CAREER: Private Communication in Strongly Adversarial Networks

沟通和随时获取信息的能力有助于实现积极的社会和政治变革。互联网对发展中国家的教育、经济和政府机构的影响已经被社会科学家和技术专家很好地探讨过。然而，不幸的是，在许多情况下，不民主的政府监控和审查互联网通信，试图控制他们的人民。尽管有许多现有技术支持在受限制的对手只控制一小部分网络并且资源有限的情况下进行私有通信，但我们目前缺乏在网络完全由民族国家对手控制时实现匿名通信的解决方案。本研究开发了提供未经过滤、匿名和高性能互联网接入的方法，即使在强大的民族国家对手存在的情况下也是如此。该项目(i)研究使用新型隐藏通道改善严格监管网络中连通性的方法，（ii）提高匿名网络对拒绝服务攻击的弹性，（iii）引入检测匿名网络中可疑行为的技术，以及（iv）通过开发新型匿名协议和算法实现高性能匿名消息传递。该项目的隐私和安全主题已被整合到乔治城新成立的博士项目开发的安全课程中。更广泛地说，该项目通过提高私人获取信息的能力使社会受益，即使在高压政府控制的网络中也是如此。该项目将增加目前通讯能力较弱的群体的参与，并将为无法获得自由通讯的地区提供不受限制的互联网接入。

The ability to communicate and readily access information helps make possible positive social and political change. The Internet's effects on developing nations' educational, economic, and governmental institutions have been well explored by social scientists and technical experts. However, in unfortunately many instances, undemocratic governments monitor and censor Internet communication to attempt to control their populations. Although there are a number of existing technologies that support private communication in the presence of a restricted adversary who controls only a fraction of the network and has limited resources, we currently lack solutions that enable anonymous communication when the network is fully controlled by a nation-state adversary.This research develops methods of providing unfiltered, anonymous, and high performance Internet access, even in the presence of strong nation-state adversaries. The project (i) investigates methods of improving connectivity in heavily regulated networks using novel hidden channels, (ii) improves the resilience of anonymity networks to denial-of-service attacks, (iii) introduces techniques for detecting suspicious behavior in anonymity networks, and (iv) enables high performance anonymous messaging through the development of novel anonymity protocols and algorithms.The project's themes of privacy and security have been integrated into security courses developed for Georgetown's newly established Ph.D. program. More broadly, the project benefits society by improving the ability to privately access information, even in networks controlled by oppressive governments. The project will increase the participation of groups whose ability to communicate is currently muted, and will provide unfettered Internet access to regions in which free communication would otherwise be unavailable.