Chaum’s Protocol for Detecting Man-in-the-Middle: Explanation,
Demonstration, and Timing Studies for a Text-Messaging Scenario

Prof. Alan T. Sherman
UMBC Cyber Defense Lab

12-1pm Friday, 30 January 2015, ITE 228, UMBC

We explain, demonstrate, and evaluate Chaum’s 2006 protocol for detecting a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) of text-messaging network communications. MitM attacks pose serious risks to many network communications. Networks often mitigate these risks with robust protocols, such as TLS, which assume some type of public-key infrastructure that provides a mechanism for the authenticated exchange of public keys. By contrast, Chaum’s protocol aims to detect a MitM with minimal assumptions and technology, and in particular without assuming the authenticated exchange of public keys.

Joint work with John Seymour and Akshahraj Kore