In the world we live in, it is more important than ever to have some sort of protection when going online, and while VPNs are still enough for most users these services are sadly already falling behind the needs of those who are concerned about their privacy or those living under repressive regimes.
Tor is also a pretty decent tool, but what if there was a way to combine the benefits of both into a single solution? This is the exact purpose of Loopix: to be a safe communication network with which users can stay hidden and anonymous from eavesdroppers and ISPs.
Loopix was developed by researchers from the University College London and combines the essential features from Tor with some of the benefits of VPNs. One of this is its core that, just like Tor, is based on the concept of mixing networks, which uses routing protocols through proxy servers to scramble and deliver messages in a random order.
This prevents eavesdroppers from tracing end-to-end communications, as they’re not able to link a specific request source to its corresponding destination. However, while Tor uses this through its onion routing protocol – which is already being compromised as some exit nodes can monitor traffic to unmask their users – Loopix uses the classic message-based architecture with added Poisson mixing, a method that randomly adds time delays to all messages.
In addition, Loopix marks a difference by allowing anonymous messages to be stored in boxes in cases where the recipient party is offline. In turn, those same messages are encrypted with the same cryptographic message format that Tor uses: Sphinx, a method known for its strict security features like hiding a message’s path length, among others.
Tests run by researchers showed that the mix node structure of Loopix easily handles up to 300 messages per second, which allows it to be used for “both high and low-latency communication applications, like emails or instant messaging” a source on the project explained to Bleeping Computer. Furthermore, Loopix is immune to one of Tor’s biggest menaces, Sybil attacks, which consists in adding nodes to a network until they become compromised.
At first glance Loopix seems great, but it’s important to remember that the project is still in its early days and, therefore, more research and development is needed in order to make it a viable solution.
Nonetheless, the early signs are surely positive so far and allows a glimpse at the future, with hopes of an online presence that is anonymous and free for everyone. In fact, this first look at Loopix comes at a time when the hunting season for VPNs is at its peak, with more and more countries adopting measures to ban them for good, despite the resistance shown by some of the stronger companies. And since we all know the state of Tor these days, perhaps Loopix can become the future anonymity solution that we so desperately need.
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