Studying Timing Analysis on the Internet with SubRosa

Abstract. Timing analysis poses a significant threat to anonymity systems that wish to support low-latency applications like Web browsing, instant messaging, and Voice over IP (VoIP). Research into timing analysis so far has been done through simulations or unrealistic local area networks. We developed SubRosa, an experimental platform for studying timing analysis attacks and defenses in low-latency anonymity systems. We present results of experiments on PlanetLab, a globally distributed network testbed. Our experiments validate the major conclusions, but not the detailed results, obtained by prior simulation studies. We also propose a new lightweight defense based on the principles of mix design called γ-buffering and show the limitations of this approach. Finally, motivated by our experimental results, we introduce spike analysis, a new timing analysis technique that takes advantage of unusual delays in a stream to substantially reduce errors over prior techniques.