Towards Anonymous Communication Infrastructure

There are many existing anonymous communication solutions each having advantages and disadvantages

and most importantly – their own user base.

The goal of this project is to create an infrastructure which these various solutions can be combined via a

generic anonymous network protocol.

Unified Message Structure

The first step to unify different protocols is to have a standard agreement among network traffic – in this case a unified network message structure:

Routing Rules and Tables

Much like NAT within routers – nodes within the generic anonymous network have routing rules and

tables. This means that network data is only meaningful to its targeted node(s), and more

importantly have little to no meaning for potential attackers.

Processors

System ProcessorsCore processors that are required to interface with and perform actions on hosted nodes:

• ReserveRPRProcessor• FinaliseRPRProcessor• RelayMessageProcessor

Guest ProcessorsGuest processors are externally written and extend the processor family. They can be downloaded on hosted nodes and executed via route rules.

• AddPublishedProcessor• AddUnPublishedProcessor

Composite Processors

The real potential of processors is to combine separate, possibly unrelated processors, into a new short lived temporary processor – called a composite processor.

Composite processors can use any combination of system, published and unpublished processors.

Network Unobservability

Any algorithm can be utilised on a node via the unpublished processors – this introduces a large degree of uncertainty as to how nodes behave.

Meaning that identical inputs can produce completely different and unrelated outputs.

System Overview

Combining User Bases

The ultimate goal is to unite different user bases to expand the anonymous community.

This doesn’t mean to re-invent the wheel – rather the opposite is proposed. Existing infrastructures have the

opportunity to join the generic network but still keep all their current users, clients and servers as is.

This is achieved by hosting nodes running published and/or unpublished processors that either implement an existing algorithm or bridge the gap between the two networks.

Network Topologies

Research Benefits

A large user base, existing servers and nodes act as a established network backbone. Coupled with the ability to execute

external code via unpublished processors researchers can build and experiment with new types of anonymous communication

methods.

A large problem faced by those building innovative anonymous protocols is the need to test them – and real world results are required. Previously lots of time, money and resources were needed to put together a network infrastructure to achieve this. The generic anonymous protocol solves this issue by

allowing the existing networks to be utilised.

Acknowledgements

Matthew Bolger – StudentShaahin Madani, Ibrahim Khalil – Supervisors