CensorSpoofer: Asymmetric communication using IP spoofing for censorship-resistant web browsing

Qiyan Wang, Xun Gong, Giang T.K. Nguyen, Amir Houmansadr, Nikita Borisov

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

A key challenge in censorship-resistant web browsing is being able to direct legitimate users to redirection proxies while preventing censors, posing as insiders, from discovering their addresses and blocking them. We propose a new framework for censorship-resistant web browsing called CensorSpoofer that addresses this challenge by exploiting the asymmetric nature of web browsing traffic and making use of IP spoofing. CensorSpoofer de-couples the upstream and downstream channels, using a low-bandwidth indirect channel for delivering upstream messages (URLs) and a high-bandwidth direct channel for downloading web content. The upstream channel hides the request contents using steganographic encoding within Email or instant messages, whereas the downstream channel uses IP address spoofing so that the real address of the proxy is not revealed either to legitimate users or censors. We built a proof-of-concept prototype that uses encrypted VoIP for this downstream channel and demonstrated the feasibility of using the CensorSpoofer framework in a realistic environment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCCS'12 - Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
Pages121-132
Number of pages12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2012 - Raleigh, NC, United States
Duration: Oct 16 2012Oct 18 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
ISSN (Print)1543-7221

Other

Other2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityRaleigh, NC
Period10/16/1210/18/12

Keywords

  • Asymmetric communication
  • Censorship resistance
  • IP spoofing
  • Voice-over-IP

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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