September 2022 - Nym mixnet now usable with Telegram, Electrum and Keybase
Dear friends, fellow builders, backers and trolls,
Welcome to the monthly highlights from the world of Nym!?The main focus of team efforts is to get the privacy powers of the mixnet into the hands of as many people as quickly as possible. And the first step for doing this is?NymConnect, our one-button interface for privacy enhancing ordinary applications, turning them from apps, to PEApps!??Join Discord?to hear more.
Beyond Nym, the long-awaited Ethereum merge has been on everyone's minds this week and was completed yesterday on 15th September. However, the necessary work is far from finished as the transition to POS brings about the issue of validator privacy. We explain why this is so and why network privacy is more important than ever before in our?latest blog post here.
Meanwhile, research and development continues on optimising the mixnet infrastructure. Read on...
Tech
Apply via Shipyard to run a gateway - help us defeat censorship
Nym's Shipyard programme is gathering steam, and the first wave of grants have now been made. Shipyard is our beta space for testing and getting funding for new privacy enhanced applications.
We are still keen to hear from anyone who wants to run a gateway-network requester pair as we continue to add new apps to NymConnect. We are currently testing censorship resistance so get in touch if you are willing to work with us.
Shipyard is the first port of call if you're interested in experimenting with the Nym ecosystem or developing a privacy-enhanced app (PEapp).?Learn more.
Download NymConnect now to privacy-enhance Telegram!
Early testing of NymConnect, launched under Shipyard, has begun. It is a simple interface offering one-click privacy for the apps you use every day. We rely on you, our community, to help test the app before we launch it to the broader public.
NymConnect allows you to route traffic through the Nym mixnet quickly and easily, and now you can already use it to privacy-enhance?Electrum,?Keybase, and?Telegram.?
Download NymConnect?and follow the?instructions. All it takes is a few clicks to start using Telegram over the mixnet immediately.?
This is a test period so please leave your feedback?here!
Nym Platform and Wallet updates
The latest versions of the Nym Platform and Nym Wallet are out! Download the binaries?here.?Changes in these versions include:
Read a detailed?breakdown of the new features?or the?full change log.ResearchThe research team has concluded a paper about compact and divisible e-cash with threshold issuance and submitted it for peer-review.?The paper shows how to use Coconut credentials as anonymous e-cash.
Existing offline anonymous e-cash schemes are unsuitable for distributed environments because they use a central bank. Therefore, the team has proposed two offline Coconut based anonymous e-cash schemes with threshold issuance, in which the role of the bank is performed by a quorum of authorities.
Research intern Ricardo Ribeiro Ferreira finished his internship and defended his MSc thesis at EPFL with flying colours. During his 6 months internship Ricardo worked on the analysis of the impact different mixnet configurations and parametrisation have on traffic analysis resistance. He also worked on improvements to the cover traffic strategy which further boost the resistance of the Nym mixnet against network adversaries.
Resources
Fight alongside Nym for privacy in Web3
Web3 is the new frontline in the fight for digital privacy. Earlier last month, we published an article exploring the current landscape of Web3 and the emerging coalition dedicated to building a safe and equitable internet, free from the dangers of surveillance and censorship.?Read the article here.
People
Andrés Arauz joins?Nym as Advisor
We are thrilled to welcome the former director of Ecuador's central bank and 2021 presidential candidate,?Andrés Arauz, as Special Advisor on global payments and Latin America.?He will advance Nym’s strategy to resist surveillance in Latin America and scope opportunities for incorporating privacy in global payment systems.
A quick recap on his work in decolonising tech and money?here.
Read about his stance on privacy protection in the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)?in Politico?and?Fortune.?
Candice Teo joins as Head of PR & Communications
The team welcomed a new member this month,?Candice Teo, who is leading PR and communications for Nym. She was just most recently part of Ignite (fka Tendermint, founders of Cosmos ecosystem) and is committed to projects that are positively impacting the world. Candice also previously worked across various Web3 projects focused on driving climate action, responsible business practices and asserting consumer privacy rights.
Community
New Twitter accounts for our global community
To help the community go even more global, we want to bring news to you in your languages! Introducing our new Twitter accounts:?
Follow those accounts if any of them are?your native language. More languages to come. Massive thanks to our community managers for leading this.
Join the weekly Nym Community Calls!
Nym runs weekly community calls exploring key issues and priorities for the Nym ecosystem, including weekly spotlights of mix node operators. Community calls are free to join every Friday - on?Telegram?and now on?Discord?too!
Events
Upcoming
Following a busy summer, Nym's schedule of events continues.
Some upcoming key events that we will be participating in:?
For the full list of events and all the details, check out our?website.
Recent
Surfin’Bitcoin, 25 - 27 September 2022
Nym was on the ground at Surfin’Bitcoin, the largest Bitcoin conference in Europe. The interest from the Bitcoiners and the French crypto community was incredible, which reinforced the importance of privacy right now.?
During the event, we had high media interest with our COO Alexis Roussel giving a few interviews speaking about the work we do and the future of privacy. Watch one of the first few that is already?live here?and?here.
Another interview with?CryptoLogik?is already available as well,?watch now.
Nym was on the ground in Ukraine supporting the Kyiv Tech Summit as sponsors and speakers. A unique event where we co-organised the?Web3 Hackathon?(together with?Unchain fund Ukraine,?Ukraine DAO, and?Atlantis World), the aim was to use the power of technology to solve real issues in Ukraine.?
Nym put up a bounty for the AnonDrop challenge, in partnership with?Filecoin?and?IPFS. The winner of the challenge was Citizen5 , who automatically qualified for a Shipyard grant to continue development of AnonDrop.?Find out more here.
Our CEO Harry Halpin was one of the hackathon judges and gave a talk with Nym’s legal expert Ahmed Ghappour on?How we can achieve privacy against surveillance on the internet in war times.?CSO Jaya Klara Brekke spoke on the Security Leaders panel,?watch here.?In addition, our?Developer Relations Lead Max Hampshire was a mentor.
During the event we were honoured to meet Vice Prime Minister?Fedorov Mykhailo?along with Ethereum co-founder?Vitalik Buterin.?
One last thing
History is in making as we receive the first reported purchase using Electrum over the NYM mixnet - a jar of honey!?
We are happy that we could sweeten our community member Whisperit’s app with the sweet taste of privacy.
Want that for yourself? Get network level privacy for Electrum or Telegram using?NymConnect!?