[55950] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Traffic Analysis References
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Wed Oct 25 13:38:45 2006
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X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:12:00 -0400
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
To: George Danezis <george.danezis@esat.kuleuven.be>
Cc: Leandro Meiners <lmeiners@gmail.com>,
Cryptography <cryptography@metzdowd.com>
In-Reply-To: <453C8EB5.1080007@esat.kuleuven.be>
On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:43:17 +0200, George Danezis
<george.danezis@esat.kuleuven.be> wrote:
> Hi Leandro,
>
> I am compiling a review paper on traffic analysis as well as a talk.
> They can be found here:
>
> http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~gdanezis/TAIntro.pdf
> http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~gdanezis/talks/TAIntro-prez.pdf
>
> These will soon be expanded (by January) since they are going to be
> presented as a talk to the CCC (Berlin) as well as a book chapter.
>
> If anyone with material on the subject can give me more pointers I would
> be most grateful.
>
Very nice summary. I'd add a few things.
First, on a topical note, Hewlett-Packard obtained call records of various
people, including members of its own board and reporters for major
publications. In other words, there's a private sector threat. Second,
in many cases the beauty of traffic analysis is that it can be done after
the fact. Phone companies don't keep recordings of all conversations;
they do keep billing data.
In a legal vein, in some jurisdictions (i.e., the U.S.) traffic analysis
warrants are *much* easier to obtain than wiretaps. Philosophically, the
distinction is because traffic analysis data (and in particular telephone
calling records) is information that was voluntarily given to a third
party, the phone company. There is thus no expectation of privacy.
Again, this is U.S. law; your jurisdiction's law may vary.
Finally, you should cite the Zendian problem, since it's a classic
published training exercise.
--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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