Torbricks: Blocking-resistant tor bridge distribution

Mahdi Zamani, Jared Saia, Jedidiah Crandall

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tor is currently the most popular network for anonymous Internet communication. It critically relies on volunteer nodes called bridges to relay Internet traffic when a user’s ISP blocks connections to Tor. Unfortunately, current methods for distributing bridges are vulnerable to malicious users who obtain and block bridge addresses. In this paper, we propose TorBricks, a protocol for privacy-preserving distribution of Tor bridges to n users, even when an unknown number t < n of these users are controlled by a malicious adversary. TorBricks distributes O(t log n) bridges and guarantees that all honest users can connect to Tor with high probability after O(log t) rounds of communication with the distributor. Our empirical evaluations show that TorBricks requires at least 20x fewer bridges and two orders of magnitude less running time than the state-of-the-art.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationStabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems - 19th International Symposium, SSS 2017, Proceedings
EditorsPhilippas Tsigas, Paul Spirakis
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages426-440
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9783319690834
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event19th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, SSS 2017 - Boston, United States
Duration: Nov 5 2017Nov 8 2017

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10616 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference19th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, SSS 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBoston
Period11/5/1711/8/17

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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