The Research on Covert Communication Model Based on Blockchain: A Case Study of Ethereum’s Whisper Protocol

Abstract

AbstractCovert communication is an extension of the traditional encryption technology, which hides information through carriers such as text and images. Traditional covert communication relies on a third-party central node, which is easy to be detected and attacked. As a new type of decentralized technology, blockchain has been widely developed in recent years. Its anti-interference, anti-tampering and other characteristics can effectively alleviate the problems faced by traditional covert communications. Combining with blockchain technology to design an effective and feasible hidden communication model and method becomes the focus of research. To this end, this paper designs a new covert communication model suitable for Ethereum based on the whisper protocol. First, we introduce the covert communication model under the blockchain, as well as the whisper protocol in Ethereum. Then, based on the characteristics and structure of the whisper protocol, a new type of covert communication method was designed. Finally, the anti-jamming, anti-tampering and anti-detection of the model are proved, and its information embedding and transmission efficiency are also evaluated by comparing with the time-based covert communication.KeywordsCovert communicationBlockchainEthereum