,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -however; see Section <a href="#sec:rendezvous">5</a>.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Usability:</b> A hard-to-use system has fewer users — and because
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity systems hide users among users, a system with fewer users
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -provides less anonymity.  Usability is thus not only a convenience:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -it is a security requirement [<a href="#econymics" name="CITEeconymics">1</a>,<a href="#back01" name="CITEback01">5</a>]. Tor should
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -therefore not
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -require modifying familiar applications; should not introduce prohibitive
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -delays;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and should require as few configuration decisions
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -as possible.  Finally, Tor should be easily implementable on all common
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -platforms; we cannot require users to change their operating system
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to be anonymous.  (Tor currently runs on Win32, Linux,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Solaris, BSD-style Unix, MacOS X, and probably others.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Flexibility:</b> The protocol must be flexible and well-specified,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so Tor can serve as a test-bed for future research.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Many of the open problems in low-latency anonymity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -networks, such as generating dummy traffic or preventing Sybil
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks [<a href="#sybil" name="CITEsybil">22</a>], may be solvable independently from the issues
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -solved by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor. Hopefully future systems will not need to reinvent Tor's design.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Simple design:</b> The protocol's design and security
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -parameters must be well-understood. Additional features impose implementation
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and complexity costs; adding unproven techniques to the design threatens
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -deployability, readability, and ease of security analysis. Tor aims to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -deploy a simple and stable system that integrates the best accepted
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approaches to protecting anonymity.<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Non-goals</b></font><a name="subsec:non-goals">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -In favoring simple, deployable designs, we have explicitly deferred
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -several possible goals, either because they are solved elsewhere, or because
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -they are not yet solved.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Not peer-to-peer:</b> Tarzan and MorphMix aim to scale to completely
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -decentralized peer-to-peer environments with thousands of short-lived
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers, many of which may be controlled by an adversary.  This approach
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is appealing, but still has many open
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -problems [<a href="#tarzan:ccs02" name="CITEtarzan:ccs02">24</a>,<a href="#morphmix:fc04" name="CITEmorphmix:fc04">43</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Not secure against end-to-end attacks:</b> Tor does not claim
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to completely solve end-to-end timing or intersection
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks. Some approaches, such as having users run their own onion routers,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -may help;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -see Section <a href="#sec:maintaining-anonymity">9</a> for more discussion.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>No protocol normalization:</b> Tor does not provide <em>protocol
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -normalization</em> like Privoxy or the Anonymizer. If senders want anonymity from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -responders while using complex and variable
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -protocols like HTTP, Tor must be layered with a filtering proxy such
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -as Privoxy to hide differences between clients, and expunge protocol
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -features that leak identity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Note that by this separation Tor can also provide services that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are anonymous to the network yet authenticated to the responder, like
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -SSH. Similarly, Tor does not integrate
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -tunneling for non-stream-based protocols like UDP; this must be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -provided by an external service if appropriate.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Not steganographic:</b> Tor does not try to conceal who is connected
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to the network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc3.1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:threat-model">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -3.1</a>  Threat Model</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A global passive adversary is the most commonly assumed threat when
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -analyzing theoretical anonymity designs. But like all practical
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -low-latency systems, Tor does not protect against such a strong
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary. Instead, we assume an adversary who can observe some fraction
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of network traffic; who can generate, modify, delete, or delay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic;  who can operate onion routers of his own; and who can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -compromise some fraction of the onion routers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -In low-latency anonymity systems that use layered encryption, the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary's typical goal is to observe both the initiator and the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -responder. By observing both ends, passive attackers can confirm a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -suspicion that Alice is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -talking to Bob if the timing and volume patterns of the traffic on the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection are distinct enough; active attackers can induce timing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -signatures on the traffic to force distinct patterns. Rather
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -than focusing on these <em>traffic confirmation</em> attacks,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we aim to prevent <em>traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -analysis</em> attacks, where the adversary uses traffic patterns to learn
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -which points in the network he should attack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Our adversary might try to link an initiator Alice with her
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -communication partners, or try to build a profile of Alice's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -behavior. He might mount passive attacks by observing the network edges
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and correlating traffic entering and leaving the network — by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relationships in packet timing, volume, or externally visible
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -user-selected
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -options. The adversary can also mount active attacks by compromising
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -routers or keys; by replaying traffic; by selectively denying service
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to trustworthy routers to move users to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -compromised routers, or denying service to users to see if traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -elsewhere in the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network stops; or by introducing patterns into traffic that can later be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -detected. The adversary might subvert the directory servers to give users
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -differing views of network state. Additionally, he can try to decrease
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the network's reliability by attacking nodes or by performing antisocial
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -activities from reliable nodes and trying to get them taken down — making
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the network unreliable flushes users to other less anonymous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -systems, where they may be easier to attack. We summarize
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in Section <a href="#sec:attacks">7</a> how well the Tor design defends against
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -each of these attacks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc4">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:design">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4</a>  The Tor Design</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The Tor network is an overlay network; each onion router (OR)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -runs as a normal
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -user-level process without any special privileges.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Each onion router maintains a TLS [<a href="#TLS" name="CITETLS">17</a>]
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection to every other onion router.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Each user
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -runs local software called an onion proxy (OP) to fetch directories,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -establish circuits across the network,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and handle connections from user applications.  These onion proxies accept
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -TCP streams and multiplex them across the circuits. The onion
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -router on the other side
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the circuit connects to the requested destinations
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and relays data.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Each onion router maintains a long-term identity key and a short-term
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -onion key. The identity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -key is used to sign TLS certificates, to sign the OR's <em>router
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -descriptor</em> (a summary of its keys, address, bandwidth, exit policy,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and so on), and (by directory servers) to sign directories. The onion key is used to decrypt requests
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -from users to set up a circuit and negotiate ephemeral keys. 
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The TLS protocol also establishes a short-term link key when communicating
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -between ORs. Short-term keys are rotated periodically and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -independently, to limit the impact of key compromise.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#subsec:cells">4.1</a> presents the fixed-size
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>cells</em> that are the unit of communication in Tor. We describe
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in Section <a href="#subsec:circuits">4.2</a> how circuits are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -built, extended, truncated, and destroyed. Section <a href="#subsec:tcp">4.3</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -describes how TCP streams are routed through the network.  We address
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -integrity checking in Section <a href="#subsec:integrity-checking">4.4</a>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and resource limiting in Section <a href="#subsec:rate-limit">4.5</a>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Finally,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#subsec:congestion">4.6</a> talks about congestion control and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -fairness issues.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:cells">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.1</a>  Cells</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Onion routers communicate with one another, and with users' OPs, via
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -TLS connections with ephemeral keys.  Using TLS conceals the data on
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the connection with perfect forward secrecy, and prevents an attacker
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -from modifying data on the wire or impersonating an OR.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Traffic passes along these connections in fixed-size cells.  Each cell
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is 512 bytes, and consists of a header and a payload. The header includes a circuit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -identifier (circID) that specifies which circuit the cell refers to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(many circuits can be multiplexed over the single TLS connection), and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a command to describe what to do with the cell's payload.  (Circuit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -identifiers are connection-specific: each circuit has a different
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circID on each OP/OR or OR/OR connection it traverses.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Based on their command, cells are either <em>control</em> cells, which are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -always interpreted by the node that receives them, or <em>relay</em> cells,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -which carry end-to-end stream data.   The control cell commands are:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>padding</em> (currently used for keepalive, but also usable for link
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -padding); <em>create</em> or <em>created</em> (used to set up a new circuit);
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and <em>destroy</em> (to tear down a circuit).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Relay cells have an additional header (the relay header) at the front
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the payload, containing a streamID (stream identifier: many streams can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -be multiplexed over a circuit); an end-to-end checksum for integrity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -checking; the length of the relay payload; and a relay command.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The entire contents of the relay header and the relay cell payload
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are encrypted or decrypted together as the relay cell moves along the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit, using the 128-bit AES cipher in counter mode to generate a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cipher stream.  The relay commands are: <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -data</em> (for data flowing down the stream), <em>relay begin</em> (to open a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stream), <em>relay end</em> (to close a stream cleanly), <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -teardown</em> (to close a broken stream), <em>relay connected</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(to notify the OP that a relay begin has succeeded), <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -extend</em> and <em>relay extended</em> (to extend the circuit by a hop,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and to acknowledge), <em>relay truncate</em> and <em>relay truncated</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(to tear down only part of the circuit, and to acknowledge), <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -sendme</em> (used for congestion control), and <em>relay drop</em> (used to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -implement long-range dummies).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We give a visual overview of cell structure plus the details of relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell structure, and then describe each of these cell types and commands
