An Anonymous Whistle-Blower and Document-Sharing Network
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Int'l Conf. Security and Management | SAM'15 | 157 WARP Net: An Anonymous Whistle-blower and Document-Sharing Network Sean C. Mondesire College of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA Abstract— Recently, whistle-blowing media articles have With WARP Net, we contribute a simple, decentralized net- revealed wide-scale ethics violations and questionable gov- work where whistle-blowing documents and memorandums ernment and business behavior. These stories are grabbing are anonymously distributed. the headlines and shaking up global political and corporate The differences between WARP Net and other P2P over- landscapes. The alarming activities include improper busi- lay networks are in the proposed network’s n-tiered user- ness practices, gross negligence, and legal actions performed structure, data hopping, and ability to self-organize. The by some of the largest and most influential institutions combination of each of these features is dedicated to address around the globe. Unfortunately, there are many cases of specific security issues prevalent in popular P2P networks, negative repercussions on the whistle-blowers, the individ- including the identification of data sources and requesters. uals who are bringing awareness of these questionable Furthermore, this network addresses security issues prevalent behaviors. in other P2P networks, such as man-in-the-middle attacks This work addresses the problem of whistle-blower safety and mass malicious user collaboration. Through experimen- by providing a secure mechanism for information distribu- tation, we demonstrate the feasibility of the overlay network tion that protects the identity of its sources. We accomplish and analyze the impact of the data hopping on network this goal by presenting WARP Net, an anonymous peer-to- traffic. To do so, a data transfer comparison is made between peer overlay network that is centered on data hopping. With WARP Net and FreeNet, an established anonymous P2P WARP Net, we contribute a simple, decentralized network network that serves as the inspiration for many modern peer- where whistle-blowing documents and memorandums can based networks. be anonymously distributed. Through experimentation, we The paper is organized in the following manner: first, validate the feasibility of WARP Net by comparing its data a discussion is made on related P2P networks and the transfer and routing protocol with FreeNet, an established security challenges they face. Second, we define WARP anonymous peer-to-peer network. Net, covering the network’s topology, message routing, and self-organization. Finally, a demonstration of the network’s Keywords: Peer-to-Peer, Anonymous Document Sharing, feasibility is provided with an evaluation of its anonymous Whistle-blowing. message routing. 1. Introduction 2. Background Whistle-blower reporting of ethics violations and ques- tionable practices in politics, government, and the corpo- Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking is a type of information rate world is a recent emerging and popular media trend. distribution where individual networked computers (nodes) This type of reporting has uncovered incidents of improper share data directly with each other. This type of distribu- business practices, employee and animal abuses, and gross tion counters client-server based networks, where dedicated negligence . Furthermore, whistle-blowers have uncovered servers store and distribute data to nodes. P2P networks have questionable behaviors performed by government agencies, gained wide-spread popularity in the early 2000s with the including widespread surveillance programs and corruption presence of file-sharing software Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa, of power [1], [2]. Unfortunately, many whistle-blowers re- LimeWire, and Morpheus [6], [7], [8]. These and other ceive negative consequences after coming forward, resulting P2P file-sharing networks have allowed users from across in job termination, harassment, death threats, and legal the Internet to share and access media and document files persecution (ranging from being sued for financial damages effortlessly. Due to large-scaled copyright infringement and to being tried for treason) [3], [4], [5]. intellectual property and illegal material distribution, many This work addresses the problem of whistle-blower safety of these early P2P networks have been forced to become by providing a secure mechanism for information distribu- inactive or change their distribution method due to govern- tion that protects the identity of its sources. We accomplish ment and commercial prosecution [9], [10], [11]. In addition, this goal by presenting WARP Net, an anonymous peer-to- organizations, such as the Recording Industry Association peer (P2P) overlay network that is centered on data hopping. of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of 158 Int'l Conf. Security and Management | SAM'15 | America (MPAA) has filed lawsuits against individual P2P cripple the network’s servers [18]. Anonymous P2P net- users for copyright infringement and the illegal distribution works face additional threats, including source identification of intellectual property [12]. These lawsuits have encouraged techniques, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, computer the development of decentralized, anonymous P2P networks network exploitation, and group collaborating. Man-in-the- that are robust and fault tolerant, hide the identity of its data middle (MitM) attacks occur when a third-party interrupts sources, and protect the activity of their users from third- the transfer of data between two, normally directly con- parties. nected, computers. This attack allows the MitM to intercept- then-forward data transmission, falsify data, compromise 2.1 Anonymous P2P Technologies encryption keys, and pinpoint the data origins. Computer Freenet is one of the first widely used anonymous P2P network exploitation (CNE) is a sophisticated method of networks that aimed at protecting user activity [13]. The net- data eavesdropping where a third-party is able to isolate work is a decentralized data store which heavily relies on its all network information entering and exiting an Internet IP; key-based routing system to protect queries and file retrieval. this type of attack has compromised the identity of data In essence, Freenet is a network of nodes communicating sources on the anonymous network Tor [19]. Finally, group with one another through the use of encrypted messages. collaboration occurs when a trusted P2P group is infiltrated Freenet nodes connect to several other users running the with a large portion of collaborating users with the intention Freenet protocol to establish a network of neighbors. When to undermine data hopping. Here, the collaborators share a node wishes to query for a file, encrypted messages are data hopping information to assist in the identification of passed from neighbor to neighbor. When a query command data sources and queries. Due to the complexity and resource is received, the node will search its local data store to detect required to execute a successful CNE, the presented work fo- if portions of the file are stored locally or if the location cuses on countering MitM attacks and group compromising. is known on the network, and return the results to the One generally successful method to counter MitM attacks neighbor who passed the query message. If the file location and group collaboration is the enforcement of the Friend-to- is unknown to a node, the query message is passed to that Friend philosophy for P2P networks. The main idea behind node’s neighbors. If the file location is not known after Friend-to-Friend (F2F) networks is that nodes only connect reaching a predefined search depth, messages are returned to nodes either they can trust or to nodes a friend of in reverse order, notifying neighbors a search branch has someone in a friend-of-a-friend web can trust. Files are not located the file. The use of relaying messages from only shared and queries are only made within a web-of- node-to-node guarantees the anonymity of the query author. trust where each node can be traced to another node through The guarantee is made since nodes can always claim to ’friend’ associations. Unfortunately, the enforcement of a be relaying another node’s query. To further enforce the F2F network does not guarantee complete security as it anonymity of users, Freenet encrypts and fragments shared carries two major disadvantages: 1) malicious "friendly" files to distribute the content across the network. Here, if nodes can infiltrate a network and 2) files outside of the a consumer knows the identity of the file producer, the friend web are unreachable. producer cannot be held accountable for the file transmission since it cannot have any idea of what file it is sharing. 3. WARP Net Other anonymous P2P systems include GNUnet [14], WARP Net is a P2P overlay network that is designed Free Haven [15], and the popular Tor Project [16]. Similar to protect the activity of its users. Particularly, WARP Net to Freenet, these systems incorporate message hopping to anonymizes data sources (whistle-blowers) and distributes establish anonymity and claim to be censorship-resistant. their documents to their intended in-network destinations. In particular, Tor focuses on anonymizing a user’s Internet The network employs a public-key cryptosystem to guard activity by forwarding network requests between nodes until network messages from prying eyes internal and external of a time-to-live (TTL) has expired. Upon expiration,