Accession Number:

ADA621868

Title:

IMUX: Managing Tor Connections from Two to Infinity, and Beyond

Descriptive Note:

Conference paper

Corporate Author:

NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

• Geddes, John
• Jansen, Rob
• Hopper, Nicholas

Report Date:

2014-11-03

Pagination or Media Count:

11.0

Abstract:

We consider proposals to improve the performance of the Tor overlay network by increasing the number of connections between relays such as Torchestra and PCTCP. We introduce a new class of attacks that can apply to these designs, socket exhaustion, and show that these attacks are effective against PCTCP. We also describe IMUX, a design that generalizes the principles behind these designs while still mitigating against socket exhaustion attacks. We demonstrate empirically that IMUX resists socket exhaustion while finding that web clients can realize up to 25 increase in performance compared to Torchestra. Finally, we empirically evaluate the interaction between these designs and the recently proposed KIST design, which aims to improve performance by intelligently scheduling kernel socket writes.

Descriptors:

• *COMMUNICATIONS TRAFFIC
• *COMPUTER NETWORK SECURITY
• *SECURE COMMUNICATIONS
• COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOLS
• COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS
• CRYPTOGRAPHY
• DATA PROCESSING SECURITY
• HACKING(COMPUTER SECURITY)
• INFORMATION ASSURANCE
• INTERNET
• NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
• PERFORMANCE(ENGINEERING)
• RELAYS
• SCHEDULING

Subject Categories:

• Computer Systems Management and Standards
• Cybernetics
• Radio Communications

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE