Measuring Tor Relay Popularity

Tao Chen; Weiqi Cui; Eric Chan-Tin

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19

Measuring Tor Relay Popularity

Tao Chen, Weiqi Cui, Eric Chan-Tin

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

Tor is one of the most popular anonymity networks. It has been reported that over 2 million unique users utilize the Tor network daily. The Tor network is run by over 6, 000 volunteer relays. Each Tor client telescopically builds a circuit by choosing three Tor relays and then uses that circuit to connect to a server. The Tor relay selection algorithm makes sure that no two relays with the same /16 IP address are chosen. Our objective is to determine the popularity of Tor relays when building circuits. With over 44 vantage points (machines running Tor clients) and over 145,000 circuits built, we found that some Tor relays are chosen more often than others. Although a completely balanced selection algorithm is not possible, analysis of our dataset shows that some Tor relays are over 3 times more likely to be chosen than others. An adversary could potentially eavesdrop or correlate more Tor traffic.

Original language	American English
Title of host publication	SecureComm 2019: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19
State	Published - Dec 13 2019

Keywords

Privacy
Tor Network
Anonymity

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19License: Unspecified

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19

Cite this

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title = "Measuring Tor Relay Popularity",

abstract = " Tor is one of the most popular anonymity networks. It has been reported that over 2 million unique users utilize the Tor network daily. The Tor network is run by over 6, 000 volunteer relays. Each Tor client telescopically builds a circuit by choosing three Tor relays and then uses that circuit to connect to a server. The Tor relay selection algorithm makes sure that no two relays with the same /16 IP address are chosen. Our objective is to determine the popularity of Tor relays when building circuits. With over 44 vantage points (machines running Tor clients) and over 145,000 circuits built, we found that some Tor relays are chosen more often than others. Although a completely balanced selection algorithm is not possible, analysis of our dataset shows that some Tor relays are over 3 times more likely to be chosen than others. An adversary could potentially eavesdrop or correlate more Tor traffic.",

keywords = "Privacy, Tor Network, Anonymity",

author = "Tao Chen and Weiqi Cui and Eric Chan-Tin",

note = "Chen, T., Cui, W., Chan-Tin, E. (2019). Measuring Tor Relay Popularity. In: Chen, S., Choo, KK., Fu, X., Lou, W., Mohaisen, A. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 304. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19",

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month = dec,

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doi = "10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19",

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T1 - Measuring Tor Relay Popularity

AU - Chen, Tao

AU - Cui, Weiqi

AU - Chan-Tin, Eric

N1 - Chen, T., Cui, W., Chan-Tin, E. (2019). Measuring Tor Relay Popularity. In: Chen, S., Choo, KK., Fu, X., Lou, W., Mohaisen, A. (eds) Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. SecureComm 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 304. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19

PY - 2019/12/13

Y1 - 2019/12/13

N2 - Tor is one of the most popular anonymity networks. It has been reported that over 2 million unique users utilize the Tor network daily. The Tor network is run by over 6, 000 volunteer relays. Each Tor client telescopically builds a circuit by choosing three Tor relays and then uses that circuit to connect to a server. The Tor relay selection algorithm makes sure that no two relays with the same /16 IP address are chosen. Our objective is to determine the popularity of Tor relays when building circuits. With over 44 vantage points (machines running Tor clients) and over 145,000 circuits built, we found that some Tor relays are chosen more often than others. Although a completely balanced selection algorithm is not possible, analysis of our dataset shows that some Tor relays are over 3 times more likely to be chosen than others. An adversary could potentially eavesdrop or correlate more Tor traffic.

AB - Tor is one of the most popular anonymity networks. It has been reported that over 2 million unique users utilize the Tor network daily. The Tor network is run by over 6, 000 volunteer relays. Each Tor client telescopically builds a circuit by choosing three Tor relays and then uses that circuit to connect to a server. The Tor relay selection algorithm makes sure that no two relays with the same /16 IP address are chosen. Our objective is to determine the popularity of Tor relays when building circuits. With over 44 vantage points (machines running Tor clients) and over 145,000 circuits built, we found that some Tor relays are chosen more often than others. Although a completely balanced selection algorithm is not possible, analysis of our dataset shows that some Tor relays are over 3 times more likely to be chosen than others. An adversary could potentially eavesdrop or correlate more Tor traffic.

KW - Privacy

KW - Tor Network

KW - Anonymity

UR - https://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/327

UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19

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DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-37228-6_19

M3 - Chapter

BT - SecureComm 2019: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks

ER -

Measuring Tor Relay Popularity

Abstract

Keywords

Disciplines

Access to Document

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Cite this