Two Cents for Strong Anonymity: The Anonymous Post-office Protocol

Nethanel Gelernter; Amir Herzberg; Hemi Leibowitz

Paper 2016/489

Two Cents for Strong Anonymity: The Anonymous Post-office Protocol

Nethanel Gelernter, Amir Herzberg, and Hemi Leibowitz

Abstract

We introduce the {\em Anonymous Post-office Protocol (AnonPoP)}, a practical strongly-anonymous messaging system. AnonPoP offers anonymity against globally eavesdropping adversaries that control a majority of AnonPoP's servers. AnonPoP design combines effectively known techniques such as (synchronous) mix-cascade and constant sending rate, with several new techniques including {\em request-pool}, {\em bad-server isolation} and {\em per-epoch mailboxes}. \newline AnonPoP is {\em affordable}, with monthly costs of $2$\textcent\ per client, and {\em efficient} with respect to latency, communication, and energy, making it suitable for mobile clients. We developed an API that allows other applications to use AnonPoP for adding strong anonymity. We validated the system and its usability by experiments in cloud-based deployment and simulations, including a POC Android messaging application and a `double-blinded' usability study.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: Anonymity Mixnets Privacy Annonymous communication Tor
Contact author(s): leibo hemi @ gmail com
History: 2016-06-05: revised; 2016-05-20: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2016/489
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2016/489,
      author = {Nethanel Gelernter and Amir Herzberg and Hemi Leibowitz},
      title = {Two Cents for Strong Anonymity: The Anonymous Post-office Protocol},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2016/489},
      year = {2016},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/489}
}