Suppose I am wirelessly transmitting network traffic between a computer and a router. As I understand it, even though the traffic is encrypted, it is possible for a third party attacker to intercept the data packets and observe their basic properties. From this they can infer (or at least make an educated guess about), for example, whether the computer is currently in use or not, and what kinds of applications are being used on the network (e.g. a VoIP call's packets would differ in size and frequency from HTTP packets).
I am interested in the (im)possibility of obfuscating network traffic in such a way as to undermine this kind of eavesdropping. So my questions are:
- Is it technically feasible and practical to obfuscate packets sent over a network when you control both ends of the transmission? For example, can one pad the packets to a uniform size and frequency (or randomize their size, etc.) without significantly degrading the performance of the network and without being able to modify the applications themselves?
- If yes, are there "off the shelf" solutions for implementing such obfuscation in a simple "one router, several desktops" kind of environment?