It is a sign of the times that government secrecy is not top of mind for American activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
“We are really so immersed in information now that privacy is no longer an issue,” she said. “This is verification.”
he talked decrypt About her security work on a video call in June web3 The privacy project Nym and what brought him – somewhat ungratefully – back to the world of cryptography.
Manning became synonymous with government transparency when he gave WikiLeaks classified documents—250,000 US diplomatic cables and 480,000 military reports—to WikiLeaks in 2010. It was, and still is, the largest intelligence leak in American history.
Subsequently, he was court-martialed and served seven years of a 35-year prison sentence before it was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017. Before her sentence was commuted, Manning, a transgender woman, was imprisoned in the men’s army. Prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
the day he spoke decryptIt has been a week since British Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. There he would face charges under the Espionage Act for his role in publishing documents obtained from Manning in 2010.
Manning clarified that his court martial prevents him from commenting directly on Assange’s extradition. But she said the protracted nature of cases like hers has led to her focus on building tools to help people maintain their privacy.
“I want to make sure that cases that go on for 12, 15 years don’t happen again in the future,” she said. “That is why I believe so strongly in these types of devices and this technology. There are disadvantages to not having this kind of technology.”
when he talked decrypt On June 24, it was only a few hours since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. With this, the court nullified the constitutional right to abortion and laid the groundwork for banning the number of 17 states,
The implication of those restrictions became a very timely example of how people could use a Decentralisation Mixnet like Nym.
Manning explained that someone from outside the state of Texas, where the abortion ban went into effect, hypothetically wanted to advise Texas residents on how or where to have the procedure done safely.
To be clear, this is now illegal in some jurisdictions.
Potential ancillary risks are being identified by law enforcement through their Internet metadata. Metadata, while it does not include the content of emails or other messages, can be used to show where that person lives or when and how often they have been in contact with someone in Texas.
To protect themselves, they can use a VPN, or virtual private network, to route their Internet data through an encrypted server. That person can also use something like Tor, a browser that acts like a supercharged VPN by sending data through three different encrypted servers on the way to its destination.
Decrypting encrypted data is difficult, but not impossible. There’s where mixnets like Nym come in, Manning said.
It separates pieces of metadata, such as the IP address of a person or the recipient of a message, and mixes it with other metadata. The resulting packets of encrypted data combine the IP address, time, date and location of many different people’s metadata.
This only works if enough node operators participate, breaking and remixing packets of metadata. Otherwise it’s just like trying to hide in a crowd of two people.
Where the NYM token Comes to play. Like other decentralized, public blockchains, a native token is how Nym incentivizes its users to run nodes and participate on the network. Manning has no control over the NYM’s Tokenomics, but has worked hard to underscore the importance of the network being large and decentralized.
“The decentralized network part is essential and necessary for MixNet,” Manning said. “In order for the expected number of nodes to operate on a network with enough traffic flow to provide privacy protections on MixNet, you have to encourage people to run those nodes and encourage people to verify.”
Manning’s role with the project has been twofold: as a security expert, she is figuring out how to address hardware issues hindering network development, especially in rural areas with limited Internet access. She is using her connections in the security community to drive privacy advocates back to crypto.
When crypto was reduced to cryptography rather than cryptography, much of the mainstay of the community—myself included—took a step back. This is a result of what she calls the “nouveau rich yuppie culture” of investors.
“People laugh, but I’ve lost entire bitcoins of information I’ve mined from a MacBook Pro. So I was very early on in the process,” Manning said. “And I got away with it — I mean, obviously, I was in prison for a significant amount of time — but even afterward, I got away with it because I realized there are a lot of people who don’t necessarily understand it.” technical aspects or security and privacy implications.”
Want to become a crypto expert? Get the best of Decrypt straight to your inbox.
Receive the biggest crypto news + weekly roundups and more!