Design of a mix network with elliptic curve cryptography and <scp>XOR</scp> shuffling for secure communication with 5‐node

Abstract This research paper proposes a novel 5‐node mix network, an anonymous communication network to boost privacy within the network. Within the proposed framework the crypto‐operations like encryption, decryption, and shuffling are held with the help of the Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and XOR algorithm. This unique combination helps to exchange the message within the communication network with enhanced security and privacy. To analyze the processing time and load factor at each intermediate node of mix network, an exhaustive experimental analysis is carried out for key sizes of 256, 384, and 512 bits respectively. These crypto‐operations like encryption, decryption, and XOR shuffling need varying time slots to perform at each intermediate node thereby having a varying load factor associated with them. The objective of this research is to analyze the processing time and load factor at each node within the 5‐node mix network thereby helping to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each intermediate node. Through our analysis, these percentages are computed, shedding light on the allocation of computational load and resource utilization among the nodes.