[ad_1]
Nym Technologies has a reputation for the mix of innovative technologies, and the company's main developer, David Stainton, has a very colorful approach when talking about this and his career, by extension:
"To be honest, we've been fucking this Mixnet concept for about 39 years."
There is a lot to say that is interesting about Nym, which operates as a startup based on technology specializing in stealth anonymity that boasts a broad vocabulary of activists focused on activism around privacy and cryptography. They are not lightweights when it comes to these disciplines.
So, while the company itself has a long list of contacts, what is the basic objective it has in mind? It was made clear by Harry Halpin, who previously was a consultant to Panoramix, who was a predecessor of Nym. In his words, the long-term goal is simple: to make the world anonymous.
One of the most recent iterations of this goal? That would be the portfolio of digital resources and cryptocurrency that was developed by Amir Taaki, who gained a very positive reputation as a designer, being involved in the development of Bitcoin. The portfolio itself is called "DarkWallet 2.0", which was given its name from the bitcoin wallet that was developed in 2014 with a special emphasis on preserving the private status of its respective users.
"We are working to bring together some of the best academics around the world, all in order to develop a completely anonymous and unrelated cryptocurrency from which users can benefit."
This is one of the statements Taaki recently made in a direct conversation.
The first manifestation of this portfolio based on the cryptocurrency for privacy, Taaki was able to codify an iteration and an application of the protocol protocol dedicated to privacy called MimbleWimble. This protocol allows a high level of scalability, manages to do so by joining a number of transactions together on the dedicated blockchain. One of the long-term goals, according to Taaki, is to allow the second version of Darkwallet to send transactions with virtually any type of cryptocurrency.
This represents a revolutionary and rather profound step forward, considering the position of dedicated cryptocurrencies and their relations with anonymity. A couple of examples of this include Monero, though sadly because of his use for crypto hacking, and ZCash, which gained popularity due to its application by the Venezuelans to get a suspension of dollars.
Both of these cryptocurrencies have an important emphasis on hiding transactions on the blockchain itself, which is useful for its daily users. While this provides a certain amount of anonymity, the method still makes it possible to make this information available at the network level.
One of the examples of this includes segments of information such as location data and an IP address of users can be made visible to other users.
While there are a number of protocols, systems and solutions that can help isolate this type of information from unwanted sets of eyes, such as Tor or VPN, they have their respective advantages and disadvantages. It is for the last reason that Nym is putting himself in the perfect position to solve these problems permanently.
The DarkWallet is one of the first steps forward when it comes to creating a total-ist ecosystem that rewards the anonymity of individual users, which Nym intends to support. As the world of blockchain technology advances, Nym tries to add from its system of anonymity, to add an open platform for applications that have the same emphasis on improved privacy solutions.
For those directly involved in the initiative, they see the initiative of DarkWallet and Nym as the best step forward in securing individual freedom in a digital age in which centralized institutions are clinging to more and more to the information of the people.
"When it comes to any kind of regime that insists on a pervasive level of surveillance over its citizens, there can be no such thing as freedom, especially when that control allows the same regime to manipulate and control the actions of a citizen." Halpin he continued. "There is only one way to fight for freedom in an era of surveillance of this kind: and this is building and using technology that enhances personal privacy".
Decentralized Out, Cyberpunk Future
The long-term aspirations demonstrated both in principle and in practice by Nym Technologies are highly recommendable for the simple fact that they are far-reaching. One of the first steps taken by the company was the development of a cryptocurrency portfolio that can provide a level of privacy for users when it comes to encrypting the storage and use, providing at the same time network level coverage.
"There has not been much progress in terms of what we might consider as anonymity at the network level." These types of solutions refer to the ability, in essence, to strike, not specifically on the level of a blockchain, but on a peer-to-peer level, allowing you to draft the peer from which a specific transaction comes. "
He works as one of the Inria de Paris researchers, as well as working as a former team member behind the W3C, otherwise known as the World Wide Web Consortium. Halpin made his opinions clear and clear.
Taken into consideration, the application of a Mix network allows us to correct this lack of innovation by working to obscure information about who is sending what to whom. This activity also remains unlinkable, even if an opposing user wants to get a hold of such specific information and how is it possible? All you need is an honest node to provide this type of security.
As a result of this capability, Taaki and its Darkwallet demonstrate an eloquent mix of networks that can be effectively used for the cryptocurrency world in order to achieve a much greater level of personal security and anonymity for users. This can be a safeguard against international opponents. This meant that Halpin referred to this as the creation of the "Cyberpunk dream".
"Only by obscuring the metadata at the network level will we finally be certain that there is an application that can provide users with a credible level of privacy," said Halpin. "If such a product did not exist, any type of powerful opponent, both near and international, can act to observe, extract and violate your privacy in an unfortunate way."
It is not exactly an insulated opinion from Halpin, Taaki is on the same figurative boat, adding then that it is because of tools like cryptocurrencies that offer full anonymity that allows crypto-involved enthusiasts to resist other oppressive governments, private forces and regulations. Something that is becoming increasingly important as governments take an increasingly stalker approach to keeping track of digital money focused on privacy.
Taaki would continue to work out the kind of battle lines that are drawn when it comes to technology.
