WikiLeaks informant Chelsea Manning has joined the Nym startup as a security consultant. She will conduct an audit of the confidential infrastructure to prevent data leakage after launch.
We’d like to thank @xychelsea for all the support and tech advise — she had the same vision as Nym but while literally in jail!
Read the story of how her design for a mixnet were smuggled out of jail by @bcrypt https://t.co/CR75YBUGsB
— Nym (@nymproject) August 25, 2021
Nym is a decentralized, open-source privacy system. The network’s nodes, which developers call the mixnet, “mix” users’ traffic, preventing metadata leakage. For this they are rewarded in native NYM tokens.
“As traffic-analysis methods have become more sophisticated over the past decade, I have frequently called for studying alternative Tor methods that allow data to be hidden within the network from such analysis. Nym is one of the viable alternatives worthy of exploration and development,” Manning said.
Despite comparisons with software intended to implement the so-called onion routing, Nym’s CEO Harry Halpin insists the company does not view the mixnet as an alternative to Tor.
We don’t really see us as alternative to @torproject per se — Tor will remain the best in the world for synchronous traffic like web-browsing, while Nym’s mixnet will be suited for message-based traffic — like Signal DMs or cryptocurrency! https://t.co/PXfgAcC7VQ
— harryhalpin (@harryhalpin) August 25, 2021
“Tor remains the best in the world for synchronous traffic such as web-browsing, while Nym’s mixnet is suited for traffic based on messages, such as Signal DMs or cryptocurrency,” Halpin wrote.
The first test network of Nym, launched in April 2020, came under the Sybil attack. The current testnet Finney — by node count it has surpassed Tor (10,295 nodes vs 8,447). Mainnet launch is planned for the end of 2021.
Manning is expected to identify weaknesses where confidential information could leak and set parameters for “cover traffic.” The latter is used to guard against statistical disclosure attacks.
“These attacks work in the Tor network as well. Suppose you imagine I am sending a message to a reporter via Tor, using an Off-the-Record Messaging application. If the reporter regularly logs on to the network and uses Tor to communicate with me, and we are both online at the same time, you will eventually pinpoint them,” Halpin told CoinDesk.
Bradley Manning had been serving in the U.S. Army since 2007. On May 27, 2010, he was detained for transmitting a large volume of secret WikiLeaks documents. In 2013 he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
While in custody, Manning announced a name change and began gender-transition proceedings. In 2017, U.S. President Barack Obama pardoned her, but in 2019 Chelsea was rearrested for refusing to testify against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In March 2020 Manning was released.
In June, Tor developers fixed a vulnerability, that allowed tracking of users.
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