2009 Research Summary

Anonymity of Networks of Mixes

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Venkat Anantharam and Parvathinathan Venkitasubramaniam¹

National Science Foundation CCF-0500023, National Science Foundation CCF-0635372, National Science Foundation CNS-0627161 and National Science Foundation CCF-0728872

Mixes are entities in networks that randomize the departures of packets from different flows arriving at them, in order to obfuscate the connection between the arrival and departure links of flows. They aim to provide anonymity of the sources of flows in networks.

We investigate optimal strategies for delay-constrained mixes, with anonymity measured in information-theoretic terms. Upper and lower bounds are provided, which are exact in light traffic for linear mix networks.

[1]

P. Venkitasubramaniam and V. Anantharam, "On the Anonymity of Chaum Mixes," IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, July 2008, pp. 534-538.

¹Cornell University