Decentralized Or Centralized VPNs？
‘It’s very important to merge blockchain with well-established technologies such as end-to-end encryption, multi-path routing, and multi-relaying scheme for reaching the ultimate security. While giving outstanding security benefits today blockchain technology still requires additional layer solutions to ensure smooth experience and uniterrupted operation.
While centralized systems have risks of data manipulation, and decentralized ones may face the problem of scalability, the best solution for achieving democracy today is blockchain-based networks built on the principle of a decentralized autonomous organization, where users have equal rights not only to use the system but also to participate directly in its activities through voting and management.’ Alex Yang, one of our founding member stressed.
The foundations of the modern day internet were based on research, exploration and a desire to connect. Even though the original audience was small, the values of early internet were democratic and the network was largely neutral that allowed equal access to all participants who built technologies that led to what is now known as the Information Age.
The subsequent dotcom boom (and bust) and social media wars brought to the fore the tremendous monetary and political value of data that moved across the internet. Data brokers and arbitrageurs were born out of this who have now skewed powers on the net away from the crowd.
Incidences of privacy violations, unauthorized surveillance, censorship and restrictions have been rising which have cause trust deficit to grow year-to-year.
As a result, there has been a growing call for going back to the roots of the internet — democratic and decentralized. Or what is also often referred to as Web 3.0. A Virtual Private Network (or, VPN) is one of the first lines of defence for an end user who desires privacy and wants to evade unchecked restrictions. On top of that, a VPN that is decentralized would be a perfect tool in someone’s Web 3.0 arsenal.
What is a VPN?
A VPN service provides anonymity by creating a private network over existing public networks. VPNs protect identity of users by masking their IP addresses when accessing websites and services through secure connections (data tunnels) which can only be accessed through passwords, certificates, keys or whitelisted devices.
To a prying eye it could obfuscate the requester’s address by making it look like the request came from a different computer (or server). Data sent over VPN networks are usually encrypted. So someone trying to eavesdrop into a secure connection would not be able to decipher the data traffic.
Moreover, internet service providers don’t get access to web activity or browsing history of VPN users thus providing another layer of privacy. A VPN is essential for anyone who uses public networks like WiFi hotspots to interact using personal information such as bank account details (for online purchases and net banking), passwords (for logging into email accounts), private keys (for cryptocurrency transactions) etc.
Decentralized VPNs (dVPNs)
VPN applications have seen over 480M downloads in 2019 which is a 54% rise compared to last year as per a latest report. However, traditional VPN services are centralized and usually proprietary and closed-source. Technically, centralized VPNs can keep logs of traffic (though many claim to have a no-logs policy) which are traceable and hence not private.
Country-specific laws can often require businesses to share information on their users and their web activity with regulators. This makes it likely that some centralized services keep logs in order to be compliant. There is also a possibility of data resell and data breach in such cases. In a 2018 paper, researchers listed a number of questionable misconfigurations in 62 leading centralized VPN services that could lead to system abuse like these.
Decentralized VPN (or, dVPN) services which are blockchain-based are a solution to this problem. dVPNs do not have a singular point of control and depend on multiple parties (nodes) to run the system. It works as a peer-to-peer (P2P) network where users are both clients and nodes i.e. computers on the network act as servers to transmit data in a distributed manner. Since there is no centralized server to relay information, there is no possibility of data-logging in a single repository. Blockchain tech helps dVPN nodes to coordinate activity and could help in governance in case there is detection of, say, illegal content being transmitted over the network.
Tachyon VPN
Tachyon Protocol is building solutions in the dVPN space by restructuring the traditional TCP/IP protocol stack in order to counter the ills of centralization at a protocol level. Tachyon is reconstructing the TCP/IP model using our own iterations of proven P2P technologies — DHT, blockchain, UDP and encryption.
As opposed to WebRTC, we use Tachyon Booster UDP to improve network connection success rates and transmission quality. Tachyon Protocol routes user traffic through multiple distributed provider nodes after end-to-end encryption to avoid snooping. Its SMTP and HTTPS protocol imitation makes normal browsing activity look like sending an email through Gmail or visiting YouTube to an outsider.
With respect to multi-hop, the Tachyon Anti-analysis helps multi-relay forwarding to reduce the risk of information exposure after a single node is attacked. Tachyon also uses own DHT for routing. Provider nodes which offer traffic and bandwidth to users on the network are identified through the V Systems blockchain on which Tachyon’s native token $IPX is built. The nodes receive staking and session rewards for their service on the network.
VPN⁰
The next phase in the development of decentralized VPNs will be the VPN⁰ which allows nodes to decide the traffic they wish to permit without knowing the content of the traffic through a technique called as zero-knowledge proof.
A zero knowledge proof is a cryptographic system in which the validity of a statement can be confirmed without disclosing contents of the statement. This is particularly useful to build use-case specific networks.
For example, a digital arts network where nodes will only transmit artwork. Through zero-knowledge proofs, privacy of end users is ensured since the content of the traffic is obfuscated.
With $IPX already assisting in node governance on the Tachyon framework, it is possible to eventually build a VPN⁰ architecture where nodes can decide for themselves the kind of traffic they wish to transmit. But first, there are several challenges like private whitelist sharing, zero-knowledge traffic proof and performance v/s privacy which need to be solved. For now, further research and development of the foundations of VPN⁰ is impending.
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