"Right now, we are involved in a truly unique arms race between regulatory bodies that move at the speed of law and technology that has the potential to move at the speed of light, and if we have a resolute and combative attitude, this is a battle that the state will lose and lose badly ".
Enter the mix networks
As we take a backward step, Nym Technologies has managed to evolve dramatically, aided by research initially introduced by the European Union as a result of the revelations around Edward Snowden.
This commissioned work came together in the form of Panoramix, which was a research project made up of a number of researchers in various universities and has been actively working in recent years.
Some of the crucial areas of research in which Panoramix was directly involved were George Danezis, a resident author, academic and researcher at the University of the City of London. Danezis was responsible for the first implementations of the mixing network, and was instrumental in creating a system / solution called Loopix in tandem with a fellow researcher and colleague, Ania Piotrowska.
"The Nym project will take some of these implementations effectively to produce them," said Danezis.
Originally, mixnet is not necessarily a new concept. In fact, they are a rather old concept, and they were initially formulated by David Chaum almost thirty years ago, and is one of many projects that have been proposed by some of the most revolutionary thinkers of the Cyberpunk movement.
While mixnet is a notional theoretical concept, it would later be abandoned for later concepts and projects such as Tor which would have gained a considerable amount of popularity as an anonymous system of communication between users that has been in operation since the early 2000s.
The project itself was initially developed with the aim of being used for e-mail and communication services. Mix Networks was able to work by taking any information provided and mixing it. This means that at the time it is taken, it is rendered incomparable with the information that was previously entered by the user.
During the early stages of its application, a mixnet proved to be rather frustrating for users, mainly because it proved to be relatively unmanageable and expensive to use compared to more traditional systems and services.
According to Danezis, a mixnet was something that proved to be rather difficult to use in the early years, proves to be a more profitable product today thanks to the ever-changing landscape of the Internet economy. This means that Loopix is now able to get more anonymity for users at the expense of bandwidth in contrast to existing solutions.
To be more specific, previous mixnet iterations have allowed the decomposition and shuffling of information through the application of temporal delays intermittently when both have entered and left the system. Although this is an innovative method to ensure safety, there is no clear understanding of how long it would take a message to undergo this method, which would result in a higher level of user spending.
This is why Loopix retains this type of time delay, which is otherwise considered to be relatively low latency, but manages to do this by making sure that it does not sacrifice any level of anonymity for the user. Specifically, Loopix handles this by providing a greater volume of inbound traffic than the system, which allows for greater interruption in the model between messages at the cost of bandwidth.
"We work hard enough to ensure that the latency is kept at a very low level, which means it will arrive fairly quickly, but we are going to inject the loss of unnecessary traffic, but the sole purpose is to serve to confuse the 39; opponent "
Danezis continued to elaborate, continuing to explain:
"Because the bandwidth is much cheaper these days, it does not bother anyone – having a Loopix connection will be much less than watching Netflix have something similar running in the background."
The security of pseudonyms
As the company moves forward, the company intends to build what can be described as a broader ecosystem, each component that works with other areas in order to create a coherent whole that can provide a system that puts the user's privacy before any else.
An example of this is the intention of Taaki to add smart contracts to the new Darkwall, in this way, it can exchange between various cryptocurrencies. This would even allow them to host organizations that act independently, allowing them to interchange between cryptids.
"One of the preliminary steps in this process is the creation of fast, effective, truly anonymous and unreliable cryptos, after which we can discuss the perspective of decentralized exchanges and all the new application systems that can protect the identity of the 39; individual and anonymity, "explained Taaki.
For Nym Technologies, there are many hopes it has in providing support for the development of a completely anonymous system. An example is the Mix Network itself, which can be used for anything from secure messaging systems to a fully digitized voting system.
What helps to tie all this together is the application of a system based on the signature called Coconut, which was another project created by Danezis during his time at the UCL. In the center, Coconut has joined Mixnet to offer a completely anonymous system of credentials. This would allow any user to verify their identity on the Mixnet without putting themselves at risk.
"Ultimately, we aim to solve the underlying problems of authentication that is maintained in a way that respects personal privacy, and this is in tandem with the provision of a secure means of transport that does not lead to the accidental leakage of private information. This is the idea behind privacy-focused services, "said Danezis.
This type of system can then be used to authenticate users as they try to access various services, Danezis explained. This also provides an effective way to protect the Mixnet system from otherwise illicit Sybil-based attacks. Along with this, it can also be put to work in providing an attractive form of incentive for future services on the ecosystem.
"It is a very interesting, if not generic, infrastructure, but it is the one that does not genuinely care about what is done, as long as the application itself underlines the protection of safety. 39 is limit to what you can do ", he concluded.
It is in this research, Halpin explained that the cryptocurrency industry is in a unique and rare position compared to other industries. Although money has rarely been used by technology companies that have focused on personal online privacy enhancement, blockchain developments allow these initiatives to raise international capital that they would not otherwise have achieved on local or more "retro" funding structures. ".
"It's never been possible before this moment in history, it's a very special moment to be alive," Halpin said, concluding: "I really hope the criptwalute community will really double the cypherpunk's vision and try to make it a reality. it could be the last chance we have. "
[ad_2]Source link
