[tor-talk] Latest Research Trends in Tor Security

[Philipp Winter]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 08:39:22AM +0000, Imran Ahmad wrote:
> Dear All  I am going to start my PhD and I have chosen "Tor Security" as my research area.
> I am going to prepare my PhD research proposal.
> It is requested to suggest some latest topics in Tor security and some useful links and resources.

In general, have a look at AnonBib: <http://www.freehaven.net/anonbib/>
Here are three important topics off the top of my head:

- Tor is an overlay network, which brings with it a number of problems.
  Recently, folks have been working on ways to move anonymity networks
  to lower layers in the network stack.  That includes systems such as
  LAP (Security and Privacy 2012), Dovetail (PETS 2014), and HORNET (CCS
  2015).

- A lot of work went into making Tor more resistant to censorship.  All
  relevant papers are on: <https://censorbib.nymity.ch>

- Some folks have tried to come up with better path selection algorithms
  for Tor, e.g., algorithms that have an understanding of Internet
  topology.  That includes:
  * "AS-awareness in Tor path selection" by Edman and Syverson
  * "LASTor: A Low-Latency AS-Aware Tor Clien" by Akhoondi et al.
  * "Measuring and Mitigating AS-level Adversaries Against Tor" by
    Nithyanand et al.

Depending on what exactly you mean by security (e.g., crypto,
end-to-end correlation, website fingerprinting, ...), there are more
sub-fields to look into.