Lokinet is a onion-router (like tor, i2p) implementation of the LLARP protocol which tries to be a modern re-implementation of i2p. Session is a private messenger (like Signal) built using lokinet to hide metadata. If I understand correctly they have a cryptocurrency called oxen, which is earned or mined by providing servers to the loki network and oxen blockchain.

Imo they have these arguments on their side:

  • i2p is really slow and if re-implementing yields the results they claim it would be awesome
  • building a private messenger on top of onion-routing seems like a very good idea, since metadata is the new surveillance while it doesn’t generate massive amounts of traffic per user

What I worry about:

  • I don’t like cryptocurrencies in general, they haven’t yet proven that they can be used as anything but be used to speculate.
  • if people who are supposed to be the backbone of the onion-routing service are paid to do this I worry that in some (maybe new and still unknown) way this will weaken the network in comparison to a network run by volunteers and users (like tor and i2p). Maybe this will favor larger servers so all of the onion-routing is done in “the cloud” and none from home which in result is easier to surveil.
  • a talk at the yearly chaos computer congress about the alt-rights online behavior titled “Let’s play Infokrieg” (the talk is in German, but I linked the version with english live translation) talks about lokinet and how the developer advertised it on 8chan. This is all the connection they mention though and it’s pretty thin Imo.
  • in general I believe that cryptocurrencies don’t draw a very good crowd, also
  • I haven’t seen any reputable source advertise any of this. Not Lokinet, not session messenger, of course not their crypto coin…

Conclusion:

All of this isn’t a big problem, if they stay a small project. But them having the fastest onion-router, elon musk maybe tweeting about them and people flocking to them to “invest” might have the project gain momentum and them being the new tor or even bigger, applications built on top of it being a threat to signal etc.

I think some of their tech is very cool, a fast and modern onion-router could be very important for future secure web applications, but it’s troublesome

  • it’s in the hands of people nobody knows
  • motivated by financial gain
  • coupled with cryptocurrency

What are your thoughts on this? I am really interested to hear, how we should tackle this in your opinion.

  • @[email protected]OP
    2•3 years ago

    this is the guide on how to set up a service node for oxen, which was formerly called lokinet - aka this is the server run by people that does all of this:

    • Receive, store, and forward encrypted Session messages
    • Route Lokinet internet traffic
    • Monitor other service nodes and vote on their performance
    • Are called into quorums which give them authority over Blink transactions
    • Produce new blocks for the network via Pulse PoS
    • (added by me:) earn crypto

    it can’t be run from home, like tor or i2p relay servers.

    This means that all the traffic in this onion routing network will just go through a couple of datacenters instead of “all around the world”. I just believe that it’s easier for the FBI etc. to get access to datacenter machines instead of computers run at home. The upside of this of course is, that their onion routing can reach much faster speeds.

    Also, as of now, their blockchain already uses 15gb of hdd space on each of the service nodes.

    Like I said, the tech is kinda sweet, time will tell if it is a good concept and if it is governed properly.