2 ms·
Sure a determined attacked with control over hardware in the network path can analyze the timing and packet sizes. However a smart application/protocol writer
by sliken 7y ago
Sure a determined attacked with control over hardware in the network path can analyze the timing and packet sizes.
However a smart application/protocol writer could make make a ping and a message delivery take the same number of bytes. Which of course means some wasted payload on pings.
Additionally if trying to track peers you could every N seconds send a ping OR a message. After all if you succeed in sending a message you know the peer is reachable.
So it's possible, but no idea how careful OpenPush is though.
- _-___________-_ 7y agoAny attacker in a position to inspect traffic in the path between a push service and a mobile device is probably determined. I agree about the countermeasures, though.
- sliken 7y agoI've pondered DHT nodes for a basis privacy protecting network of peers. There's a fair bit of traffic for tracking peers. Each peer could use their peerID as a public key. A bit of padding on the normal traffic (mostly get, put, ping, and findpeer) could hide messaging. Likely not a good fit for TCP streams (like tor), but could easily hide enough bandwidth for instant messaging (like signal) or email, er email like service. Could hide store/forwarding, include onion routing (bouncing through a few nodes), and be quite resistant to traffic analysis. If each node send X packets of Y bytes to Z nodes per minute then it would be quite hard indeed to tell who you were talking to. Maybe give peers a few choices in high bandwidth, medium bandwidth, and low bandwidth configurations. All would just vary in the number of nodes they track.