DNS-sly: Avoiding censorship through network complexity

Qurat Ul Ann Danyal Akbar; Marcel Flores; Aleksandar Kuzmanovic

DNS-sly: Avoiding censorship through network complexity

Qurat Ul Ann Danyal Akbar, Marcel Flores, Aleksandar Kuzmanovic

Computer Science

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We design DNS-sly, a counter-censorship system which enables a covert channel between a DNS client and server. To achieve covertness and deniability in the upstream direction, DNS-sly applies user personalization, adapting to individual behaviors. In the downstream direction, it utilizes CDN-related DNS responses to embed data, while retaining statistical covertness. We show DNS-sly achieves downstream throughput of up to 600 Bytes of raw hidden data per click on a regular Web page, making it a practical system in the context of a covert Web proxy service. We implement DNS-sly and evaluate it in a known censorship environment, demonstrating its real-world usability.

Original language	English (US)
State	Published - Jan 1 2016
Event	6th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet, FOCI 2016, co-located with USENIX Security 2016 - Austin, United States Duration: Aug 8 2016 → …

Conference

Conference	6th USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet, FOCI 2016, co-located with USENIX Security 2016
Country/Territory	United States
City	Austin
Period	8/8/16 → …

Funding

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via grant CNS-1526052.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Networks and Communications
Software

Cite this

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AB - We design DNS-sly, a counter-censorship system which enables a covert channel between a DNS client and server. To achieve covertness and deniability in the upstream direction, DNS-sly applies user personalization, adapting to individual behaviors. In the downstream direction, it utilizes CDN-related DNS responses to embed data, while retaining statistical covertness. We show DNS-sly achieves downstream throughput of up to 600 Bytes of raw hidden data per click on a regular Web page, making it a practical system in the context of a covert Web proxy service. We implement DNS-sly and evaluate it in a known censorship environment, demonstrating its real-world usability.

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DNS-sly: Avoiding censorship through network complexity

Abstract

Conference

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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