MIMIQ: Masking IP addresses with Migration In QUIC

Abstract

Maintaining privacy and anonymity while browsing the Web is a major concern among Internet users. While most components of Internet traffic are encrypted, user IP addresses remain visible to any eavesdropper. Adversaries can use this information to identify users, build profiles on them, and even censor content. Generally, adversaries rely on users maintaining static IP addresses to eavesdrop successfully. But if a user were to change their IP address frequently, an adversary will find it difficult to use IP address information to identify or link traffic to the user. Using certain features of the QUIC transport protocol, we propose a novel method based on this idea to anonymize users’ IP address information.