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Abstract

Internet addresses are routinely being used to infer the identity of persons who send offending traffic – a capability they were not designed to provide. As a result, problems abound: innocent users are being accused, while the culprits can easily avoid detection. In this paper, we present Pretty Good Packet Authentication (PGPA), a simple service that can establish whether or not a given host has sent a particular packet. PGPA provides a firm basis on which to act against the culprit, and, at the same time, it enables innocent users to defend themselves against false accusations. We also describe an implementation of PGPA that can be deployed incrementally and with minimal changes to the current Internet.