TorKameleon: Improving Tor's Censorship Resistance with K-anonymization and Media-based Covert Channels

Abstract

Anonymity networks like Tor significantly enhance online privacy but are vulnerable to correlation attacks by state-level adversaries. While covert channels encapsulated in media protocols, particularly WebRTC-based encapsulation, have demonstrated effectiveness against passive traffic correlation attacks, their resilience against active correlation attacks remains unexplored, and their compatibility with Tor has been limited. This paper introduces TorKameleon, a censorship evasion solution designed to protect Tor users from both passive and active correlation attacks. TorKameleon employs K-anonymization techniques to fragment and reroute traffic through multiple TorKameleon proxies, while also utilizing covert WebRTC-based channels or TLS tunnels to encapsulate user traffic.