Community spotlight: introducing Explore Nym and Delegation Advisor!
Step in and explore the community working to defeat metadata surveillance
Step in and explore the community working to defeat metadata surveillance
What was a trickle is becoming a steady stream and soon it will be a raging river: stories of how metadata is being used to deanonymise and profile people online. In the past 24 hours, news stories circulated about how Apple and Google are handing over push notification metadata from Android and iOS devices to agencies of various governments across the world, in order to deanonymise users and link them to app usage.
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US senator Ron Wyden has called for transparency by the companies, highlighting that the sheer volume of requests that Google and Apple receive, and which governments and agencies are gaining access to this information, is largely unknown.
What is clear however is your metadata is not protected, neither by law nor by encryption.
Now, there are a lot of big bad things happening in the world at the moment, from ecological and economic crises, to wars and famine. Online mass surveillance and the rise of AI might feel similarly overwhelming, a complex systemic storm that one can do little about. But luckily, that is not the case.
One of the best ways to stay sane and not succumb to hopelessness in the midst of neverending crises is to start doing something about it, ideally alongside other people. The Nym community is seeing more and more people join with exactly this mindset: a strong drive to do something about the problem of digital surveillance to improve the state of digital technologies. More specifically, to solve the problem of metadata surveillance.
This blog post introduces Explore Nym, a new tool developed by community Nymja Pawnflake to make it easier for you or any new joiner to participate in the Nym network and help protect metadata online. But before delving into the tooling, first, a brief primer on metadata:
Metadata, huh?
Metadata is the data about your data. Rather than the content of a message, metadata refers to things like the time, frequency and size of a message, and where it is sent from. Just as footprints mark routes trodden into the snow, every online interaction leaves behind traces of digital activity that reveals user behaviour.
Another way to think about metadata is as the patterns of communication. These patterns reveal as much, or even more about a person, their relationships, status, psychological state and habits than content itself. And with the powerful pattern recognition technologies coming out with AI, these are increasingly vulnerable.
Mixnets are currently one of the only technologies that protects metadata. Mixnets encrypt and mix internet traffic so that patterns become untraceable. In the case of the Nym mixnet, this ‘mixing’ happens by a decentralised network of operators all over the world, making it near impossible for an observer to trace communication from sender to receiver. These operators are rewarded with NYM tokens for providing this mixing service.
Now, in order to be a part of this incredible community, you do not necessarily have to become an operator yourself. Instead, you can support operators by engaging in what is called ‘staking’ and earn a share of operator rewards.
What can I do to prevent metadata surveillance?
The simplest way to get involved with Nym is by engaging in what is called “staking”. Staking is a common practice in Web3, used as a way to signal sentiment about something by temporarily locking up one’s crypto tokens. Think of it almost as a vote to show what you care about or believe in, but where the amount of tokens also shows the strength of that sentiment.
In the case of Nym, staking is a way for the Nym community to signal how much they believe in a mix node operator and their ability to provide a good quality of service. And in return for staking, you receive a portion of operator rewards, meaning you have a direct economic interest in staking on well-performing nodes.
Here’s what to do:
- Download the Nym wallet
- Get hold of some native NYM tokens (via the wallet, Kraken or elsewhere)
- Grab a Club Mate or cold beverage of your choice and get ready to explore the wonderful worldwide community of Nym nodes!
Some mix nodes run their operations with profits going to social good projects in Latin America, while others use their profits to set up Nym squads to expand their operations.
There are several parameters you might want to consider when delegating to a node, but luckily, PawnFlake has put some work into simplifying things for you!
ExploreNym — developed by PawnFlake
Are you entirely new to staking? Community member PawnFlake has created ExploreNym which gives a simple breakdown and guidance on how best to choose mix nodes to stake on.
The Delegation Advisor automatically provides suggestions for nodes to delegate stake to. Depending on whether you are simply concerned with highest returns or whether you are keen to improve the overall decentralisation of the network, the advisor provides three suggested nodes that perform best along those criteria so you don’t have to do too much research.
If you want to go a little deeper, you can also look into each individual node to check their uptime, stake saturation, time estimated until they reach saturation, estimate rewards and more.
ExploreNym is open source and currently in Beta. So if you have friendly feedback and encouragement for Pawnflake, do jump in the Nym channels to show your appreciation!
Disclaimer: Nym can not officially endorse this tool, but the team and community does love it — it’s a great example of independent development, helping the community in a very real way!
Getting to know Nym operators
Nym node operators are an interesting bunch. Ranging from professional Web3 infrastructure operators such as Nodes Guru who have been with the project since the beginning, to hacktivist squads forming in and around hacklabs in Latin America as well as computer science university groups. Even traditional telecoms company SwissCom are running nodes via their Web3 arm Swiss Staking.
If you are interested in exploring and getting to know Nym operators a little better, here are some of the channels you might want to join:
Telegram
Matrix
The diversity of operators, decentralised geographical location and range of servers all contribute to the security of the mixnet, ensuring that Nym remains an open, secure global privacy infrastructure to protect metadata.
The Nym mixnet can be used today via:
- NymConnect with a select range of apps and wallets
And very soon via:
- NymVPN for full system protection of outgoing and incoming traffic. Sign up for the waitlist now!
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