ANOCAST: Rethinking Broadcast Anonymity in the Case of Wireless Communication

Abstract

In this work we present the ANOCAST environment being an anonymous communication framework based on wireless technology having reached prototype status. By exploiting the availability of current broadcast communication systems (e. g. digital satellites and Wi-Fi) we achieve recipient anonymity and unobservability. We examine our approach by a simulation approach using a prototype implementation, raising several questions concerning its scalability, efficiency and possible application scenarios as well as a discussion on its security accomplishments.The key finding of our work shows that practicability of anonymous communication for the masses can be realised today and the community should rethink the common consensus that enormous traffic overhead jeopardises any practical anonymous communication system.