The protocol of the NYM protocol launched NYMVPN, which it described as the “most secure VPN in the world” and said it would help protect users from government, corporate and AI monitoring.
The release came in the midst of an increasingly hostile global environment for privacy-focused products-one that saw governments crack in privacy projects and demanded encryption behind.
The VPN decentralized, launched on March 13, uses the “MixNet” of the NYM protocol to maintain completely unidentified users and ensure that no metadata can be attributed to any specific user, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph.
Halpin and NYM security adviser Chelsea Manning sat with Jonathan Deyoung, cointelegraph’s co-host The agenda Podcast, to discuss the release, the importance of privacy and how the NYM plans to navigate what seems to be a more specific space in privacy.
How nymvpn’s mixnet works
Halpin and Manning appeared in The agenda Podcast Back in December 2023 to discuss what their upcoming VPN project was. Halpin explained that mixnets work by sending airpled data to many servers while also adding “a little fake data” to throw away any attempt to check traffic, such as an advanced AI algorithm.
“Each packet is like a card, and the shuffle packs the cards and then sends it to the next server and sends it to the next server,” Halpin explained.
This is the opposite of the traditional Centralized VPN, where everything a user does is to be raised by VPN provider servers and where customers should put their trust in a specific company. Halpin said:
“If you sent your VPN data to ExpressVPN, Nordvpn and Mullvad VPN, they know everything about you. They know your IP address. They connect with your billing information. They know what websites you’re going to. It’s really kind of scary.”
Developing Privacy Software amongst global crackdowns
A few months after their Agenda The podcast look, Alexey Pertev Sent shockwaves through the industry.
According to Halpin, NYM is more likely to deal with the same type of legal problem as it is not financial infrastructure. “In all countries except for some repression, VPNs are legal, at least for now,” he said. “They fall under the so-called third-party intermediary lack of responsibility. (…) We are not responsible, at least under US law, for sending pieces from point A to point B.”
Related: AI makes it easier for governments to check you – NYM CEO
The nature of running a fully decentralized VPN that can be used completely anonymous means that there is no way to prevent anyone from using it for whatever reasons they want. Manning said Nym’s role is not to be “the arbiter or the determiner of what is and not surprising.” He added:
“It is not possible in a completely decentralized environment to stop them (bad actors). As we have no way to. If we do, I mean, we will be centralized.”
Most recently -only, various governments have driven the developers to implement the backdoors on their upcoming products. Apple has removed the end-to-end-encrypted iCloud service from the UK market after government demanding a backdoor, while the US Federal Bureau of Investigation recently said Forbes wants it to “responsible managed to be discrypted,” where “tech tech companies can provide readable content in response to an appropriate court order.”
Halpin and Manning said that if a government ever attempted to close NYMVPN down or arrest its developers, the NYM network is decentralized, so it should continue to run as usual. “In theory, we should run into a car, and the network will continue to work,” Halpin said.
Who will use NYMVPN?
The NYM team was in Ukraine in 2024 to Demo VPN and it presented to the Ukrainian government, and a representative from humanitarian NGO doctors spoke at the launch of March 13 Event. Halpin also shared that the team had talks with people in Syria.
The NYM Team Demos NYMVPN in Ukraine. Source: Nym
However, an anonymous and decentralized VPN is just that – not recognizable and decentralized. This means that the team behind it has no way of knowing who actually uses it and what they use, just using it.
As Manning puts it, “One of the problems with that question is that if people use technology, if they don’t tell us that they use technology, we won’t know.”
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