NymVPN: The First Real-World Decentralized Noise-Generating Mixnet for Anonymity

Nym is the first decentralized noise-generating mixnet to provision real-world network anonymity to Internet users even against nation-state adversaries. The aim here is to supersede existing VPNs in order to fight increasingly more powerful authoritarianism and surveillance. Unlike traditional centralized VPNs that can be de-anonymized by a global passive adversary - like the NSA - based on their traffic patterns, Nym adds noise (“cover traffic”) to existing Internet communications. Similar to Tor, Nym routes each packet separately over a decentralized network of servers, but unlike Tor, mixes traffic and adds noise at each hop. It has both a “fast” and “anonymous” mode. The “fast” mode features speeds comparable to centralized VPNs using the same decentralized network as the mixnet, but without mixing. We will also explore the effect on anonymity of fine-tuning cover traffic, mix delays, and the rate of the Poisson distribution. We'll briefly overview upcoming features on censorship-resistance and postquantum cryptographic security on the network-level Via the SDK, the Nym mixnet remains free to use by hackers to build the next generation of privacy infrastructure.