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in more detail below.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tth_fIg1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a> <center><img src="cell-struct.png" alt="cell-struct.png" />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</center>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.2">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:circuits">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.2</a>  Circuits and streams</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Onion Routing originally built one circuit for each
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -TCP stream.  Because building a circuit can take several tenths of a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -second (due to public-key cryptography and network latency),
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this design imposed high costs on applications like web browsing that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -open many TCP streams.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -In Tor, each circuit can be shared by many TCP streams.  To avoid
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -delays, users construct circuits preemptively.  To limit linkability
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -among their streams, users' OPs build a new circuit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -periodically if the previous ones have been used,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and expire old used circuits that no longer have any open streams.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -OPs consider rotating to a new circuit once a minute: thus
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -even heavy users spend negligible time
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -building circuits, but a limited number of requests can be linked
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to each other through a given exit node. Also, because circuits are built
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in the background, OPs can recover from failed circuit creation
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -without harming user experience.<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tth_fIg1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a> <center><img src="interaction.png" alt="interaction.png" />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<center>Figure 1: Alice builds a two-hop circuit and begins fetching a web page.</center>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="fig:interaction">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</center>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsubsec:constructing-a-circuit"></a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Constructing a circuit</b></font>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A user's OP constructs circuits incrementally, negotiating a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -symmetric key with each OR on the circuit, one hop at a time. To begin
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -creating a new circuit, the OP (call her Alice) sends a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>create</em> cell to the first node in her chosen path (call him Bob).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(She chooses a new
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circID C<sub>AB</sub> not currently used on the connection from her to Bob.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The <em>create</em> cell's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -payload contains the first half of the Diffie-Hellman handshake
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(g<sup>x</sup>), encrypted to the onion key of Bob. Bob
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -responds with a <em>created</em> cell containing g<sup>y</sup>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -along with a hash of the negotiated key K=g<sup>xy</sup>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Once the circuit has been established, Alice and Bob can send one
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -another relay cells encrypted with the negotiated
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -key.<a href="#tthFtNtAAB" name="tthFrefAAB"><sup>1</sup></a>  More detail is given in
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the next section.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To extend the circuit further, Alice sends a <em>relay extend</em> cell
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to Bob, specifying the address of the next OR (call her Carol), and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an encrypted g<sup>x<sub>2</sub></sup> for her.  Bob copies the half-handshake into a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>create</em> cell, and passes it to Carol to extend the circuit.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(Bob chooses a new circID C<sub>BC</sub> not currently used on the connection
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -between him and Carol.  Alice never needs to know this circID; only Bob
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -associates C<sub>AB</sub> on his connection with Alice to C<sub>BC</sub> on
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -his connection with Carol.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When Carol responds with a <em>created</em> cell, Bob wraps the payload
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -into a <em>relay extended</em> cell and passes it back to Alice.  Now
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the circuit is extended to Carol, and Alice and Carol share a common key
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -K<sub>2</sub> = g<sup>x<sub>2</sub> y<sub>2</sub></sup>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To extend the circuit to a third node or beyond, Alice
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -proceeds as above, always telling the last node in the circuit to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -extend one hop further.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This circuit-level handshake protocol achieves unilateral entity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -authentication (Alice knows she's handshaking with the OR, but
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the OR doesn't care who is opening the circuit — Alice uses no public key
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and remains anonymous) and unilateral key authentication
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(Alice and the OR agree on a key, and Alice knows only the OR learns
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -it). It also achieves forward
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -secrecy and key freshness. More formally, the protocol is as follows
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(where E<sub>PK<sub>Bob</sub></sub>(·) is encryption with Bob's public key,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -H is a secure hash function, and <font face="symbol">|</font
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -> is concatenation):
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tth_tAb1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a> 
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<table>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<tr><td align="right">Alice </td><td align="center">-> </td><td align="center">Bob </td><td>: E<sub>PK<sub>Bob</sub></sub>(g<sup>x</sup>) </td></tr>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<tr><td align="right">Bob </td><td align="center">-> </td><td align="center">Alice </td><td>: g<sup>y</sup>, H(K <font face="symbol">|</font
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -> "<span class="roman">handshake</span>")
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</td></tr></table>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In the second step, Bob proves that it was he who received g<sup>x</sup>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and who chose y. We use PK encryption in the first step
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(rather than, say, using the first two steps of STS, which has a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -signature in the second step) because a single cell is too small to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -hold both a public key and a signature. Preliminary analysis with the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -NRL protocol analyzer [<a href="#meadows96" name="CITEmeadows96">35</a>] shows this protocol to be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -secure (including perfect forward secrecy) under the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traditional Dolev-Yao model.<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Relay cells</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Once Alice has established the circuit (so she shares keys with each
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -OR on the circuit), she can send relay cells.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Upon receiving a relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell, an OR looks up the corresponding circuit, and decrypts the relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -header and payload with the session key for that circuit.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -If the cell is headed away from Alice the OR then checks whether the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -decrypted cell has a valid digest (as an optimization, the first
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -two bytes of the integrity check are zero, so in most cases we can avoid
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -computing the hash).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -If valid, it accepts the relay cell and processes it as described
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -below.  Otherwise,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the OR looks up the circID and OR for the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -next step in the circuit, replaces the circID as appropriate, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -sends the decrypted relay cell to the next OR.  (If the OR at the end
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the circuit receives an unrecognized relay cell, an error has
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -occurred, and the circuit is torn down.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -OPs treat incoming relay cells similarly: they iteratively unwrap the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relay header and payload with the session keys shared with each
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -OR on the circuit, from the closest to farthest.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -If at any stage the digest is valid, the cell must have
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -originated at the OR whose encryption has just been removed.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To construct a relay cell addressed to a given OR, Alice assigns the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -digest, and then iteratively
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -encrypts the cell payload (that is, the relay header and payload) with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the symmetric key of each hop up to that OR.  Because the digest is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -encrypted to a different value at each step, only at the targeted OR
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -will it have a meaningful value.<a href="#tthFtNtAAC" name="tthFrefAAC"><sup>2</sup></a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This <em>leaky pipe</em> circuit topology
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -allows Alice's streams to exit at different ORs on a single circuit.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Alice may choose different exit points because of their exit policies,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or to keep the ORs from knowing that two streams
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -originate from the same person.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When an OR later replies to Alice with a relay cell, it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -encrypts the cell's relay header and payload with the single key it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -shares with Alice, and sends the cell back toward Alice along the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit.  Subsequent ORs add further layers of encryption as they
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relay the cell back to Alice.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To tear down a circuit, Alice sends a <em>destroy</em> control
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell. Each OR in the circuit receives the <em>destroy</em> cell, closes
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -all streams on that circuit, and passes a new <em>destroy</em> cell
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -forward. But just as circuits are built incrementally, they can also
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -be torn down incrementally: Alice can send a <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -truncate</em> cell to a single OR on a circuit. That OR then sends a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>destroy</em> cell forward, and acknowledges with a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>relay truncated</em> cell. Alice can then extend the circuit to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -different nodes, without signaling to the intermediate nodes (or
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a limited observer) that she has changed her circuit.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Similarly, if a node on the circuit goes down, the adjacent
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -node can send a <em>relay truncated</em> cell back to Alice.  Thus the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -"break a node and see which circuits go down"
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attack [<a href="#freedom21-security" name="CITEfreedom21-security">4</a>] is weakened.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.3">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:tcp">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.3</a>  Opening and closing streams</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When Alice's application wants a TCP connection to a given
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -address and port, it asks the OP (via SOCKS) to make the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection. The OP chooses the newest open circuit (or creates one if
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -needed), and chooses a suitable OR on that circuit to be the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -exit node (usually the last node, but maybe others due to exit policy
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -conflicts; see Section <a href="#subsec:exitpolicies">6.2</a>.) The OP then opens
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the stream by sending a <em>relay begin</em> cell to the exit node,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -using a new random streamID. Once the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -exit node connects to the remote host, it responds
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with a <em>relay connected</em> cell.  Upon receipt, the OP sends a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -SOCKS reply to notify the application of its success. The OP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -now accepts data from the application's TCP stream, packaging it into
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>relay data</em> cells and sending those cells along the circuit to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the chosen OR.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -There's a catch to using SOCKS, however — some applications pass the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -alphanumeric hostname to the Tor client, while others resolve it into
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an IP address first and then pass the IP address to the Tor client. If
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the application does DNS resolution first, Alice thereby reveals her
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -destination to the remote DNS server, rather than sending the hostname
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -through the Tor network to be resolved at the far end. Common applications
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -like Mozilla and SSH have this flaw.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -With Mozilla, the flaw is easy to address: the filtering HTTP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -proxy called Privoxy gives a hostname to the Tor client, so Alice's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -computer never does DNS resolution.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -But a portable general solution, such as is needed for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -SSH, is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an open problem. Modifying or replacing the local nameserver
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can be invasive, brittle, and unportable. Forcing the resolver
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -library to prefer TCP rather than UDP is hard, and also has
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -portability problems. Dynamically intercepting system calls to the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -resolver library seems a promising direction. We could also provide
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a tool similar to <em>dig</em> to perform a private lookup through the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor network. Currently, we encourage the use of privacy-aware proxies
