The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear By: Ben Knapic Onion Routing The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear By: Ben Knapic

What we’ll be discussing What is onion routing? How does it work? What can we do to improve it?

What is Onion Routing? Onion routing is the process of navigating networks anonymously through the use of layered encryption.

Conception The framework for onion routing was first described by David Chaum in his 1981 paper titled “Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms”

Why is onion routing important? Political Dissenters Avoidance of Internet censorship Private online human-to-human communication Secret/Sensitive data User Privacy

How does it work? Layered Encryption Layered Encryption is like an onion. The encryption has layers. Onions have layers. You get it? They both have layers.

Multi-node Transversal

What about traffic sniffers? Pt. 1 Destination traffic sniffing

What about traffic sniffers? Pt. 2 Mid-transversal traffic sniffing

What about traffic sniffers? Pt. 3 Source traffic sniffing Website fingerprinting

How to prevent website fingerprinting Pt. 1 Padding

How to prevent website fingerprinting Pt. 2 Camouflage

Other tips for staying anonymous Onion Routing by itself does not guarantee anonymity Use an anonymous currency, like Bitcoin, for financial transactions Use the HTTPS version of websites Don’t send out ANY information that can be traced to you while using an onion routing network Don’t open downloaded documents while online

Silk Road

Summary Utilizing layered encryption to navigate a network anonymously is called onion routing Padding and camouflage can help prevent finger printing Bitcoin, HTTPS, and avoiding opening downloaded document while online can reduce your internet footprint The Most widely used onion routing network is Tor The encryption methods of anonymizing networks like onions because they have layers

References David L. Chaum. 1981. Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms.Commun. ACM 24, 2 (February 1981), 84-90. DOI=10.1145/358549.358563 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/358549.358563 Panchenko, A., L. Niessen, et al. (2011). Website fingerprinting in onion routing based anonymization networks. Proceedings of the 10th annual ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society. Chicago, Illinois, USA, ACM: 103-114.

Questions?