NYMBLE BLOCKING SYSTEM

In order to allow users to access Internet services privately, anonymizing networks like Tor uses a series of routers to hide the client’s IP address from the server. These networks, however, have been marred by users employing this anonymity for abusive purposes such as defacing popular web sites. Usually, web site administrators rely on IP-address blocking in order to disable access to misbehaving users, but it is impractical if the abuser routes through an anonymizing network. In order to avoid this, administrators bar all known exit nodes of the anonymizing network, thereby denying anonymous access to all the users (whether misbehaving or not). To solve this issue, we introduce Nymble, a system where servers blacklist misbehaving users, thereby blocking users without affecting their anonymity. Nymble is thus agnostic to varied definitions of misbehavior. Servers can block users for any reason, and the privacy of blacklisted users is not affected in any case.