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -like Privoxy wherever possible.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Closing a Tor stream is analogous to closing a TCP stream: it uses a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -two-step handshake for normal operation, or a one-step handshake for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -errors. If the stream closes abnormally, the adjacent node simply sends a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>relay teardown</em> cell. If the stream closes normally, the node sends
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a <em>relay end</em> cell down the circuit, and the other side responds with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -its own <em>relay end</em> cell. Because
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -all relay cells use layered encryption, only the destination OR knows
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -that a given relay cell is a request to close a stream.  This two-step
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -handshake allows Tor to support TCP-based applications that use half-closed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connections.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.4">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:integrity-checking">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.4</a>  Integrity checking on streams</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Because the old Onion Routing design used a stream cipher without integrity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -checking, traffic was
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -vulnerable to a malleability attack: though the attacker could not
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -decrypt cells, any changes to encrypted data
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -would create corresponding changes to the data leaving the network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This weakness allowed an adversary who could guess the encrypted content
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to change a padding cell to a destroy
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell; change the destination address in a <em>relay begin</em> cell to the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary's webserver; or change an FTP command from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<tt>dir</tt> to <tt>rm *</tt>. (Even an external
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary could do this, because the link encryption similarly used a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stream cipher.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Because Tor uses TLS on its links, external adversaries cannot modify
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -data. Addressing the insider malleability attack, however, is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -more complex.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We could do integrity checking of the relay cells at each hop, either
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by including hashes or by using an authenticating cipher mode like
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -EAX [<a href="#eax" name="CITEeax">6</a>], but there are some problems. First, these approaches
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -impose a message-expansion overhead at each hop, and so we would have to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -either leak the path length or waste bytes by padding to a maximum
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -path length. Second, these solutions can only verify traffic coming
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -from Alice: ORs would not be able to produce suitable hashes for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the intermediate hops, since the ORs on a circuit do not know the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -other ORs' session keys. Third, we have already accepted that our design
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is vulnerable to end-to-end timing attacks; so tagging attacks performed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -within the circuit provide no additional information to the attacker.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Thus, we check integrity only at the edges of each stream. (Remember that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in our leaky-pipe circuit topology, a stream's edge could be any hop
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in the circuit.) When Alice
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -negotiates a key with a new hop, they each initialize a SHA-1
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -digest with a derivative of that key,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -thus beginning with randomness that only the two of them know.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Then they each incrementally add to the SHA-1 digest the contents of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -all relay cells they create, and include with each relay cell the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -first four bytes of the current digest.  Each also keeps a SHA-1
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -digest of data received, to verify that the received hashes are correct.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To be sure of removing or modifying a cell, the attacker must be able
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to deduce the current digest state (which depends on all
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic between Alice and Bob, starting with their negotiated key).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Attacks on SHA-1 where the adversary can incrementally add to a hash
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to produce a new valid hash don't work, because all hashes are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -end-to-end encrypted across the circuit.  The computational overhead
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of computing the digests is minimal compared to doing the AES
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -encryption performed at each hop of the circuit. We use only four
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -bytes per cell to minimize overhead; the chance that an adversary will
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -correctly guess a valid hash
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -acceptably low, given that the OP or OR tear down the circuit if they
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -receive a bad hash.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.5">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:rate-limit">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.5</a>  Rate limiting and fairness</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Volunteers are more willing to run services that can limit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -their bandwidth usage. To accommodate them, Tor servers use a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -token bucket approach [<a href="#tannenbaum96" name="CITEtannenbaum96">50</a>] to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -enforce a long-term average rate of incoming bytes, while still
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -permitting short-term bursts above the allowed bandwidth.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Because the Tor protocol outputs about the same number of bytes as it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -takes in, it is sufficient in practice to limit only incoming bytes.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -With TCP streams, however, the correspondence is not one-to-one:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relaying a single incoming byte can require an entire 512-byte cell.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(We can't just wait for more bytes, because the local application may
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -be awaiting a reply.) Therefore, we treat this case as if the entire
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell size had been read, regardless of the cell's fullness.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Further, inspired by Rennhard et al's design in [<a href="#anonnet" name="CITEanonnet">44</a>], a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit's edges can heuristically distinguish interactive streams from bulk
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -streams by comparing the frequency with which they supply cells.  We can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -provide good latency for interactive streams by giving them preferential
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -service, while still giving good overall throughput to the bulk
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -streams. Such preferential treatment presents a possible end-to-end
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attack, but an adversary observing both
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ends of the stream can already learn this information through timing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc4.6">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:congestion">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -4.6</a>  Congestion control</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Even with bandwidth rate limiting, we still need to worry about
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -congestion, either accidental or intentional. If enough users choose the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -same OR-to-OR connection for their circuits, that connection can become
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -saturated. For example, an attacker could send a large file
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -through the Tor network to a webserver he runs, and then
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -refuse to read any of the bytes at the webserver end of the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit. Without some congestion control mechanism, these bottlenecks
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can propagate back through the entire network. We don't need to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reimplement full TCP windows (with sequence numbers,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the ability to drop cells when we're full and retransmit later, and so
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -on),
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -because TCP already guarantees in-order delivery of each
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We describe our response below.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Circuit-level throttling:</b>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To control a circuit's bandwidth usage, each OR keeps track of two
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -windows. The <em>packaging window</em> tracks how many relay data cells the OR is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -allowed to package (from incoming TCP streams) for transmission back to the OP,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and the <em>delivery window</em> tracks how many relay data cells it is willing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to deliver to TCP streams outside the network. Each window is initialized
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(say, to 1000 data cells). When a data cell is packaged or delivered,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the appropriate window is decremented. When an OR has received enough
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -data cells (currently 100), it sends a <em>relay sendme</em> cell towards the OP,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with streamID zero. When an OR receives a <em>relay sendme</em> cell with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -streamID zero, it increments its packaging window. Either of these cells
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -increments the corresponding window by 100. If the packaging window
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reaches 0, the OR stops reading from TCP connections for all streams
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -on the corresponding circuit, and sends no more relay data cells until
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -receiving a <em>relay sendme</em> cell.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The OP behaves identically, except that it must track a packaging window
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and a delivery window for every OR in the circuit. If a packaging window
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reaches 0, it stops reading from streams destined for that OR.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Stream-level throttling</b>:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The stream-level congestion control mechanism is similar to the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuit-level mechanism. ORs and OPs use <em>relay sendme</em> cells
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to implement end-to-end flow control for individual streams across
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuits. Each stream begins with a packaging window (currently 500 cells),
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and increments the window by a fixed value (50) upon receiving a <em>relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -sendme</em> cell. Rather than always returning a <em>relay sendme</em> cell as soon
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -as enough cells have arrived, the stream-level congestion control also
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -has to check whether data has been successfully flushed onto the TCP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stream; it sends the <em>relay sendme</em> cell only when the number of bytes pending
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to be flushed is under some threshold (currently 10 cells' worth).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -These arbitrarily chosen parameters seem to give tolerable throughput
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and delay; see Section <a href="#sec:in-the-wild">8</a>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc5">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:rendezvous">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -5</a>  Rendezvous Points and hidden services</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Rendezvous points are a building block for <em>location-hidden
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -services</em> (also known as <em>responder anonymity</em>) in the Tor
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network.  Location-hidden services allow Bob to offer a TCP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -service, such as a webserver, without revealing his IP address.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This type of anonymity protects against distributed DoS attacks:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attackers are forced to attack the onion routing network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -because they do not know Bob's IP address.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Our design for location-hidden servers has the following goals.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Access-control:</b> Bob needs a way to filter incoming requests,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so an attacker cannot flood Bob simply by making many connections to him.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Robustness:</b> Bob should be able to maintain a long-term pseudonymous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -identity even in the presence of router failure. Bob's service must
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -not be tied to a single OR, and Bob must be able to migrate his service
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -across ORs. <b>Smear-resistance:</b>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A social attacker
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -should not be able to "frame" a rendezvous router by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -offering an illegal or disreputable location-hidden service and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -making observers believe the router created that service.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<b>Application-transparency:</b> Although we require users
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to run special software to access location-hidden servers, we must not
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -require them to modify their applications.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We provide location-hiding for Bob by allowing him to advertise
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -several onion routers (his <em>introduction points</em>) as contact
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -points. He may do this on any robust efficient
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -key-value lookup system with authenticated updates, such as a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -distributed hash table (DHT) like CFS [<a href="#cfs:sosp01" name="CITEcfs:sosp01">11</a>].<a href="#tthFtNtAAD" name="tthFrefAAD"><sup>3</sup></a> Alice, the client, chooses an OR as her
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>rendezvous point</em>. She connects to one of Bob's introduction
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -points, informs him of her rendezvous point, and then waits for him
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to connect to the rendezvous point. This extra level of indirection
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -helps Bob's introduction points avoid problems associated with serving
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -unpopular files directly (for example, if Bob serves
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -material that the introduction point's community finds objectionable,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or if Bob's service tends to get attacked by network vandals).
