UC Santa Cruz

A router of a content centric network (CCN) can forward messages using anonymous identifiers. The router can receive an Interest via a first interface, and determines a first anonymous identifier (AID) that identifies a name-independent path to the Interest's source via the router. The router can identify a second interface for forwarding the Interest to a next-hop neighbor via CCN, and performs a bijective function on the first AID to obtain a second AID that is to be used by the next-hop neighbor to return a corresponding data packet to the router. The router updates the Interest to include the second AID, and forwards the Interest via the second interface toward the next-hop neighbor. When the router receives the data packet, the router performs a lookup operation in an anonymous routing table (ART), based on the AID, to determine an interface for forwarding the data packet toward the Interest's source.