On secure and pseudonymous client-relationships with multiple servers

  • Authors:
  • Daniel Bleichenbacher;Eran Gabber;Phillip B. Gibbons;Yossi Matias;Alain Mayer

  • Affiliations:
  • Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ;Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ;Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ;Computer Science Dept., Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel and Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ;Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ

  • Venue:
  • WOEC'98 Proceedings of the 3rd conference on USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce - Volume 3
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

This paper introduces a cryptographic engine, Janus, that assists clients in establishing and maintaining secure and pseudonymous relationships with multiple servers. The setting is such that clients reside on a particular subnet (e.g., corporate intranet, ISP) and the servers reside anywhere on the Internet. The Janus engine allows for each client-server relationship to use either weak or strong authentication on each interaction. At the same time, each interaction preserves privacy by neither revealing a client's true identity ("modulo" the subnet) nor the set of servers with which a particular client interacts. Furthermore, clients do not need any secure long-term memory, enabling scalability and mobility. The interaction model extends to allow servers to send data back to clients via e-mail at a later date. Hence, our results complement the functionality of current network anonymity tools and remailers