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The extra level of indirection also allows Bob to respond to some requests
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and ignore others.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc5.1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -5.1</a>  Rendezvous points in Tor</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The following steps are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -performed on behalf of Alice and Bob by their local OPs;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -application integration is described more fully below.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<dl compact="compact">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Bob generates a long-term public key pair to identify his service.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Bob chooses some introduction points, and advertises them on
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      the lookup service, signing the advertisement with his public key.  He
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      can add more later.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Bob builds a circuit to each of his introduction points, and tells
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      them to wait for requests.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Alice learns about Bob's service out of band (perhaps Bob told her,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      or she found it on a website).  She retrieves the details of Bob's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      service from the lookup service.  If Alice wants to access Bob's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      service anonymously, she must connect to the lookup service via Tor.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Alice chooses an OR as the rendezvous point (RP) for her connection to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      Bob's service. She builds a circuit to the RP, and gives it a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      randomly chosen "rendezvous cookie" to recognize Bob.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Alice opens an anonymous stream to one of Bob's introduction
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      points, and gives it a message (encrypted with Bob's public key)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      telling it about herself,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      her RP and rendezvous cookie, and the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      start of a DH
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      handshake. The introduction point sends the message to Bob.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>If Bob wants to talk to Alice, he builds a circuit to Alice's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      RP and sends the rendezvous cookie, the second half of the DH
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      handshake, and a hash of the session
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      key they now share. By the same argument as in
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      Section <a href="#subsubsec:constructing-a-circuit">4.2</a>, Alice knows she
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      shares the key only with Bob.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>The RP connects Alice's circuit to Bob's. Note that RP can't
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      recognize Alice, Bob, or the data they transmit.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>Alice sends a <em>relay begin</em> cell along the circuit. It
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      arrives at Bob's OP, which connects to Bob's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      webserver.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><b></b></dt>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -	<dd><li>An anonymous stream has been established, and Alice and Bob
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -      communicate as normal.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dl>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When establishing an introduction point, Bob provides the onion router
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with the public key identifying his service.  Bob signs his
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -messages, so others cannot usurp his introduction point
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in the future. He uses the same public key to establish the other
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction points for his service, and periodically refreshes his
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -entry in the lookup service.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The message that Alice gives
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the introduction point includes a hash of Bob's public key and an optional initial authorization token (the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction point can do prescreening, for example to block replays). Her
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -message to Bob may include an end-to-end authorization token so Bob
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can choose whether to respond.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The authorization tokens can be used to provide selective access:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -important users can get uninterrupted access.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -During normal situations, Bob's service might simply be offered
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directly from mirrors, while Bob gives out tokens to high-priority users. If
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the mirrors are knocked down,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -those users can switch to accessing Bob's service via
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the Tor rendezvous system.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Bob's introduction points are themselves subject to DoS — he must
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -open many introduction points or risk such an attack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -He can provide selected users with a current list or future schedule of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -unadvertised introduction points;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this is most practical
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -if there is a stable and large group of introduction points
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -available. Bob could also give secret public keys
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -for consulting the lookup service. All of these approaches
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -limit exposure even when
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -some selected users collude in the DoS.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc5.2">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -5.2</a>  Integration with user applications</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Bob configures his onion proxy to know the local IP address and port of his
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -service, a strategy for authorizing clients, and his public key. The onion
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -proxy anonymously publishes a signed statement of Bob's
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -public key, an expiration time, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the current introduction points for his service onto the lookup service,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -indexed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by the hash of his public key.  Bob's webserver is unmodified,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and doesn't even know that it's hidden behind the Tor network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Alice's applications also work unchanged — her client interface
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -remains a SOCKS proxy.  We encode all of the necessary information
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -into the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) Alice uses when establishing her
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection. Location-hidden services use a virtual top level domain
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -called <tt>.onion</tt>: thus hostnames take the form <tt>x.y.onion</tt> where
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<tt>x</tt> is the authorization cookie and <tt>y</tt> encodes the hash of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the public key. Alice's onion proxy
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -examines addresses; if they're destined for a hidden server, it decodes
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the key and starts the rendezvous as described above.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc5.3">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -5.3</a>  Previous rendezvous work</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Rendezvous points in low-latency anonymity systems were first
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -described for use in ISDN telephony [<a href="#jerichow-jsac98" name="CITEjerichow-jsac98">30</a>,<a href="#isdn-mixes" name="CITEisdn-mixes">38</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Later low-latency designs used rendezvous points for hiding location
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of mobile phones and low-power location
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -trackers [<a href="#federrath-ih96" name="CITEfederrath-ih96">23</a>,<a href="#reed-protocols97" name="CITEreed-protocols97">40</a>].  Rendezvous for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymizing low-latency
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Internet connections was suggested in early Onion Routing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -work [<a href="#or-ih96" name="CITEor-ih96">27</a>], but the first published design was by Ian
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Goldberg [<a href="#ian-thesis" name="CITEian-thesis">26</a>]. His design differs from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ours in three ways. First, Goldberg suggests that Alice should manually
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -hunt down a current location of the service via Gnutella; our approach
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -makes lookup transparent to the user, as well as faster and more robust.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Second, in Tor the client and server negotiate session keys
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with Diffie-Hellman, so plaintext is not exposed even at the rendezvous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -point. Third,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -our design minimizes the exposure from running the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -service, to encourage volunteers to offer introduction and rendezvous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -services. Tor's introduction points do not output any bytes to the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -clients; the rendezvous points don't know the client or the server,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and can't read the data being transmitted. The indirection scheme is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -also designed to include authentication/authorization — if Alice doesn't
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -include the right cookie with her request for service, Bob need not even
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -acknowledge his existence.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc6">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:other-design">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -6</a>  Other design decisions</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc6.1">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:dos">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -6.1</a>  Denial of service</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Providing Tor as a public service creates many opportunities for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -denial-of-service attacks against the network.  While
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -flow control and rate limiting (discussed in
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#subsec:congestion">4.6</a>) prevent users from consuming more
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -bandwidth than routers are willing to provide, opportunities remain for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -users to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -consume more network resources than their fair share, or to render the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network unusable for others.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -First of all, there are several CPU-consuming denial-of-service
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks wherein an attacker can force an OR to perform expensive
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cryptographic operations.  For example, an attacker can 
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -fake the start of a TLS handshake, forcing the OR to carry out its
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(comparatively expensive) half of the handshake at no real computational
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cost to the attacker.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We have not yet implemented any defenses for these attacks, but several
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approaches are possible. First, ORs can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -require clients to solve a puzzle [<a href="#puzzles-tls" name="CITEpuzzles-tls">16</a>] while beginning new
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -TLS handshakes or accepting <em>create</em> cells.  So long as these
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -tokens are easy to verify and computationally expensive to produce, this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approach limits the attack multiplier.  Additionally, ORs can limit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the rate at which they accept <em>create</em> cells and TLS connections,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the computational work of processing them does not drown out the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -symmetric cryptography operations that keep cells
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -flowing.  This rate limiting could, however, allow an attacker
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to slow down other users when they build new circuits.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Adversaries can also attack the Tor network's hosts and network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -links. Disrupting a single circuit or link breaks all streams passing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -along that part of the circuit. Users similarly lose service
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -when a router crashes or its operator restarts it. The current
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor design treats such attacks as intermittent network failures, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -depends on users and applications to respond or recover as appropriate. A
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -future design could use an end-to-end TCP-like acknowledgment protocol,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so no streams are lost unless the entry or exit point is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -disrupted. This solution would require more buffering at the network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -edges, however, and the performance and anonymity implications from this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -extra complexity still require investigation.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc6.2">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:exitpolicies">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -6.2</a>  Exit policies and abuse</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Exit abuse is a serious barrier to wide-scale Tor deployment. Anonymity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -presents would-be vandals and abusers with an opportunity to hide
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the origins of their activities. Attackers can harm the Tor network by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -implicating exit servers for their abuse. Also, applications that commonly
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -use IP-based authentication (such as institutional mail or webservers)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can be fooled by the fact that anonymous connections appear to originate
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -at the exit OR.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We stress that Tor does not enable any new class of abuse. Spammers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and other attackers already have access to thousands of misconfigured
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -systems worldwide, and the Tor network is far from the easiest way
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to launch attacks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -But because the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -onion routers can be mistaken for the originators of the abuse,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and the volunteers who run them may not want to deal with the hassle of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -explaining anonymity networks to irate administrators, we must block or limit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -abuse through the Tor network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To mitigate abuse issues, each onion router's <em>exit policy</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -describes to which external addresses and ports the router will
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connect. On one end of the spectrum are <em>open exit</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes that will connect anywhere. On the other end are <em>middleman</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes that only relay traffic to other Tor nodes, and <em>private exit</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes that only connect to a local host or network.  A private
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -exit can allow a client to connect to a given host or
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network more securely — an external adversary cannot eavesdrop traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -between the private exit and the final destination, and so is less sure of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Alice's destination and activities. Most onion routers in the current
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network function as
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>restricted exits</em> that permit connections to the world at large,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -but prevent access to certain abuse-prone addresses and services such
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -as SMTP.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The OR might also be able to authenticate clients to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -prevent exit abuse without harming anonymity [<a href="#or-discex00" name="CITEor-discex00">48</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Many administrators use port restrictions to support only a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -limited set of services, such as HTTP, SSH, or AIM.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This is not a complete solution, of course, since abuse opportunities for these
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -protocols are still well known.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We have not yet encountered any abuse in the deployed network, but if
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we do we should consider using proxies to clean traffic for certain
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -protocols as it leaves the network.  For example, much abusive HTTP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -behavior (such as exploiting buffer overflows or well-known script
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -vulnerabilities) can be detected in a straightforward manner.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Similarly, one could run automatic spam filtering software (such as
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -SpamAssassin) on email exiting the OR network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ORs may also rewrite exiting traffic to append
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -headers or other information indicating that the traffic has passed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -through an anonymity service.  This approach is commonly used
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by email-only anonymity systems.  ORs can also
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -run on servers with hostnames like <tt>anonymous</tt> to further
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -alert abuse targets to the nature of the anonymous traffic.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A mixture of open and restricted exit nodes allows the most
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -flexibility for volunteers running servers. But while having many
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -middleman nodes provides a large and robust network,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -having only a few exit nodes reduces the number of points
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an adversary needs to monitor for traffic analysis, and places a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -greater burden on the exit nodes.  This tension can be seen in the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Java Anon Proxy
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cascade model, wherein only one node in each cascade needs to handle
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -abuse complaints — but an adversary only needs to observe the entry
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and exit of a cascade to perform traffic analysis on all that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cascade's users. The hydra model (many entries, few exits) presents a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -different compromise: only a few exit nodes are needed, but an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary needs to work harder to watch all the clients; see
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#sec:conclusion">10</a>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Finally, we note that exit abuse must not be dismissed as a peripheral
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -issue: when a system's public image suffers, it can reduce the number
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and diversity of that system's users, and thereby reduce the anonymity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the system itself.  Like usability, public perception is a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -security parameter.  Sadly, preventing abuse of open exit nodes is an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -unsolved problem, and will probably remain an arms race for the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -foreseeable future.  The abuse problems faced by Princeton's CoDeeN
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -project [<a href="#darkside" name="CITEdarkside">37</a>] give us a glimpse of likely issues.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -     <h3><a name="tth_sEc6.3">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="subsec:dirservers">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -6.3</a>  Directory Servers</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -First-generation Onion Routing designs [<a href="#freedom2-arch" name="CITEfreedom2-arch">8</a>,<a href="#or-jsac98" name="CITEor-jsac98">41</a>] used
