Research Article

K8s-enhanced lightweight simulation method for the Tor network

¹ Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, 102206, China
² Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

^* Corresponding author (email: shijinqiao@bupt.edu.cn)

Received: 8 September 2024
Revised: 25 October 2024
Accepted: 31 December 2024

Abstract

Criminals exploit the robust anonymity afforded by Tor for illicit purposes, prompting heightened interest among researchers in de-anonymization attacks on the Tor network. The execution of experiments on de-anonymization attacks within a real Tor network presents considerable challenges, hence the necessity for a simulation environment. However, existing methods for simulating the Tor network are inadequate regarding realism, flexibility, and scalability, with some being prohibitively expensive. In this paper, we develop a lightweight and scalable Tor network simulation environment based on Kubernetes (K8s), employing Docker containers to simulate Tor relays. The results demonstrate that a network of up to a thousand Tor relays can be simulated using just four standard hosts. Furthermore, two de-anonymization attack experiments were conducted within this simulated environment, which exhibited high levels of realism and flexibility. Finally, a hybrid networking approach combining multi-granularity relays was explored to enhance further the balance between realism and cost in Tor network simulations.