{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T03:27:47Z","timestamp":1760239667297,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"24","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,19]],"date-time":"2020-12-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1608336000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["61772551"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["61772551"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007129","name":"Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["ZR2019MF034"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZR2019MF034"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007129","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Guangxi Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Information Security","award":["GCIS201811"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["GCIS201811"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Anonymous tracking technology of network watermarking is limited by the deployment of tracking devices in traditional network structure, resulting in poor scalability and reusability. Software Defined Network (SDN) boasts more freedom thanks to its separation of the control plane from the data plane. In this paper, a new anonymous communication tracking model SDN-based Anonymous Communication Tracking (SACT) is proposed, which introduces network watermarking into SDN and combines IP time hidden channel and symbol expansion technology. In addition, we introduce a hopping protection mechanism to improve the anti detection ability of the watermark as well. The experimental results show that in a variety of simulated network environments, SACT achieves excellent detection rate and bit error rate, thus it is sufficient to determine the communication relationship between the two parties. Meanwhile, SACT solves the deployment problem of anonymous tracking and improves the availability and scalability of covert communication.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20247300","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,21]],"date-time":"2020-12-21T01:01:08Z","timestamp":1608512468000},"page":"7300","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["SACT: A New Model of Covert Communication Based on SDN"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0460-1674","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Leyi","family":"Shi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China"},{"name":"Guangxi Key Laboratory of Cryptography and Information Security, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin 541004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yuxiao","family":"Song","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhiyu","family":"Xue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yihao","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Honglong","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Control Science and Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.1145\/290163.290168","article-title":"Crowds: Anonymity for web transactions","volume":"1","author":"Reiter","year":"1998","journal-title":"ACM Trans. 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