![](\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-12\/21d1c522-cd21-4180-aa19-da196f6bf72b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Surprise, most VPNs are centralized too <\/h2>\n
Thanks to clever marketing, a large number of people assume that VPNs protect you from nefarious snoopers lurking around on the internet, and they conceal your activities and user data from an assortment of vendors, entities and other organizations that observe users\u2019 activities. <\/p>\n
Halpin explained that on a VPN:<\/p>\n
Nym\u2019s mixnets, on the other hand, send encrypted data across multiple servers, and Halpin explained that it adds \u201ca bit of fake data\u201d and at \u201ceach hop, a mixnet does what it says on the tin.\u201d <\/p>\n
Related: <\/em><\/strong>How to protect your privacy online<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Mixnets have been around since the 1980s and rely on a large number of servers, which in some scenarios is less than ideal. According to Halpin, this is where Nym comes into play:<\/p>\n When asked whether or not attempting to protect user data and personal privacy was a moot point, especially given the frequency of personal data breaches and serious incidents of governments surveilling citizens online activities, Manning said:<\/p>\n Manning explained that \u201cthere\u2019s been obviously a sort of arms race between the surveiller and the person who\u2019s trying to protect their communications and their data. And it is true that they that these state actors and large, large scale corporate actors like internet service providers, they have a significant asymmetry in terms of like their compute power, their ability to collect information, their ability to sort through information.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Manning, the challenge surveillers face is \u201cfinding out the value of the connections\u201d in what is a \u201chaystack problem:\u201d <\/p>\nChelsea Manning explains why people should \u201cuse as much encryption as possible\u201d <\/h2>\n