Abstract

Department of Defense (DOD) use of commercial networks entails unprecedented reliance on untrusted third-party communications infrastructure, and the associated risk of exposing DOD communications to an adversary. Traversing adversary-controlled infrastructure allows DOD’s adversaries to recognize, disrupt, or extract intelligence even from encrypted communications. The resulting arms race of obfuscation vs intelligence techniques is inherently limited: with each new obfuscation, DOD can never know if it fools the adversary, or if the adversary is lulling DOD into a false sense of security.

Date

October 28, 2024

Authors

Alexander Marder, Jon Larrea, Kc Claffy, Erik Kline, Kyle Jamieson, Bradley Huffaker, Lincoln Thurlow, Matthew Luckie

Conference

MILCOM 2024-2024 IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM)

Pages

647-648

Publisher

IEEE