Anonymous Network Bridging Broadcast Domains
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing anonymous communications networks, such as those using onion routing, are vulnerable to interruptions and corruption due to untrusted intermediate nodes and potential adversary control, which can reveal sender and destination identities through traffic analysis.
Innovation Solution
The system employs a hybrid architecture combining mixnets and gossip protocols, utilizing broadcast domains with bridging connections and pseudorandom hash functions to route messages anonymously without requiring path information and minimizing network flooding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If onion routing is used to anonymize messages, then sender and destination identities are hidden, but the network becomes vulnerable to interruptions and corruption by untrusted intermediate nodes
Solution Approach 1:
The network is segmented into multiple independent broadcast domains rather than using a single routing path. Messages are divided and transmitted through multiple parallel domains, so that compromise of one domain does not affect overall message delivery. This segmentation provides both anonymity and reliability by distributing trust across multiple independent paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-establishes multiple redundant paths through different broadcast domains before messages need to be transmitted. By having predetermined alternative routes available, the network can cushion against interruptions or corruption in any single path, ensuring message delivery even when intermediate nodes are untrusted or compromised.
2Loss of information
If multiple paths are used to send messages through broadcast domains, then anonymity is improved, but network flooding and bandwidth consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of flooding all possible paths with messages, the system uses partial action by selectively routing messages through a subset of broadcast domains based on hash functions. This provides sufficient anonymity through multiple paths while avoiding the excessive bandwidth consumption of complete flooding of all possible routes.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of path selection from static or exhaustive to dynamic and selective using hash-based routing. By changing how paths are selected (using hash functions on message content), the system achieves anonymity through parameter variation without the energy cost of exhaustive path exploration or flooding.
3Reliability
If intermediate nodes are trusted to forward messages, then message delivery is reliable, but sender and destination identities can be revealed through traffic analysis
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces broadcast domains as intermediary layers between senders and receivers. These domains act as mediators that forward messages without revealing the identity of senders or destinations to intermediate nodes. The broadcast domain structure provides an additional layer of indirection that prevents traffic analysis while maintaining reliable message forwarding through the intermediary domains.
Data Source
AI summary
A network is organized into a plurality of broadcast domains. Each broadcast domain includes a plurality of nodes each configured to cause messages to be sent to two or more other of the nodes within the broadcast domain. The broadcast domains are coupled via bridging connections. Each bridging connection couples at least one of the nodes from a first of the broadcast domains to at least one of the nodes of a second of the broadcast domains. The messages are caused to be sent through the plurality of broadcast domains via a subset of the bridging connections. The subset of the bridging connections is selected non-deterministically via the plurality of broadcast domains.