Private Web browsing

Issue title: Security in the World Wide Web

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Syverson, Paul F. | Reed, Michael G. | Goldschlag, David M.

Affiliations: Naval Research Laboratory, Center For High Assurance Computer Systems, Washington, DC 20375-5337, USA, Tel: + 1 202 767 2389; Fax: + 1 202 404 7942; E-mail: syverson@itd.nrl.navy.mil, reed@itd.nrl.navy.mil, goldschlag@itd.nrl.navy.mil

Abstract: This paper describes a communications primitive, anonymous connections, that supports bidirectional and near real-time channels that are resistant to both eavesdropping and traffic analysis. The connections are made anonymous, although communication need not be. These anonymous connections are versatile and support private use of many different Internet services. For our purposes, privacy means maintaining the confidentiality of both the data stream and the identity of communicating parties. These are both kept confidential from network elements as well as external observers. Private Web browsing is achieved by unmodified Web browsers using anonymous connections by means of HTTP proxies. Private Web browsing may be made anonymous too by a specialized proxy that removes identifying information from the HTTP data stream. This article specifies anonymous connections, describes our implementation, and discusses its application to Web browsing via HTTP proxies.

Keywords: Security, privacy, anonymity, traffic analysis

DOI: 10.3233/JCS-1997-5305

Journal: Journal of Computer Security, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 237-248, 1997