The cost of location privacy in locator/identifier-split architectures

Abstract

The locator/identifier separation paradigm is widely considered to be a feasible solution to the problematic issues of today's Internet architecture. This approach, however, introduces a novel problem by revealing a node's location information to all of its peers. Thus, each node becomes trackable. To overcome this problem, a solution is required which is able to hide location information while not limiting connectivity at the same time. So far, few proposals have been made to address this problem. In this paper, the concepts are analyzed and evaluated based on the costs introduced to the network due to overhead. The paper shows the overall costs for a privacy solution and the importance to implement mechanisms to limit additional required transit traffic.