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Nym co-founder and Chelsea Manning discuss decentralization and privacy

Nym co-founder Harry Halpin and security and hardware consultant Chelsea Manning chat with The Agenda about privacy and the benefits of a decentralized VPN.

Users’ data privacy and the growing need for it to be protected is a topic that people worldwide are reminded of on a near daily basis. For example, just two days ago, on Dec. 11, Toyota warned customers about a potential data breach, stating that “sensitive personal and financial data was exposed in the attack.” 

Hacks, breaches and exploits happen so often that one could jokingly say that user data breaches rival the rugs and protocol exploits that crypto is infamous for. To name a notable few, there was the Kid Security parental control app hack, which resulted in 300 million data records being compromised.

Consumer genetics and research company 23andMe had a breach in October that put 20 million records at risk. Even MGM was hacked in September, and estimates suggest that the hack cost the production studio at least $100 million.

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Near taps Nym for metadata privacy, encryption services

Layer-1 blockchain Near will integrate Nym Technologies’ data privacy and encryption services for users and DApps operating across its ecosystem.

Layer-1 protocol Near has tapped blockchain security firm Nym to provide end-to-end encryption and metadata privacy services for its ecosystem.

Nym, which provides blockchain agnostic layer-0 privacy infrastructure, will avail its mixnet tools to encrypt and cloak blockchain traffic and communication across the Near Protocol ecosystem.

Masking off-chain metadata traffic will protect transaction data during communication and create a barrier for malicious actors looking to de-anonymize users through access to IP addresses.

Related: Cricket World Cup to feature Web3 fan app as ICC taps into Near blockchain

An announcement from the collaborating projects states that Near users will be able to access ecosystem decentralized applications (DApps), decentralized finance protocols and nonfungible tokens with added security and privacy.

Nym’s integration aims to provide added privacy to the Near ecosystem, given that permissionless blockchains typically allow for transaction data and some off-chain information to be accessed by savvy users, including IP addresses and geolocation data.

This provides a vector for unwanted surveillance, targeted attacks and cybercrime. A statement from Nym CEO Harry Halpin highlights the importance of privacy-preserving tools to improve the nascent Web3 space:

“Blockchain technology is a large change in digital communications but it’s an open secret that by their very nature, blockchains are not private. Only weaving privacy into the fabric of Web3 can ensure its success.”

Nym’s mixnet protects blockchain traffic from detailed analysis by splitting data into encrypted packets that are then sent to “mix nodes” around the world. “Cover traffic” is randomly inserted into the mix to provide greater obfuscation of the communication system, greatly increasing the difficulty of metadata analysis.

Near Foundation CEO Chris Donovan notes that Nym’s technology will afford ecosystem participants greater privacy when using the protocol and speaks to the ethos of privacy-enhancing services:

“Privacy is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of the Web3 vision to create a more secure, user-centric and user-empowered web.”

As Cointelegraph reported in October 2023, Nym Technologies launched a $300 million fund to identify and support Web3 projects building security-focused infrastructure. The fund will initially look to support wallets and platforms storing private keys that interact and manage access to DApps, as well as remote procedure call protocols and open-source Web3 tools and services.

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