Genuine Onion: Simple, Fast, Flexible, and Cheap Website Authentication

Abstract

Tor is a communications infrastructure widely used for unfettered and anonymous access to Internet websites. Tor is also used to access sites on the .onion virtual domain. The focus of .onion use and discussion has traditionally been on the offering of hidden services, services that separate their reachability from the identification of their IP addresses. We argue that Tor's onion system can be used to provide an entirely separate benefit: basic website authentication. We also argue that not only can onionsites provide website authentication, but doing so is easy, fast, cheap flexible and secure when compared to alternatives such as the standard use of TLS with certificates.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 21, 2015
Accession Number
ADA621869

Entities

People

  • Griffin Boyce
  • Paul Syverson

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Authentication
  • Computer Communications
  • Convergence
  • Dark Web
  • Identification
  • Infrastructure
  • Internet
  • Military Research
  • Network Architecture
  • Network Protocols
  • Networks
  • Security
  • Small Business
  • Social Media
  • Standards
  • Validation
  • Web Browsers

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Cybersecurity.
  • Strategic Security Studies