David Chaum’s Elixxir Delivers First Platform Capable of Protecting Privacy by Obscuring Metadata

Elixxir, led by David Chaum, the “father of online privacy,” announces Elixxir’s unprecedented privacy-protecting blockchain technology will be launched on a BetaNet supported by node operators on six continents.

The Elixxir platform will allow users to communicate without revealing metadata related to their activities—that is, Elixxir will obscure who sends messages, when messages are sent, where they are sent from and who receives them.

Metadata recently became a hot topic when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a Facebook “privacy-first vision for social networking,” focused on readily available end-to-end encryption with no attention to protecting metadata. In an open letter to Zuckerberg covered by Forbes, Chaum described the Zuckerberg approach to privacy as “fooling those mostly young people [Zuckerberg] says are moving off newsfeed to messaging into believing that end-to-end encryption means privacy.”

Though end-to-end encryption obscures message contents, it does not protect the behavioral details of people’s activities. Elixxir nodes, which operate a highly efficient decentralized mix network, provide full metadata protection for users as well as end-to-end encryption. The Elixxir mix network technology, invented by CEO David Chaum, delivers unprecedented speed by using precomputation to create a mix network framework in advance. After precomputation is complete, each team of nodes stands ready to rapidly process a batch of messages, quickly breaking the links between message sender and recipient, as well as links between users and their blockchain message history.

Elixxir BetaNet Nodes

In January, Elixxir initiated its BetaNet node selection process with a community survey addressing preferences for platform governance, incentives, and community structure. Based on survey results, a node application was designed to determine which nodes would operate the Elixxir BetaNet. Since the release of the application, Elixxir has received hundreds of applications from around the world. Elixxir plans to launch a privacy-protecting, decentralized BetaNet supported by node operators on six continents.

Members of the public interested in furthering Elixxir’s mission of protecting the privacy and security of users are encouraged to apply to run a BetaNet node before Friday, April 19th on the Elixxir website.

Bounty Program

As part of its efforts to rally the privacy community, Elixxir has launched a bounty program to raise the profile of the BetaNet node selection process. Participants who refer applicants who successfully run a BetaNet node will be eligible for up to two extra nodes in Elixxir’s MainNet.

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