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in-band network status updates: each router flooded a signed statement
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to its neighbors, which propagated it onward. But anonymizing networks
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -have different security goals than typical link-state routing protocols.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -For example, delays (accidental or intentional)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -that can cause different parts of the network to have different views
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of link-state and topology are not only inconvenient: they give
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attackers an opportunity to exploit differences in client knowledge.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -We also worry about attacks to deceive a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -client about the router membership list, topology, or current network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -state. Such <em>partitioning attacks</em> on client knowledge help an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary to efficiently deploy resources
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -against a target [<a href="#minion-design" name="CITEminion-design">15</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor uses a small group of redundant, well-known onion routers to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -track changes in network topology and node state, including keys and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -exit policies.  Each such <em>directory server</em> acts as an HTTP
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -server, so clients can fetch current network state
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and router lists, and so other ORs can upload
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -state information.  Onion routers periodically publish signed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -statements of their state to each directory server. The directory servers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -combine this information with their own views of network liveness,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and generate a signed description (a <em>directory</em>) of the entire
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network state. Client software is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -pre-loaded with a list of the directory servers and their keys,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to bootstrap each client's view of the network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When a directory server receives a signed statement for an OR, it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -checks whether the OR's identity key is recognized. Directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers do not advertise unrecognized ORs — if they did,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an adversary could take over the network by creating many
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers [<a href="#sybil" name="CITEsybil">22</a>]. Instead, new nodes must be approved by the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -server administrator before they are included. Mechanisms for automated
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -node approval are an area of active research, and are discussed more
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in Section <a href="#sec:maintaining-anonymity">9</a>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Of course, a variety of attacks remain. An adversary who controls
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a directory server can track clients by providing them different
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -information — perhaps by listing only nodes under its control, or by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -informing only certain clients about a given node. Even an external
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary can exploit differences in client knowledge: clients who use
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a node listed on one directory server but not the others are vulnerable.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Thus these directory servers must be synchronized and redundant, so
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -that they can agree on a common directory.  Clients should only trust
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this directory if it is signed by a threshold of the directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The directory servers in Tor are modeled after those in
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Mixminion [<a href="#minion-design" name="CITEminion-design">15</a>], but our situation is easier. First,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we make the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -simplifying assumption that all participants agree on the set of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory servers. Second, while Mixminion needs to predict node
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -behavior, Tor only needs a threshold consensus of the current
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -state of the network. Third, we assume that we can fall back to the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -human administrators to discover and resolve problems when a consensus
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory cannot be reached. Since there are relatively few directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers (currently 3, but we expect as many as 9 as the network scales),
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we can afford operations like broadcast to simplify the consensus-building
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -protocol.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To avoid attacks where a router connects to all the directory servers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -but refuses to relay traffic from other routers, the directory servers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -must also build circuits and use them to anonymously test router
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reliability [<a href="#mix-acc" name="CITEmix-acc">18</a>]. Unfortunately, this defense is not yet
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -designed or
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -implemented.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Using directory servers is simpler and more flexible than flooding.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Flooding is expensive, and complicates the analysis when we
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -start experimenting with non-clique network topologies. Signed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directories can be cached by other
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -onion routers,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so directory servers are not a performance
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -bottleneck when we have many users, and do not aid traffic analysis by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -forcing clients to announce their existence to any
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -central point.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc7">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:attacks">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -7</a>  Attacks and Defenses</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Below we summarize a variety of attacks, and discuss how well our
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -design withstands them.<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Passive attacks</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Observing user traffic patterns.</em> Observing a user's connection
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -will not reveal her destination or data, but it will
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reveal traffic patterns (both sent and received). Profiling via user
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection patterns requires further processing, because multiple
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -application streams may be operating simultaneously or in series over
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a single circuit.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Observing user content.</em> While content at the user end is encrypted,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connections to responders may not be (indeed, the responding website
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -itself may be hostile). While filtering content is not a primary goal
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of Onion Routing, Tor can directly use Privoxy and related
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -filtering services to anonymize application data streams.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Option distinguishability.</em> We allow clients to choose
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -configuration options. For example, clients concerned about request
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -linkability should rotate circuits more often than those concerned
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -about traceability. Allowing choice may attract users with different 
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -needs; but clients who are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in the minority may lose more anonymity by appearing distinct than they
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -gain by optimizing their behavior [<a href="#econymics" name="CITEeconymics">1</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>End-to-end timing correlation.</em>  Tor only minimally hides
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -such correlations. An attacker watching patterns of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic at the initiator and the responder will be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -able to confirm the correspondence with high probability. The
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -greatest protection currently available against such confirmation is to hide
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the connection between the onion proxy and the first Tor node,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by running the OP on the Tor node or behind a firewall. This approach
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -requires an observer to separate traffic originating at the onion
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -router from traffic passing through it: a global observer can do this,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -but it might be beyond a limited observer's capabilities.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>End-to-end size correlation.</em> Simple packet counting
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -will also be effective in confirming
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -endpoints of a stream. However, even without padding, we may have some
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -limited protection: the leaky pipe topology means different numbers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of packets may enter one end of a circuit than exit at the other.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Website fingerprinting.</em> All the effective passive
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks above are traffic confirmation attacks,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -which puts them outside our design goals. There is also
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a passive traffic analysis attack that is potentially effective.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Rather than searching exit connections for timing and volume
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -correlations, the adversary may build up a database of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -"fingerprints" containing file sizes and access patterns for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -targeted websites. He can later confirm a user's connection to a given
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -site simply by consulting the database. This attack has
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -been shown to be effective against SafeWeb [<a href="#hintz-pet02" name="CITEhintz-pet02">29</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -It may be less effective against Tor, since
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -streams are multiplexed within the same circuit, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -fingerprinting will be limited to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the granularity of cells (currently 512 bytes). Additional
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -defenses could include
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -larger cell sizes, padding schemes to group websites
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -into large sets, and link
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -padding or long-range dummies.<a href="#tthFtNtAAE" name="tthFrefAAE"><sup>4</sup></a><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Active attacks</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Compromise keys.</em> An attacker who learns the TLS session key can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -see control cells and encrypted relay cells on every circuit on that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection; learning a circuit
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -session key lets him unwrap one layer of the encryption. An attacker
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -who learns an OR's TLS private key can impersonate that OR for the TLS
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -key's lifetime, but he must
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -also learn the onion key to decrypt <em>create</em> cells (and because of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -perfect forward secrecy, he cannot hijack already established circuits
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -without also compromising their session keys). Periodic key rotation
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -limits the window of opportunity for these attacks. On the other hand,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an attacker who learns a node's identity key can replace that node
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -indefinitely by sending new forged descriptors to the directory servers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Iterated compromise.</em> A roving adversary who can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -compromise ORs (by system intrusion, legal coercion, or extralegal
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -coercion) could march down the circuit compromising the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes until he reaches the end.  Unless the adversary can complete
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this attack within the lifetime of the circuit, however, the ORs
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -will have discarded the necessary information before the attack can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -be completed.  (Thanks to the perfect forward secrecy of session
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -keys, the attacker cannot force nodes to decrypt recorded
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic once the circuits have been closed.)  Additionally, building
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -circuits that cross jurisdictions can make legal coercion
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -harder — this phenomenon is commonly called "jurisdictional
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -arbitrage." The Java Anon Proxy project recently experienced the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -need for this approach, when
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a German court forced them to add a backdoor to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -their nodes [<a href="#jap-backdoor" name="CITEjap-backdoor">51</a>].
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Run a recipient.</em> An adversary running a webserver
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -trivially learns the timing patterns of users connecting to it, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can introduce arbitrary patterns in its responses.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -End-to-end attacks become easier: if the adversary can induce
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -users to connect to his webserver (perhaps by advertising
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -content targeted to those users), he now holds one end of their
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection.  There is also a danger that application
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -protocols and associated programs can be induced to reveal information
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -about the initiator. Tor depends on Privoxy and similar protocol cleaners
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to solve this latter problem.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Run an onion proxy.</em> It is expected that end users will
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nearly always run their own local onion proxy. However, in some
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -settings, it may be necessary for the proxy to run
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -remotely — typically, in institutions that want
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to monitor the activity of those connecting to the proxy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Compromising an onion proxy compromises all future connections
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -through it.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>DoS non-observed nodes.</em> An observer who can only watch some
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the Tor network can increase the value of this traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by attacking non-observed nodes to shut them down, reduce
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -their reliability, or persuade users that they are not trustworthy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The best defense here is robustness.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Run a hostile OR.</em>  In addition to being a local observer,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an isolated hostile node can create circuits through itself, or alter
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic patterns to affect traffic at other nodes. Nonetheless, a hostile
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -node must be immediately adjacent to both endpoints to compromise the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity of a circuit. If an adversary can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -run multiple ORs, and can persuade the directory servers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -that those ORs are trustworthy and independent, then occasionally
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -some user will choose one of those ORs for the start and another
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -as the end of a circuit. If an adversary
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -controls m > 1 of N nodes, he can correlate at most
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -([m/N])<sup>2</sup> of the traffic — although an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -adversary
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -could still attract a disproportionately large amount of traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by running an OR with a permissive exit policy, or by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -degrading the reliability of other routers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Introduce timing into messages.</em> This is simply a stronger
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -version of passive timing attacks already discussed earlier.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Tagging attacks.</em> A hostile node could "tag" a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell by altering it. If the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stream were, for example, an unencrypted request to a Web site,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the garbled content coming out at the appropriate time would confirm
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the association. However, integrity checks on cells prevent
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this attack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Replace contents of unauthenticated protocols.</em>  When
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relaying an unauthenticated protocol like HTTP, a hostile exit node
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can impersonate the target server. Clients
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -should prefer protocols with end-to-end authentication.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Replay attacks.</em> Some anonymity protocols are vulnerable
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to replay attacks.  Tor is not; replaying one side of a handshake
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -will result in a different negotiated session key, and so the rest
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the recorded session can't be used.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Smear attacks.</em> An attacker could use the Tor network for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -socially disapproved acts, to bring the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network into disrepute and get its operators to shut it down.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Exit policies reduce the possibilities for abuse, but
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ultimately the network requires volunteers who can tolerate
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -some political heat.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Distribute hostile code.</em> An attacker could trick users
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -into running subverted Tor software that did not, in fact, anonymize
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -their connections — or worse, could trick ORs into running weakened
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -software that provided users with less anonymity.  We address this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -problem (but do not solve it completely) by signing all Tor releases
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with an official public key, and including an entry in the directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -that lists which versions are currently believed to be secure.  To
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -prevent an attacker from subverting the official release itself
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(through threats, bribery, or insider attacks), we provide all
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -releases in source code form, encourage source audits, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -frequently warn our users never to trust any software (even from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -us) that comes without source.<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Directory attacks</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Destroy directory servers.</em>  If a few directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers disappear, the others still decide on a valid
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory.  So long as any directory servers remain in operation,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -they will still broadcast their views of the network and generate a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -consensus directory.  (If more than half are destroyed, this
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory will not, however, have enough signatures for clients to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -use it automatically; human intervention will be necessary for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -clients to decide whether to trust the resulting directory.)
