STRIP: Privacy-preserving vector-based routing

Abstract

Security of routing protocols is a critical issue, as shown by the increasing number of attacks on the Internet's routing infrastructure. One often overlooked aspect of security is privacy. In the context of a routing protocol we mean the ability of a router to keep information such as its routing policies private. BGP does this to some extent through design. An Autonomous System's policies are not explicitly revealed to other participants in the routing protocol. Nevertheless, BGP still reveals a great deal of information about the Internet and its participants. We propose a privacy-preserving routing protocol called STRIP that reveals very little information to participants in the protocol. For instance, participants can find shortest-paths to destinations in the network without ever learning the path lengths. Such privacy could be useful for a range of reasons: preserving the proprietary information captured in a routing policy, or preventing an attacker from gaining valuable information about the network. We show the feasibility, performance, and costs of STRIP with simulations and implementations of the protocol.