Abstract

. This paper describes an architecture, Onion Routing, that limits a network's vulnerability to traffic analysis. The architecture provides anonymous socket connections by means of proxy servers. It provides real-time, bi-directional, anonymous communication for any protocol that can be adapted to use a proxy service. Specifically, the architecture provides for bi-directional communication even though no-one but the initiator's proxy server knows anything but previous and next hops in the communication chain. This implies that neither the respondent nor his proxy server nor any external observer need know the identity of the initiator or his proxy server. A prototype of Onion Routing has been implemented. This prototype works with HTTP (World Wide Web) proxies. In addition, an analogous proxy for TELNET has been implemented. Proxies for FTP and SMTP are under development. 1 Introduction This paper presents an architecture that limits a network's vulnerability to traffic analysis. We c...

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