TY - GEN
T1 - Deniability - An alibi for users in P2P networks
AU - Hermoni, Ofer
AU - Gilboa, Niv
AU - Felstaine, Eyal
AU - Shitrit, Sharon
PY - 2008/1/1
Y1 - 2008/1/1
N2 - Peer to peer file sharing is 'booming', but meanwhile censorship of these networks and prosecution of users that share censored content are growing just as quickly. In this paper, we propose a novel notion of deniability as an easy and efficient method for users to avoid censorship and prosecution. The fundamental concept is that a given data element, which contains controversial or censored content, is also associated with neutral-content material. Hence, even a powerful adversary capable of monitoring all communication in the network and viewing the internal state of participating hosts is unable to prove a link between censored content and a user. The communication overhead required to retrieve a document is only four times greater than what is needed in a standard network. The storage required for a document is only twice as large as the document itself. Deniability is an elegant alternative to user anonymity in P2P file sharing networks. Systems that provide anonymity for users typically require greater overhead and do not guarantee anonymity against powerful, real-world adversaries.
AB - Peer to peer file sharing is 'booming', but meanwhile censorship of these networks and prosecution of users that share censored content are growing just as quickly. In this paper, we propose a novel notion of deniability as an easy and efficient method for users to avoid censorship and prosecution. The fundamental concept is that a given data element, which contains controversial or censored content, is also associated with neutral-content material. Hence, even a powerful adversary capable of monitoring all communication in the network and viewing the internal state of participating hosts is unable to prove a link between censored content and a user. The communication overhead required to retrieve a document is only four times greater than what is needed in a standard network. The storage required for a document is only twice as large as the document itself. Deniability is an elegant alternative to user anonymity in P2P file sharing networks. Systems that provide anonymity for users typically require greater overhead and do not guarantee anonymity against powerful, real-world adversaries.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=51849161379&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/COMSWA.2008.4554432
DO - 10.1109/COMSWA.2008.4554432
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:51849161379
SN - 9781424417971
T3 - 3rd IEEE/Create-Net International Conference on Communication System Software and Middleware, COMSWARE
SP - 310
EP - 317
BT - 3rd IEEE/Create-Net International Conference on Communication System Software and Middleware, COMSWARE
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
T2 - 3rd IEEE/Create-Net International Conference on Communication System Software and Middleware, COMSWARE
Y2 - 6 January 2008 through 10 January 2008
ER -