Bridging the gap between anonymous e‐mail and anonymous web browsing

Purpose – This paper aims to propose an anonymous web‐browsing protocol that harnesses some of the advantages of store‐and‐forward anonymity solutions whilst retaining some of the interactive properties of web browsing. Anonymity research on high latency, store‐and‐forward mediums such as e‐mail have led to comparatively well‐researched anonymity technologies. However, similar achievements have proven to be more difficult for low‐latency communications such as web browsing. Design/methodology/approach – A review of existing anonymity solutions notes the advantages of mix technologies versus the advantages offered by Onion Routing. A solution is presented that features a combined approach of both solutions. Findings – The proposed protocol differentiates between web requests and web responses – a request is treated as a store‐and‐forward message whilst the response is handled as a data stream. Originality/value – The solution described can be used by existing anonymous web browsing solutions in order to improve the level of anonymity whilst minimising the overhead of anonymously distributing web content.