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It is an interesting idea, but the idea of sending dummy messages to
random users would mean spamming unintended recipients with
unintelligible text. While it would help hide you messages better,
it would backlash with complains from the random recipients. To
handle that, the messages would have to be sent only to users who
are using the same software and OTR plugins, and are all using the
same IM server, and letting the server itself send the bulk of the
dummy messages to everyone. The software would have to know that
it's getting dummy messages so it could also ignore them completely.<br>
<br>
Another thing to note is that sending dummy messages would increase
the amount of bandwidth you're using for the month, in some cases
might be drastic if not configured right. You wouldn't want to find
yourself with a massive service bill for using 500 GBs of bandwidth
in just a week. I know that's a major exaggeration, but it helps
give the idea.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/27/2013 1:25 PM, Hugo Herter
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color:
#000000;font-size: 10pt;">Hi all,<br>
<br>
I am a master student in Artificial Intelligence, doing a thesis<br>
on privacy technologies, more precisely on traffic analysis
resistance in the <br>
context of instant messaging.<br>
<br>
We am interested in developing a plug-in for IM clients to
conceal the users <br>
communication profiles (how often users communicate and with
whom) from the <br>
service provider.<br>
<br>
To achieve this, our strategy would be to have the IM client
generate dummy <br>
messages and mix them with the real traffic, thus introducing
noise in the <br>
communication profile observed by the service provider.<br>
Messages would be encrypted, as a first step to prevent the
service from <br>
filtering out the dummy traffic. In a second step, real
messages might also <br>
be made less distinguishable from dummy messages by slightly
delaying them, in <br>
an attempt to conceal their timing patterns.<br>
<br>
Moreover, dummy messages could be sent to friends only or to
both friends and <br>
random users. The former would conceal the actual "weights" in
the <br>
communication profile while revealing the list of contacts; the
latter would <br>
potentially allow to conceal the whole profile itself, both its
weights and <br>
the list of friends.<br>
<br>
I am aware that this approach is not perfect and generates an
excess in <br>
bandwidth, but the extra privacy and the compatibility with
existing IM <br>
platforms might justify it.<br>
<br>
I was wondering:<br>
<br>
Would anybody be interested in using such system ?<br>
Do you know of a tool doing something similar already ?<br>
Do you have any comments or ideas?<br>
<br>
Any comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated.<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
<div><br>
<div style="font-family:Tahoma; font-size:13px"><font
color="000080" face="Arial" size="2">Hugo Herter</font><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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