An analysis of anonymizer technology usage

Abstract

Anonymity techniques provide legitimate usage such as privacy and freedom of speech, but are also used by cyber criminals to hide themselves. In this paper, we provide usage and geo-location analysis of major anonymization systems, i.e., anonymous proxy servers, remailers, JAP, I2P and Tor. Among these systems, remailers and JAP seem to have minimal usage. We then provide a detailed analysis of Tor system by analyzing traffic through two relays. Our results indicate certain countries utilize Tor network more than others. We also analyze anonymity systems from service perspective by inspecting sources of spam e-mail and peer-to-peer clients in recent data sets. We found that proxy servers are used more than other anonymity techniques in both. We believe this is due to proxies providing basic anonymity with minimal delay compared to other systems that incur higher delays. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.