17,276 research outputs found
A Covert Data Transport Protocol
Both enterprise and national firewalls filter network connections. For data
forensics and botnet removal applications, it is important to establish the
information source. In this paper, we describe a data transport layer which
allows a client to transfer encrypted data that provides no discernible
information regarding the data source. We use a domain generation algorithm
(DGA) to encode AES encrypted data into domain names that current tools are
unable to reliably differentiate from valid domain names. The domain names are
registered using (free) dynamic DNS services. The data transmission format is
not vulnerable to Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, conferenc
Covert Channels in SIP for VoIP signalling
In this paper, we evaluate available steganographic techniques for SIP
(Session Initiation Protocol) that can be used for creating covert channels
during signaling phase of VoIP (Voice over IP) call. Apart from characterizing
existing steganographic methods we provide new insights by introducing new
techniques. We also estimate amount of data that can be transferred in
signalling messages for typical IP telephony call.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Using Transcoding for Hidden Communication in IP Telephony
The paper presents a new steganographic method for IP telephony called
TranSteg (Transcoding Steganography). Typically, in steganographic
communication it is advised for covert data to be compressed in order to limit
its size. In TranSteg it is the overt data that is compressed to make space for
the steganogram. The main innovation of TranSteg is to, for a chosen voice
stream, find a codec that will result in a similar voice quality but smaller
voice payload size than the originally selected. Then, the voice stream is
transcoded. At this step the original voice payload size is intentionally
unaltered and the change of the codec is not indicated. Instead, after placing
the transcoded voice payload, the remaining free space is filled with hidden
data. TranSteg proof of concept implementation was designed and developed. The
obtained experimental results are enclosed in this paper. They prove that the
proposed method is feasible and offers a high steganographic bandwidth.
TranSteg detection is difficult to perform when performing inspection in a
single network localisation.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, 4 table
SecMon: End-to-End Quality and Security Monitoring System
The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is becoming a more available and
popular way of communicating for Internet users. This also applies to
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems and merging these two have already proven to be
successful (e.g. Skype). Even the existing standards of VoIP provide an
assurance of security and Quality of Service (QoS), however, these features are
usually optional and supported by limited number of implementations. As a
result, the lack of mandatory and widely applicable QoS and security guaranties
makes the contemporary VoIP systems vulnerable to attacks and network
disturbances. In this paper we are facing these issues and propose the SecMon
system, which simultaneously provides a lightweight security mechanism and
improves quality parameters of the call. SecMon is intended specially for VoIP
service over P2P networks and its main advantage is that it provides
authentication, data integrity services, adaptive QoS and (D)DoS attack
detection. Moreover, the SecMon approach represents a low-bandwidth consumption
solution that is transparent to the users and possesses a self-organizing
capability. The above-mentioned features are accomplished mainly by utilizing
two information hiding techniques: digital audio watermarking and network
steganography. These techniques are used to create covert channels that serve
as transport channels for lightweight QoS measurement's results. Furthermore,
these metrics are aggregated in a reputation system that enables best route
path selection in the P2P network. The reputation system helps also to mitigate
(D)DoS attacks, maximize performance and increase transmission efficiency in
the network.Comment: Paper was presented at 7th international conference IBIZA 2008: On
Computer Science - Research And Applications, Poland, Kazimierz Dolny
31.01-2.02 2008; 14 pages, 5 figure
Systemization of Pluggable Transports for Censorship Resistance
An increasing number of countries implement Internet censorship at different
scales and for a variety of reasons. In particular, the link between the
censored client and entry point to the uncensored network is a frequent target
of censorship due to the ease with which a nation-state censor can control it.
A number of censorship resistance systems have been developed thus far to help
circumvent blocking on this link, which we refer to as link circumvention
systems (LCs). The variety and profusion of attack vectors available to a
censor has led to an arms race, leading to a dramatic speed of evolution of
LCs. Despite their inherent complexity and the breadth of work in this area,
there is no systematic way to evaluate link circumvention systems and compare
them against each other. In this paper, we (i) sketch an attack model to
comprehensively explore a censor's capabilities, (ii) present an abstract model
of a LC, a system that helps a censored client communicate with a server over
the Internet while resisting censorship, (iii) describe an evaluation stack
that underscores a layered approach to evaluate LCs, and (iv) systemize and
evaluate existing censorship resistance systems that provide link
circumvention. We highlight open challenges in the evaluation and development
of LCs and discuss possible mitigations.Comment: Content from this paper was published in Proceedings on Privacy
Enhancing Technologies (PoPETS), Volume 2016, Issue 4 (July 2016) as "SoK:
Making Sense of Censorship Resistance Systems" by Sheharbano Khattak, Tariq
Elahi, Laurent Simon, Colleen M. Swanson, Steven J. Murdoch and Ian Goldberg
(DOI 10.1515/popets-2016-0028
New security and control protocol for VoIP based on steganography and digital watermarking
In this paper new security and control protocol for Voice over Internet
Protocol (VoIP) service is presented. It is the alternative for the IETF's
(Internet Engineering Task Force) RTCP (Real-Time Control Protocol) for
real-time application's traffic. Additionally this solution offers
authentication and integrity, it is capable of exchanging and verifying QoS and
security parameters. It is based on digital watermarking and steganography that
is why it does not consume additional bandwidth and the data transmitted is
inseparably bound to the voice content.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
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