STRIP: Privacy-preserving vector-based routing

Security of routing protocols is a critical issue, as shown by the increasing number of attacks on the Internet´s routing infrastructure. One often overlooked aspect of security is privacy. In the context of a routing protocol we mean the ability of a router to keep information such as its routing policies private. BGP does this to some extent through design. An Autonomous System´s policies are not explicitly revealed to other participants in the routing protocol. Nevertheless, BGP still reveals a great deal of information about the Internet and its participants. We propose a privacy-preserving routing protocol called STRIP that reveals very little information to participants in the protocol. For instance, participants can find shortest-paths to destinations in the network without ever learning the path lengths. Such privacy could be useful for a range of reasons: preserving the proprietary information captured in a routing policy, or preventing an attacker from gaining valuable information about the network. We show the feasibility, performance, and costs of STRIP with simulations and implementations of the protocol.