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Subvert a directory server.</em>  By taking over a directory server,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -an attacker can partially influence the final directory.  Since ORs
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are included or excluded by majority vote, the corrupt directory can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -at worst cast a tie-breaking vote to decide whether to include
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -marginal ORs.  It remains to be seen how often such marginal cases
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -occur in practice.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Subvert a majority of directory servers.</em> An adversary who controls
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -more than half the directory servers can include as many compromised
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -ORs in the final directory as he wishes. We must ensure that directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -server operators are independent and attack-resistant.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Encourage directory server dissent.</em>  The directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -agreement protocol assumes that directory server operators agree on
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the set of directory servers.  An adversary who can persuade some
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of the directory server operators to distrust one another could
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -split the quorum into mutually hostile camps, thus partitioning
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -users based on which directory they use.  Tor does not address
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -this attack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Trick the directory servers into listing a hostile OR.</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Our threat model explicitly assumes directory server operators will
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -be able to filter out most hostile ORs.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Convince the directories that a malfunctioning OR is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -working.</em>  In the current Tor implementation, directory servers
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -assume that an OR is running correctly if they can start a TLS
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -connection to it.  A hostile OR could easily subvert this test by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -accepting TLS connections from ORs but ignoring all cells. Directory
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -servers must actively test ORs by building circuits and streams as
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -appropriate.  The tradeoffs of a similar approach are discussed
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in [<a href="#mix-acc" name="CITEmix-acc">18</a>].<br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="+1"><b>Attacks against rendezvous points</b></font><br />
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Make many introduction requests.</em>  An attacker could
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -try to deny Bob service by flooding his introduction points with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -requests.  Because the introduction points can block requests that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -lack authorization tokens, however, Bob can restrict the volume of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -requests he receives, or require a certain amount of computation for
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -every request he receives.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Attack an introduction point.</em> An attacker could
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -disrupt a location-hidden service by disabling its introduction
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -points.  But because a service's identity is attached to its public
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -key, the service can simply re-advertise
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -itself at a different introduction point. Advertisements can also be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -done secretly so that only high-priority clients know the address of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Bob's introduction points or so that different clients know of different
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction points. This forces the attacker to disable all possible
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction points.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Compromise an introduction point.</em> An attacker who controls
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Bob's introduction point can flood Bob with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction requests, or prevent valid introduction requests from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reaching him. Bob can notice a flood, and close the circuit.  To notice
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -blocking of valid requests, however, he should periodically test the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -introduction point by sending rendezvous requests and making
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -sure he receives them.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Compromise a rendezvous point.</em>  A rendezvous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -point is no more sensitive than any other OR on
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a circuit, since all data passing through the rendezvous is encrypted
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with a session key shared by Alice and Bob.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc8">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:in-the-wild">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -8</a>  Early experiences: Tor in the Wild</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -As of mid-May 2004, the Tor network consists of 32 nodes
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(24 in the US, 8 in Europe), and more are joining each week as the code
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -matures. (For comparison, the current remailer network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -has about 40 nodes.) Each node has at least a 768Kb/768Kb connection, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -many have 10Mb. The number of users varies (and of course, it's hard to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -tell for sure), but we sometimes have several hundred users — administrators at
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -several companies have begun sending their entire departments' web
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic through Tor, to block other divisions of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -their company from reading their traffic. Tor users have reported using
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the network for web browsing, FTP, IRC, AIM, Kazaa, SSH, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -recipient-anonymous email via rendezvous points. One user has anonymously
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -set up a Wiki as a hidden service, where other users anonymously publish
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the addresses of their hidden services.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Each Tor node currently processes roughly 800,000 relay
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cells (a bit under half a gigabyte) per week. On average, about 80%
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of each 498-byte payload is full for cells going back to the client,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -whereas about 40% is full for cells coming from the client. (The difference
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -arises because most of the network's traffic is web browsing.) Interactive
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic like SSH brings down the average a lot — once we have more
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -experience, and assuming we can resolve the anonymity issues, we may
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -partition traffic into two relay cell sizes: one to handle
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -bulk traffic and one for interactive traffic.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Based in part on our restrictive default exit policy (we
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -reject SMTP requests) and our low profile, we have had no abuse
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -issues since the network was deployed in October
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -2003. Our slow growth rate gives us time to add features,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -resolve bugs, and get a feel for what users actually want from an
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity system.  Even though having more users would bolster our
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity sets, we are not eager to attract the Kazaa or warez
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -communities — we feel that we must build a reputation for privacy, human
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -rights, research, and other socially laudable activities.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -As for performance, profiling shows that Tor spends almost
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -all its CPU time in AES, which is fast.  Current latency is attributable
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to two factors. First, network latency is critical: we are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -intentionally bouncing traffic around the world several times. Second,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -our end-to-end congestion control algorithm focuses on protecting
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -volunteer servers from accidental DoS rather than on optimizing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -performance. To quantify these effects, we did some informal tests using a network of 4
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes on the same machine (a heavily loaded 1GHz Athlon). We downloaded a 60
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -megabyte file from <tt>debian.org</tt> every 30 minutes for 54 hours (108 sample
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -points). It arrived in about 300 seconds on average, compared to 210s for a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -direct download. We ran a similar test on the production Tor network,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -fetching the front page of <tt>cnn.com</tt> (55 kilobytes):
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -while a direct
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -download consistently took about 0.3s, the performance through Tor varied.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Some downloads were as fast as 0.4s, with a median at 2.8s, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -90% finishing within 5.3s.  It seems that as the network expands, the chance
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of building a slow circuit (one that includes a slow or heavily loaded node
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or link) is increasing.  On the other hand, as our users remain satisfied
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -with this increased latency, we can address our performance incrementally as we
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -proceed with development. 
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Although Tor's clique topology and full-visibility directories present
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -scaling problems, we still expect the network to support a few hundred
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -nodes and maybe 10,000 users before we're forced to become
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -more distributed. With luck, the experience we gain running the current
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -topology will help us choose among alternatives when the time comes.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc9">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:maintaining-anonymity">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -9</a>  Open Questions in Low-latency Anonymity</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -In addition to the non-goals in
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#subsec:non-goals">3</a>, many questions must be solved
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -before we can be confident of Tor's security.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Many of these open issues are questions of balance. For example,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -how often should users rotate to fresh circuits? Frequent rotation
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is inefficient, expensive, and may lead to intersection attacks and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -predecessor attacks [<a href="#wright03" name="CITEwright03">54</a>], but infrequent rotation makes the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -user's traffic linkable. Besides opening fresh circuits, clients can
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -also exit from the middle of the circuit,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -or truncate and re-extend the circuit. More analysis is
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -needed to determine the proper tradeoff.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -How should we choose path lengths? If Alice always uses two hops,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -then both ORs can be certain that by colluding they will learn about
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Alice and Bob. In our current approach, Alice always chooses at least
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -three nodes unrelated to herself and her destination.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Should Alice choose a random path length (e.g. from a geometric
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -distribution) to foil an attacker who
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -uses timing to learn that he is the fifth hop and thus concludes that
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -both Alice and the responder are running ORs?
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Throughout this paper, we have assumed that end-to-end traffic
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -confirmation will immediately and automatically defeat a low-latency
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity system. Even high-latency anonymity systems can be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -vulnerable to end-to-end traffic confirmation, if the traffic volumes
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are high enough, and if users' habits are sufficiently
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -distinct [<a href="#statistical-disclosure" name="CITEstatistical-disclosure">14</a>,<a href="#limits-open" name="CITElimits-open">31</a>]. Can anything be
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -done to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -make low-latency systems resist these attacks as well as high-latency
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -systems? Tor already makes some effort to conceal the starts and ends of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -streams by wrapping long-range control commands in identical-looking
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -relay cells. Link padding could frustrate passive observers who count
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -packets; long-range padding could work against observers who own the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -first hop in a circuit. But more research remains to find an efficient
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and practical approach. Volunteers prefer not to run constant-bandwidth
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -padding; but no convincing traffic shaping approach has been
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -specified. Recent work on long-range padding [<a href="#defensive-dropping" name="CITEdefensive-dropping">33</a>]
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -shows promise. One could also try to reduce correlation in packet timing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by batching and re-ordering packets, but it is unclear whether this could
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -improve anonymity without introducing so much latency as to render the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network unusable.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A cascade topology may better defend against traffic confirmation by
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -aggregating users, and making padding and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -mixing more affordable.  Does the hydra topology (many input nodes,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -few output nodes) work better against some adversaries? Are we going
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to get a hydra anyway because most nodes will be middleman nodes?
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Common wisdom suggests that Alice should run her own OR for best
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity, because traffic coming from her node could plausibly have
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -come from elsewhere. How much mixing does this approach need?  Is it
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -immediately beneficial because of real-world adversaries that can't
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -observe Alice's router, but can run routers of their own?
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -To scale to many users, and to prevent an attacker from observing the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -whole network, it may be necessary
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to support far more servers than Tor currently anticipates.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -This introduces several issues.  First, if approval by a central set
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of directory servers is no longer feasible, what mechanism should be used
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to prevent adversaries from signing up many colluding servers? Second,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -if clients can no longer have a complete picture of the network,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -how can they perform discovery while preventing attackers from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -manipulating or exploiting gaps in their knowledge?  Third, if there
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -are too many servers for every server to constantly communicate with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -every other, which non-clique topology should the network use?
