Extended Abstract: Shaperd: Easily Adoptable Real-Time Traffic Shaper for Fully Encrypted Protocols
For users of encrypted circumvention tools in censored regions, Shaperd provides an easily adoptable defense against traffic analysis and active probing attacks.
Shaperd is a real-time traffic shaper for fully encrypted protocols that helps them resist censorship by modifying packet contents to achieve desired traffic features, with minimal throughput overhead.
Fully encrypted protocol-based tools (FEPs) are tools commonly used to circumvent censorship in restrictive regions, valued for their performance and security. However, in recent years, censors have been able to block them using an array of attacks based on passive traffic analysis and active probing. We propose Shaperd, an easily adoptable and real-time traffic shaper designed specifically to aid FEPs become more resilient to detection. Shaperd operates directly on packet contents in real time, using a novel constraint system to allow its users to generate traffic flows with any desired features. Our preliminary results reveal Shaperd introduces minimal overhead to the underlying system's throughput.