Author: Dark Side of the Moon, PANews

Recently, the privacy network project Nym announced that it will test dVPN (decentralized virtual private network) NymVPN by the end of 2023 and gradually push it to the market in Q1 2024 as an entry point to promote large-scale adoption of Nym.

Unlike traditional VPN services, the innovation of NymVPN lies in hiding user metadata and then decentralizing the user traffic forwarding nodes to completely avoid the possibility of VPN service providers leaking user privacy and data.

In addition, Nym's network will play a more practical role in hundreds of nodes around the world. Furthermore, Nym's mainnet token will participate as a node operation incentive proof to promote the continuous growth of the network.

Finally, NymVPN will also adopt ZK (zero-knowledge proof) technology to obfuscate VPN data and its own Mixnet network traffic to evade potential technical detection and external identification, supporting the operation of privacy information transmission and financial activities such as payments.

NymVPN Technical Architecture

NymVPN combines dVPN and Mixnet modes in the same underlying network, providing additional layers of privacy and security.

NymVPN protects user privacy by rearranging data packets, which may impact network connection speed. However, NymVPN's Mixnet mode can provide stronger privacy protection by actively rearranging data packets to prevent packet timing analysis attacks, making it more secure than encryption methods like Tor.

This integrated approach effectively obfuscates data flow, making it difficult for external observers to distinguish between dVPN and Mixnet traffic. Therefore, NymVPN can support various applications and services, allowing users to freely configure instant messaging, chat applications, email clients, cryptocurrency wallets, and directly connect to the Nym mainnet to enhance privacy protection on these platforms and services.

Compared to other dVPN services, NymVPN features true decentralization and default multi-hop routing. In NymVPN's design, it includes both VPN and Mixnet modes, with differences mainly in terms of privacy and performance, focusing on the number of encrypted nodes during data routing:

• VPN mode: Encrypts traffic only at the entrance and exit to achieve higher performance, but still has certain privacy issues, suitable for daily user use.

• Mixnet mode: Encrypts traffic not only at the entrance and exit, but also at least three times during the flow of information. In this mode, users can obtain the highest level of privacy protection, but at the cost of some performance loss, resulting in longer communication times.

NymVPN uses ZK-NYMs technology to ensure users' zero-knowledge network access capabilities and provides a powerful mixed network mode to overcome privacy risks in traditional VPN payment processes, making it difficult to trace users' communication patterns overall.

ZK-NYMs is a zero-knowledge anonymous credential technology developed by Nym, which combines zero-knowledge technology with digital signatures in NymVPN, allowing users to access the Nym network and its services without revealing any sensitive information. ZK-NYMs provides complete anonymity, with no correlation between the user's identity or fiat currency payments and their activities on the network.

ZK-NYMs also provides selective disclosure functionality, allowing users to flexibly control which information or data needs to be displayed. In addition, in Nym's envisioned future Web3 ecosystem, zero-knowledge technologies such as ZK-NYMs will be widely used as optional solutions for private transactions without revealing the user's identity or transaction details.

Constructing a Large-Scale Nym Relay Network

Nym's network ensures the reliability and trustworthiness of nodes through its unique delegation mechanism. The delegation mechanism allows NYM token holders to delegate their tokens to trusted node operators, and underperforming nodes can be removed by the community.

The delegation mechanism not only maintains a relay node network but also aims to prevent malicious behaviors such as Sybil attacks. Delegators participating in and ensuring network integrity will also receive node rewards, and the staking mechanism ensures that node operators' interests align with Nym's privacy protection goals.

This is significantly different from traditional VPNs, where even though user information is encrypted during data transmission, "metadata" such as time, location, data type, etc., can still be collected during the collection process, allowing hackers and other third parties to detect user identities. Nym's significance lies in completely decentralizing VPN service providers, encrypting every aspect of user information.

In the future, NymVPN will support the connection of any network traffic, including high-load traffic such as games and videos. The current version of NymVPN's test version already supports configuring applications based on SOCKS5. In the near future, NymVPN will gradually expand this feature to enable connection with any application's network traffic (ICMP, TCP, UDP).

More precisely, NymVPN is not a Web3 VPN, but rather a VPN that utilizes encryption technology and token economics, focusing more on the actual needs of traditional users. For example, NymVPN's built-in fail-safe kill switch ensures that users are prevented from going online when the VPN or Mixnet mode fails.

Compared to traditional VPNs, NymVPN differs in several aspects:

• Traditional VPNs typically use a centralized approach managed by a centralized company, which may lead to visibility of user data and browsing history, posing potential privacy issues. In contrast, NymVPN uses a decentralized approach, preventing any single entity from associating users with their online activities through independently authorized third-party relay nodes, thereby protecting user privacy.

• NymVPN also provides default multi-hop routing, enhancing privacy protection. Traditional VPNs offer multi-hop functionality as an optional feature, and due to their centralized architecture, limit the effectiveness of this feature.

• NymVPN promotes community participation through community governance, stake delegation, and feedback mechanisms, unlike traditional providers such as IVPN, ProtonVPN, and MullvadVPN, which lack community involvement in the transparency of network nodes.

• NymVPN also provides an integrated solution, integrating dVPN and Mixnet in one application, making privacy protection a unified experience.

Conclusion

After receiving a commitment of $300 million in investment in October, Nym's main goal is to promote more encrypted privacy infrastructure construction. In this regard, NymVPN is its key product, undertaking the historic task of promoting large-scale adoption of Nym.

Currently, the active nodes on the Nym mainnet are around 240, while the current global mainstream VPN user base is over 1 billion, with star products like NordVPN having tens of millions of users. Whether Nym's encrypted incentive network model can handle such a large traffic volume is questionable.

However, NymVPN's approach is sound. It indeed represents the intersection of cryptographic economics and traditional user needs, and its emergence also signifies the mainstreaming of the cryptocurrency industry.

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