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(Restricted-route topologies promise comparable anonymity with better
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -scalability [<a href="#danezis-pets03" name="CITEdanezis-pets03">13</a>], but whatever topology we choose, we
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -need some way to keep attackers from manipulating their position within
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -it [<a href="#casc-rep" name="CITEcasc-rep">21</a>].) Fourth, if no central authority is tracking
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -server reliability, how do we stop unreliable servers from making
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the network unusable?  Fifth, do clients receive so much anonymity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -from running their own ORs that we should expect them all to do
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -so [<a href="#econymics" name="CITEeconymics">1</a>], or do we need another incentive structure to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -motivate them?  Tarzan and MorphMix present possible solutions.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -When a Tor node goes down, all its circuits (and thus streams) must break.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Will users abandon the system because of this brittleness? How well
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -does the method in Section <a href="#subsec:dos">6.1</a> allow streams to survive
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -node failure? If affected users rebuild circuits immediately, how much
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -anonymity is lost? It seems the problem is even worse in a peer-to-peer
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -environment — such systems don't yet provide an incentive for peers to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -stay connected when they're done retrieving content, so we would expect
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -a higher churn rate.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <h2><a name="tth_sEc10">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="sec:conclusion">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -10</a>  Future Directions</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Tor brings together many innovations into a unified deployable system. The
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -next immediate steps include:
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Scalability:</em> Tor's emphasis on deployability and design simplicity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -has led us to adopt a clique topology, semi-centralized
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directories, and a full-network-visibility model for client
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -knowledge. These properties will not scale past a few hundred servers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Section <a href="#sec:maintaining-anonymity">9</a> describes some promising
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -approaches, but more deployment experience will be helpful in learning
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the relative importance of these bottlenecks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Bandwidth classes:</em> This paper assumes that all ORs have
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -good bandwidth and latency. We should instead adopt the MorphMix model,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -where nodes advertise their bandwidth level (DSL, T1, T3), and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Alice avoids bottlenecks by choosing nodes that match or
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -exceed her bandwidth. In this way DSL users can usefully join the Tor
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Incentives:</em> Volunteers who run nodes are rewarded with publicity
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and possibly better anonymity [<a href="#econymics" name="CITEeconymics">1</a>]. More nodes means increased
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -scalability, and more users can mean more anonymity. We need to continue
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -examining the incentive structures for participating in Tor. Further,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we need to explore more approaches to limiting abuse, and understand
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -why most people don't bother using privacy systems.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Cover traffic:</em> Currently Tor omits cover traffic — its costs
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -in performance and bandwidth are clear but its security benefits are
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -not well understood. We must pursue more research on link-level cover
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -traffic and long-range cover traffic to determine whether some simple padding
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -method offers provable protection against our chosen adversary.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Caching at exit nodes:</em> Perhaps each exit node should run a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -caching web proxy [<a href="#shsm03" name="CITEshsm03">47</a>], to improve anonymity for cached pages
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -(Alice's request never
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -leaves the Tor network), to improve speed, and to reduce bandwidth cost.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -On the other hand, forward security is weakened because caches
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -constitute a record of retrieved files.  We must find the right
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -balance between usability and security.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Better directory distribution:</em>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Clients currently download a description of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the entire network every 15 minutes. As the state grows larger
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and clients more numerous, we may need a solution in which
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -clients receive incremental updates to directory state.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -More generally, we must find more
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -scalable yet practical ways to distribute up-to-date snapshots of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network status without introducing new attacks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Further specification review:</em> Our public
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -byte-level specification [<a href="#tor-spec" name="CITEtor-spec">20</a>] needs
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -external review.  We hope that as Tor
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -is deployed, more people will examine its
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -specification.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Multisystem interoperability:</em> We are currently working with the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -designer of MorphMix to unify the specification and implementation of
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -the common elements of our two systems. So far, this seems
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -to be relatively straightforward.  Interoperability will allow testing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and direct comparison of the two designs for trust and scalability.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<em>Wider-scale deployment:</em> The original goal of Tor was to
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -gain experience in deploying an anonymizing overlay network, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -learn from having actual users.  We are now at a point in design
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -and development where we can start deploying a wider network.  Once
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -we have many actual users, we will doubtlessly be better
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -able to evaluate some of our design decisions, including our
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -robustness/latency tradeoffs, our performance tradeoffs (including
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -cell size), our abuse-prevention mechanisms, and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -our overall usability.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<h2>Acknowledgments</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - We thank Peter Palfrader, Geoff Goodell, Adam Shostack, Joseph Sokol-Margolis,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -   John Bashinski, and Zack Brown
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -   for editing and comments;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Matej Pfajfar, Andrei Serjantov, Marc Rennhard for design discussions;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Bram Cohen for congestion control discussions;
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Adam Back for suggesting telescoping circuits; and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Cathy Meadows for formal analysis of the <em>extend</em> protocol.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - This work has been supported by ONR and DARPA.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<h2>References</h2>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<dl compact="compact">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<font size="-1"></font> <dt><a href="#CITEeconymics" name="econymics">[1]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Acquisti, R. Dingledine, and P. Syverson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - On the economics of anonymity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In R. N. Wright, editor, <em>Financial Cryptography</em>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2742, 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEeternity" name="eternity">[2]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -R. Anderson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The eternity service.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Pragocrypt '96</em>, 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEanonymizer" name="anonymizer">[3]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The Anonymizer.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://anonymizer.com/>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEfreedom21-security" name="freedom21-security">[4]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Back, I. Goldberg, and A. Shostack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Freedom systems 2.1 security issues and analysis.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - White paper, Zero Knowledge Systems, Inc., May 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEback01" name="back01">[5]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Back, U. Möller, and A. Stiglic.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Traffic analysis attacks and trade-offs in anonymity providing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  systems.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In I. S. Moskowitz, editor, <em>Information Hiding (IH 2001)</em>, pages
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  245-257. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2137, 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEeax" name="eax">[6]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Bellare, P. Rogaway, and D. Wagner.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The EAX mode of operation: A two-pass authenticated-encryption
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  scheme optimized for simplicity and efficiency.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Fast Software Encryption 2004</em>, February 2004.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEweb-mix" name="web-mix">[7]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -O. Berthold, H. Federrath, and S. Köpsell.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Web MIXes: A system for anonymous and unobservable Internet
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  access.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In H. Federrath, editor, <em>Designing Privacy Enhancing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Technologies: Workshop on Design Issue in Anonymity and Unobservability</em>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2009, 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEfreedom2-arch" name="freedom2-arch">[8]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -P. Boucher, A. Shostack, and I. Goldberg.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Freedom systems 2.0 architecture.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - White paper, Zero Knowledge Systems, Inc., December 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEcebolla" name="cebolla">[9]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Z. Brown.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Cebolla: Pragmatic IP Anonymity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Ottawa Linux Symposium</em>, June 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEchaum-mix" name="chaum-mix">[10]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -D. Chaum.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  pseudo-nyms.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>Communications of the ACM</em>, 4(2), February 1981.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEcfs:sosp01" name="cfs:sosp01">[11]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -F. Dabek, M. F. Kaashoek, D. Karger, R. Morris, and I. Stoica.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Wide-area cooperative storage with CFS.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>18th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  (SOSP '01)</em>, Chateau Lake Louise, Banff, Canada, October 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEpipenet" name="pipenet">[12]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -W. Dai.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Pipenet 1.1.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Usenet post, August 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://www.eskimo.com/ weidai/pipenet.txt> First mentioned in a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  post to the cypherpunks list, Feb. 1995.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEdanezis-pets03" name="danezis-pets03">[13]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -G. Danezis.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Mix-networks with restricted routes.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In R. Dingledine, editor, <em>Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PET
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  2003)</em>. Springer-Verlag LNCS 2760, 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEstatistical-disclosure" name="statistical-disclosure">[14]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -G. Danezis.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Statistical disclosure attacks.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Security and Privacy in the Age of Uncertainty (SEC2003)</em>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  pages 421-426, Athens, May 2003. IFIP TC11, Kluwer.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEminion-design" name="minion-design">[15]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -G. Danezis, R. Dingledine, and N. Mathewson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Mixminion: Design of a type III anonymous remailer protocol.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>2003 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy</em>, pages 2-15.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  IEEE CS, May 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEpuzzles-tls" name="puzzles-tls">[16]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -D. Dean and A. Stubblefield.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Using Client Puzzles to Protect TLS.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Proceedings of the 10th USENIX Security Symposium</em>. USENIX,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Aug. 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITETLS" name="TLS">[17]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -T. Dierks and C. Allen.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The TLS Protocol - Version 1.0.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - IETF RFC 2246, January 1999.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEmix-acc" name="mix-acc">[18]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -R. Dingledine, M. J. Freedman, D. Hopwood, and D. Molnar.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - A Reputation System to Increase MIX-net Reliability.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In I. S. Moskowitz, editor, <em>Information Hiding (IH 2001)</em>, pages
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  126-141. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2137, 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEfreehaven-berk" name="freehaven-berk">[19]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -R. Dingledine, M. J. Freedman, and D. Molnar.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The free haven project: Distributed anonymous storage service.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In H. Federrath, editor, <em>Designing Privacy Enhancing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Technologies: Workshop on Design Issue in Anonymity and Unobservability</em>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2009, July 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEtor-spec" name="tor-spec">[20]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -R. Dingledine and N. Mathewson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Tor protocol specifications.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://freehaven.net/tor/tor-spec.txt>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEcasc-rep" name="casc-rep">[21]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -R. Dingledine and P. Syverson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Reliable MIX Cascade Networks through Reputation.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In M. Blaze, editor, <em>Financial Cryptography</em>. Springer-Verlag,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  LNCS 2357, 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEsybil" name="sybil">[22]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -J. Douceur.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The Sybil Attack.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Proceedings of the 1st International Peer To Peer Systems
