Scientists tout cloaking tool for search engines

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 6 Nov 2009 at 11:37

Catalan researchers have developed a protocol they say can protect a surfer's identity when using search engines, a move that could protect human rights in censorship-heavy countries such as China.

The system uses rerouting, cryptography and obfuscation to maintain anonymity for search engine users, and does so without the significant time-lag problems of current anonymisers, the scientists claim.

“Google and the other search engines create a profile for each user based on what they are searching for, and this can be used for any number of reasons – in some places it can be used by governments to censor the population,” Jordi Castellà-Roca, a lead scientist on the project, told PC Pro.

Our software distorts the information so that the search engine doesn't know where or who the request is coming from

“Our software distorts the information so that the search engine doesn't know where or who the request is coming from,” said Castellà-Roca. "It is a model based on cryptographic tools which distort the profile of users when they use search engines on internet.”

Although there are other systems that provide anonymous navigation - such as the notoriously slow Tor network – the scientists say their system "offers a clear improvement in response time".

The drawback for browsers is that they lose some search-engine functionality. “Because we are hiding who we are, the search engine cannot serve the specialised content, such as results tailored to what you have looked at in the past,” said Castellà-Roca. “But that's the price of privacy.”

The scientists - from the Rovira i Virgili University, the Autónoma of Barcelona and the Oberta of Catalonia - claim they have already tested a prototype in closed intranet and open internet environments, and expect an as-yet-unnamed tool to be made available to the public next April.