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The bayesian traffic analysis of mix networks

Published: 09 November 2009 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    This work casts the traffic analysis of anonymity systems, and in particular mix networks, in the context of Bayesian inference. A generative probabilistic model of mix network architectures is presented, that incorporates a number of attack techniques in the traffic analysis literature. We use the model to build an Markov Chain Monte Carlo inference engine, that calculates the probabilities of who is talking to whom given an observation of network traces. We provide a thorough evaluation of its correctness and performance, and confirm that mix networks with realistic parameters are secure. This approach enables us to apply established information theoretic anonymity metrics on complex mix networks, and extract information from anonymised traffic traces optimally.

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    Cited By

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    • (2023)Random spanning trees for expanders, sparsifiers, and virtual network securityComputer Communications10.1016/j.comcom.2023.09.028212:C(21-34)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
    • (2023)Traffic Analysis by Adversaries with Partial VisibilityComputer Security – ESORICS 202310.1007/978-3-031-51476-0_17(338-358)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
    • (2022)Anonymity-Enabled Mix Network: Owing to Techniques and Proof of correctness2022 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)10.1109/ICCCIS56430.2022.10037727(176-181)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2022
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      cover image ACM Conferences
      CCS '09: Proceedings of the 16th ACM conference on Computer and communications security
      November 2009
      664 pages
      ISBN:9781605588940
      DOI:10.1145/1653662
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 09 November 2009

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      Author Tags

      1. anonymity
      2. markov chain monte carlo
      3. mix networks
      4. traffic analysis

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      • (2023)Random spanning trees for expanders, sparsifiers, and virtual network securityComputer Communications10.1016/j.comcom.2023.09.028212:C(21-34)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
      • (2023)Traffic Analysis by Adversaries with Partial VisibilityComputer Security – ESORICS 202310.1007/978-3-031-51476-0_17(338-358)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
      • (2022)Anonymity-Enabled Mix Network: Owing to Techniques and Proof of correctness2022 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS)10.1109/ICCCIS56430.2022.10037727(176-181)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2022
      • (2021)Mix Networks: Existing Scenarios and Future Directions on Security and PrivacyRecent Patents on Engineering10.2174/187221211466619122312561914:3(310-323)Online publication date: 19-Jan-2021
      • (2020)Quantifying Unlinkability in Multi-hop Wireless NetworksProceedings of the 23rd International ACM Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems10.1145/3416010.3423216(73-82)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2020
      • (2020)Breaching Privacy in Encrypted Instant Messaging NetworksAlgorithms for Data and Computation Privacy10.1007/978-3-030-58896-0_14(385-404)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2020
      • (2019)A Survey on Measuring Anonymity in Anonymous Communication SystemsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2019.29193227(70584-70609)Online publication date: 2019
      • (2018)A probabilistic model for anonymity analysis of anonymous communication networksTelecommunications Systems10.1007/s11235-018-0454-069:2(171-186)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2018
      • (2017)Monitorability Bounds via Expander, Sparsifier and Random WalksNetworked Systems10.1007/978-3-319-59647-1_23(307-321)Online publication date: 14-May-2017
      • (2015)How to Find Hidden Users: A Survey of Attacks on Anonymity NetworksIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2015.245343417:4(2296-2316)Online publication date: Dec-2016
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