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Workshop (IPTPS)</em>, Mar. 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEfederrath-ih96" name="federrath-ih96">[23]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -H. Federrath, A. Jerichow, and A. Pfitzmann.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - MIXes in mobile communication systems: Location management with
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  privacy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In R. Anderson, editor, <em>Information Hiding, First International
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Workshop</em>, pages 121-135. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1174, May 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEtarzan:ccs02" name="tarzan:ccs02">[24]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. J. Freedman and R. Morris.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Tarzan: A peer-to-peer anonymizing network layer.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>9th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Security (CCS 2002)</em>, Washington, DC, November 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEherbivore" name="herbivore">[25]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -S. Goel, M. Robson, M. Polte, and E. G. Sirer.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Herbivore: A scalable and efficient protocol for anonymous
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  communication.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Technical Report TR2003-1890, Cornell University Computing and
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Information Science, February 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEian-thesis" name="ian-thesis">[26]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -I. Goldberg.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>A Pseudonymous Communications Infrastructure for the Internet</em>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - PhD thesis, UC Berkeley, Dec 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEor-ih96" name="or-ih96">[27]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -D. M. Goldschlag, M. G. Reed, and P. F. Syverson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Hiding routing information.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In R. Anderson, editor, <em>Information Hiding, First International
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Workshop</em>, pages 137-150. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1174, May 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEbabel" name="babel">[28]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -C. Gülcü and G. Tsudik.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Mixing E-mail with Babel.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Network and Distributed Security Symposium (NDSS 96)</em>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  pages 2-16. IEEE, February 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEhintz-pet02" name="hintz-pet02">[29]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Hintz.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Fingerprinting websites using traffic analysis.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In R. Dingledine and P. Syverson, editors, <em>Privacy Enhancing
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Technologies (PET 2002)</em>, pages 171-178. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2482, 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEjerichow-jsac98" name="jerichow-jsac98">[30]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Jerichow, J. Müller, A. Pfitzmann, B. Pfitzmann, and M. Waidner.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Real-time mixes: A bandwidth-efficient anonymity protocol.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications</em>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  16(4):495-509, May 1998.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITElimits-open" name="limits-open">[31]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -D. Kesdogan, D. Agrawal, and S. Penz.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Limits of anonymity in open environments.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In F. Petitcolas, editor, <em>Information Hiding Workshop (IH
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  2002)</em>. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2578, October 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEsocks4" name="socks4">[32]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -D. Koblas and M. R. Koblas.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - SOCKS.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>UNIX Security III Symposium (1992 USENIX Security
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Symposium)</em>, pages 77-83. USENIX, 1992.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEdefensive-dropping" name="defensive-dropping">[33]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -B. N. Levine, M. K. Reiter, C. Wang, and M. Wright.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Timing analysis in low-latency mix-based systems.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In A. Juels, editor, <em>Financial Cryptography</em>. Springer-Verlag,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  LNCS (forthcoming), 2004.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEhordes-jcs" name="hordes-jcs">[34]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -B. N. Levine and C. Shields.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Hordes: A multicast-based protocol for anonymity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>Journal of Computer Security</em>, 10(3):213-240, 2002.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEmeadows96" name="meadows96">[35]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -C. Meadows.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The NRL protocol analyzer: An overview.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>Journal of Logic Programming</em>, 26(2):113-131, 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEmixmaster-spec" name="mixmaster-spec">[36]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -U. Möller, L. Cottrell, P. Palfrader, and L. Sassaman.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Mixmaster Protocol - Version 2.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Draft, July 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://www.abditum.com/mixmaster-spec.txt>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEdarkside" name="darkside">[37]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -V. S. Pai, L. Wang, K. Park, R. Pang, and L. Peterson.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - The Dark Side of the Web: An Open Proxy's View.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://codeen.cs.princeton.edu/>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEisdn-mixes" name="isdn-mixes">[38]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Pfitzmann, B. Pfitzmann, and M. Waidner.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - ISDN-mixes: Untraceable communication with very small bandwidth
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  overhead.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>GI/ITG Conference on Communication in Distributed Systems</em>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  pages 451-463, February 1991.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEprivoxy" name="privoxy">[39]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Privoxy.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <tt><http://www.privoxy.org/>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEreed-protocols97" name="reed-protocols97">[40]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. G. Reed, P. F. Syverson, and D. M. Goldschlag.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Protocols using anonymous connections: Mobile applications.
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				|  |  | - In B. Christianson, B. Crispo, M. Lomas, and M. Roe, editors, <em>
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				|  |  | -  Security Protocols: 5th International Workshop</em>, pages 13-23.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  Springer-Verlag, LNCS 1361, April 1997.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEor-jsac98" name="or-jsac98">[41]</a></dt><dd>
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				|  |  | -M. G. Reed, P. F. Syverson, and D. M. Goldschlag.
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				|  |  | - Anonymous connections and onion routing.
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				|  |  | - <em>IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications</em>,
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				|  |  | -  16(4):482-494, May 1998.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEcrowds-tissec" name="crowds-tissec">[42]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. K. Reiter and A. D. Rubin.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Crowds: Anonymity for web transactions.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>ACM TISSEC</em>, 1(1):66-92, June 1998.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEmorphmix:fc04" name="morphmix:fc04">[43]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Rennhard and B. Plattner.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Practical anonymity for the masses with morphmix.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In A. Juels, editor, <em>Financial Cryptography</em>. Springer-Verlag,
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				|  |  | -  LNCS (forthcoming), 2004.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEanonnet" name="anonnet">[44]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Rennhard, S. Rafaeli, L. Mathy, B. Plattner, and D. Hutchison.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Analysis of an Anonymity Network for Web Browsing.
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				|  |  | - In <em>IEEE 7th Intl. Workshop on Enterprise Security (WET ICE
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				|  |  | -  2002)</em>, Pittsburgh, USA, June 2002.
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				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITESS03" name="SS03">[45]</a></dt><dd>
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				|  |  | -A. Serjantov and P. Sewell.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Passive attack analysis for connection-based anonymity systems.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Computer Security - ESORICS 2003</em>. Springer-Verlag, LNCS
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  2808, October 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEp5" name="p5">[46]</a></dt><dd>
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				|  |  | -R. Sherwood, B. Bhattacharjee, and A. Srinivasan.
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				|  |  | - p<sup>5</sup>: A protocol for scalable anonymous communication.
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				|  |  | - In <em>IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy</em>, pages 58-70. IEEE
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				|  |  | -  CS, 2002.
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				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEshsm03" name="shsm03">[47]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Shubina and S. Smith.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Using caching for browsing anonymity.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <em>ACM SIGEcom Exchanges</em>, 4(2), Sept 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEor-discex00" name="or-discex00">[48]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -P. Syverson, M. Reed, and D. Goldschlag.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Onion Routing access configurations.
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				|  |  | - In <em>DARPA Information Survivability Conference and Exposition
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				|  |  | -  (DISCEX 2000)</em>, volume 1, pages 34-40. IEEE CS Press, 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEor-pet00" name="or-pet00">[49]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -P. Syverson, G. Tsudik, M. Reed, and C. Landwehr.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Towards an Analysis of Onion Routing Security.
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				|  |  | - In H. Federrath, editor, <em>Designing Privacy Enhancing
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				|  |  | -  Technologies: Workshop on Design Issue in Anonymity and Unobservability</em>,
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				|  |  | -  pages 96-114. Springer-Verlag, LNCS 2009, July 2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
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				|  |  | -</dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEtannenbaum96" name="tannenbaum96">[50]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -A. Tannenbaum.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Computer networks, 1996.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEjap-backdoor" name="jap-backdoor">[51]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -The AN.ON Project.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - German police proceeds against anonymity service.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Press release, September 2003.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  <tt><http://www.datenschutzzentrum.de/material/themen/presse/anon-bka_e.htm>.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</tt></dd>
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				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEtangler" name="tangler">[52]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Waldman and D. Mazières.
 | 
	
		
			
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				|  |  | -  entanglements.
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				|  |  | -  Security (CCS-8)</em>, pages 86-135. ACM Press, 2001.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEpublius" name="publius">[53]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Waldman, A. Rubin, and L. Cranor.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Publius: A robust, tamper-evident, censorship-resistant and
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				|  |  | -  source-anonymous web publishing system.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - In <em>Proc. 9th USENIX Security Symposium</em>, pages 59-72, August
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				|  |  | -  2000.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - <dt><a href="#CITEwright03" name="wright03">[54]</a></dt><dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -M. Wright, M. Adler, B. N. Levine, and C. Shields.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | - Defending anonymous communication against passive logging attacks.
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				|  |  | - In <em>IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy</em>, pages 28-41. IEEE
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  CS, May 2003.</dd>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</dl>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<hr /><h3>Footnotes:</h3>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tthFtNtAAB"></a><a href="#tthFrefAAB"><sup>1</sup></a>Actually, the negotiated key is used to derive two
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -  symmetric keys: one for each direction.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tthFtNtAAC"></a><a href="#tthFrefAAC"><sup>2</sup></a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -        With 48 bits of digest per cell, the probability of an accidental
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -collision is far lower than the chance of hardware failure.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tthFtNtAAD"></a><a href="#tthFrefAAD"><sup>3</sup></a>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -Rather than rely on an external infrastructure, the Onion Routing network
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -can run the lookup service itself.  Our current implementation provides a
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -simple lookup system on the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -directory servers.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<div class="p"><!----></div>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<a name="tthFtNtAAE"></a><a href="#tthFrefAAE"><sup>4</sup></a>Note that this fingerprinting
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attack should not be confused with the much more complicated latency
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -attacks of [<a href="#back01" name="CITEback01">5</a>], which require a fingerprint of the latencies
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -of all circuits through the network, combined with those from the
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -network edges to the target user and the responder website.
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -<br /><br /><hr /><small>File translated from
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -T<sub><font size="-1">E</font></sub>X
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -by <a href="http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/">
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -T<sub><font size="-1">T</font></sub>H</a>,
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -version 3.59.<br />On 18 May 2004, 10:45.</small>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -</body></html>
 | 
	
		
			
				|  |  | -
 |