Last semester I wrote a paper about the basics of anonymity in networks, especially the internet. The paper is publicly available, as I think academic papers should be as free, as possible. The paper originates from the proseminar “Network Hacking” at the TU Munich.
ABSTRACT:
This paper introduces important terms related to anonymity, describes basic attacks on people’s identity in networks and proposes defense mechanisms.
Different use cases of networks need different approaches in anonymizing. Due to the need of real-time answers in some applications they have different requirements. Mixing and onion routing are concepts that try to create anonymity in networks. Various anonymizers use those techniques to provide anonymity for the purpose of — amongst others — sending E-mails, web browsing and chatting. Some of those porgrams are briefly depicted and compared, addressing problems and possible security breaches.