A Critical Survey Of Privacy Infrastructures

TL;DR

This paper surveys the evolution of privacy infrastructures on the Internet, highlighting both protective tools like VPNs and Tor, and the threats posed by malicious actors exploiting these technologies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of existing privacy infrastructures and discusses the challenges of misuse and security threats associated with them.

Findings

Widespread use of privacy tools like VPNs and Tor for legitimate and malicious purposes.

Increase in cyber threats exploiting privacy infrastructures, such as malware and ransomware.

Need for improved security measures to protect users and maintain trust in privacy tools.

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the scale and complexity of the Internet and its associated technologies built on the World Wide Web has grown exponentially with access to Internet as a facility occupying a prime place with other amenities of modern lives. In years to come, usage of Internet may unravel more pleasant surprises for us as far as novelty in its usage is concerned. As a democratic function of Internet, and relying on the open model on which it has been built, there has been concerted efforts in the direction of privacy protection and use of privacy enhancing tools which have gained tangible traction. Innovation in use of VPN, TLS/SSL and cryptographic tools are a testimony to it. Another popular tool is Tor, which has gained widespread popularity as it is being increasingly used by anonymity seeking users to effectively maintain their discretion while surfing the web. However, there is a darker side to increased proliferation of Internet in our everyday routine. We are certainly not living in a utopian age and there are potentials of misuse of Internet as well. Across every nook and cranny of Internet's sprawling virtual world, there are cyber criminals lurking n dangerous alleys to use the very same Internet as malevolent tool to abuse it and cause financial, physical and social harm to ordinary people. Failing to manage the widespread spawning of World Wide Web has rendered it weak against misuse. In last few decades especially, Internet has been inundated with malware, ransomware, viruses, Trojans, illegal spy tools and what not created with malignant sentiments. In this paper, we will analyze few of the subverting privacy infrastructures.