English

TorKameleon: Improving Tor's Censorship Resistance with K-anonymization and Media-based Covert Channels

Cryptography and Security 2023-10-20 v3

Abstract

Anonymity networks like Tor significantly enhance online privacy but are vulnerable to correlation attacks by state-level adversaries. While covert channels encapsulated in media protocols, particularly WebRTC-based encapsulation, have demonstrated effectiveness against passive traffic correlation attacks, their resilience against active correlation attacks remains unexplored, and their compatibility with Tor has been limited. This paper introduces TorKameleon, a censorship evasion solution designed to protect Tor users from both passive and active correlation attacks. TorKameleon employs K-anonymization techniques to fragment and reroute traffic through multiple TorKameleon proxies, while also utilizing covert WebRTC-based channels or TLS tunnels to encapsulate user traffic.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.17544,
  title  = {TorKameleon: Improving Tor's Censorship Resistance with K-anonymization and Media-based Covert Channels},
  author = {Afonso Vilalonga and João S. Resende and Henrique Domingos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.17544},
  year   = {2023}
}