Evasive Routing: Achieving Anonymity Using Multiple ISPs

Abstract

Anonymous communication is an important public issue and gains even greater significance when discussed in the context of the World Wide Web. This paper presents a new protocol of anonymity preservation named Evasive Routing which allows users to surf the Internet while maintaining their anonymity. This protocol offers similar routing techniques as were suggested in the Crowds protocol for anonymous communication, while assuming simultaneous connection of users to several Internet service providers (ISPs). The mathematical analysis shows that Evasive Routing offers higher anonymity properties against ISPs which are considered as local eavesdroppers than other suggested solutions, while maintaining similar anonymity properties against other obvious attackers. The performance of Evasive Routing was analyzed and compared to existing protocols using network simulation techniques and has demonstrated lower round trip time.