Fair anonymity for the Tor network

TL;DR

This paper proposes a fairness mechanism for the Tor network using group signatures to control access and prevent misuse, aiming to reduce suspicion from service providers while preserving user privacy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel fairness approach with group signatures in Tor's key negotiation to enhance access control without compromising privacy.

Findings

Reduced suspicion of Tor traffic by service providers.

Effective prevention of misbehaving users accessing Tor.

Maintained user privacy while implementing fairness mechanisms.

Abstract

Current anonymizing networks have become an important tool for guaranteeing users' privacy. However, these platforms can be used to perform illegitimate actions, which sometimes makes service providers see traffic coming from these networks as a probable threat. In order to solve this problem, we propose to add support for fairness mechanisms to the Tor network. Specifically, by introducing a slight modification to the key negotiation process with the entry and exit nodes, in the shape of group signatures. By means of these signatures, we set up an access control method to prevent misbehaving users to make use of the Tor network. Additionally, we establish a predefined method for denouncing illegitimate actions, which impedes the application of the proposed fairness mechanisms as a threat eroding users' privacy. As a direct consequence, traffic coming from Tor would be considered less suspicious by service providers.