From Monarchies to Mixnets: The Next Internet Revolution - Alexis Roussel COO NYM

Hi, I'm Alexia Rousel. I'm the COO uh chief chief operating officer of NIM Technologies and also helping promoting NIM uh and uh privacy tech around the world. [Music]

Okay. Hi, Alexis.

Hi, Peter.

Hey, good to see you.

Nice to see you.

Hi, everyone. So um can you share please your experience building a resilience infrastructure? What did you learn and what obstacles were there? Yeah. So we we build uh NIM uh it's a it's a mixet uh and it's a a very old concept because it was invented by David Sh in the 80s and uh it's um many people tried to build it since that that time but basically it needed some um mature uh other mature elements in order to come uh to pieces and that only happened uh in the late uh uh 2020s.

Um one one piece of uh what is needed for mixnet is also all the incentivized part. So the blockchain part the tokenize the uh the financial the defy part. Um so the the m so the mixet basically is a communication tool uh which allow to obiscate to hide the pattern of communication. So it it it it's not about just hiding uh uh encrypting end to end the communication between people but it's about hiding the communication between those people completely so that I cannot see by observing the network that you are talking to someone else right for this we we we uh have this network uh this mixnet that is mixing all the traffic and it's creating noise so there's no way to identify the pattern And so what what do we learn? So the first thing we learn is like indeed it takes time sometimes for one specific technology to be mature enough to have enough research but also to have uh other technologies around that we don't think are related to be mature enough not only in terms of like science but also in terms of uh um economic and social uh development, right?

uh the blockchain part for example needed to have already 10 years of experience done by people before we can uh add it there and the and the second thing we learned which is uh I think for me was also a very personal uh experience is that um when we trying to build privacy um we think sometimes that privacy are based on the tools that we have that we are in control it's something that is kind of personal I will connect privately with you and encrypt But in reality, if you want to build privacy in a larger scope, more like towards an anonymity, you need a group of people. You need to be mixing with a lot other group of people and hide into a group. So privacy is not something you can do alone or with someone else. It's something which is uh that you have to do collectively. Uh what we say at NIM is privacy loves company.

uh and you need a lot of participants to increase the anonymous anonymity set. I think that this is a learning uh which uh we are going to use more and more in the uh in in the in the future. Uh if you want you know you have this uh meme of the the fish there's a big fish going after a small fish and then suddenly the small fish comes with the whole rest of the small fish but they form a big fish right and they they they they go after the the bigger fish. So that's the kind of like story uh behind the anonymity which I really learned through this through these years.

Oh that's a great knowledge and I really like this analogy of this meme. But the question is like where do you get the small fish and how do you involve them like being more private being more conscious like in the way they use web tools. The main lesson we learn we took uh is from uh this whole movement from HTTP to HTTPS you know like the inclusion of TLS and um and sadly uh you you cannot always count on massive adoption of a conscious massive adoption of of a privacy tech. Uh of course in certain groups you will have some adoption because people understand and will take it. But then at one point uh what happened with TLS is that the browsers uh imposed the TLS to the website saying okay from now on you have to do it and we put a warning on your website and for uh for privacy or for other kind of technology it's going to mean the same same thing.

So what we are trying to do at NIM is we already we said oh we build a mixet but on this mixnet we can build some other applications and we build something that people understand which is not completely private but it brings them towards their this so we build a VPN like a standard VPN but in fact it's a decentralized VPN and then inside this VPN we are going in the future uh we're going to enable them to use the mixets but maybe without ring right so we're going to uh move some of the traffic through the mixn net like for messaging applications for example and I think this is the the way is that like as a community uh when we are building services um basically it's sometimes the operator if I think the operators in general have an incentive to use privacy tool on the users because the less you know of your users of your clients the more you protect them and so I think this is how you you move to privacy is not by educating educating masses but it's like pushing them into products that work better but are private.

Yeah. Agree. Agree. And I personally adore that you managing to combine web two and web three worlds all together. Like really I don't know how many companies does that like but what's um what's your feeling like about this intersection?

like how do we make this how do we merge those words because it feels like there are two separate bubbles here now yes but like in general how can we make this intersection more um you know valid yeah I think I think where web two has like really an advantage is uh in user experience user flow uh UI and uh and in the web three where uh um I mean the core web three Bitcoin world we're really bad at this, right? Uh I mean there was some improvements um um but um uh so so I think it's a it's a kind of like mixing mixing the both uh how we do this um uh it's it's it's very hard actually it's very hard because because suddenly you mix in the teams we mix people who have web three experience or even sometimes only web three experience with people who have had web two experience and basically when you mix them together. Uh the designer of uh the new app has no clue how a login with a seat phrase works, right?

Uh and he doesn't understand how a call to a RPC what is this, right? And he tries to uh put a login a user username and login with and password somewhere. Uh so so he doesn't know the kind of interaction we can imagine. So there's a lot of storytelling within the company um that uh that we do that uh I do because I'm more like a web three native person rather than a web two. Uh and so we have these like key people in the company uh who are web three web three native and and they do storytelling within the the company on the others.

It's hard because people don't always listen but we push the story out and slowly we have this like mixture that comes that comes

uh to to life. Uh okay so imagine oh I want to talk about future so because there is so much doom and gloom in privacy space let's imagine like we are I don't know 10 15 whatever years from now and we want have a free internet private secure without any push like from inside how will it look like and how will the world look like

well the the the world will look like very much different um why because um um what what it will imply is that all the current institutions that uh manage our society uh will have transformed into other types of institutions. So uh let's let's think uh so so the revolution we are living here that's my view of course um it's it's a very it's a it's a unique revolution but the scale of the revolution we already saw something um similar uh for example the paper the printing revolution did some fundamental changes it took time but at one point um there were some like old institutions um monarchy institutions with church and because of the paper uh the printing the ideas flow change uh new technology came uh a new concept of living in society uh came and then eventually the institution had to change. So from a monarchy we went to a republic republican system and that they the there was another justice system. There was another army system. There was I mean everything changed and the money system also changed and now we are going to move to we are moving into another another system uh where the there are new institutions and I claim for example that bitcoin itself is a new form of institutions.

If you think as an an institution is a a tool for the society to self-organize and to avoid uh problems or to to to synchronize everyone, right? And so um back in the industrial age, the central bank was the most obvious solution to solve the money issue, right? And uh and today, Bitcoin is the institution that can solve this. So Bitcoin didn't take over the world but in a world where we want Bitcoin will be the main um uh monetary institutions and there will be some other stuff around of course. So uh so so uh that that that gives a clue how on how it look like because there will still be some social institutions where people will decide where people will come together and decide how we decide to live but most of the infrastructure that we will rely on will be uh uh decentralized.

My utopia and which is I hope we we will reach is that basically our society will not run its own infrastructure that the it will rely only on open and decentralized infrastructure but the way to go there it's going to be messy because the current institutions are going to try to hold on power right because they are being threatened at the heart and the more they lose power the more they they will revert to uh to violence because violence is the only thing they still have as a as a monopoly. Right? So the key thing that will happen when we are winning is when we find the institution whatever it is that will manage the monopoly of violence

and it won't be the the current military system. It won't be the current police system. It will be another kind of system. Um and I don't know how it will look like. Maybe it's going to be a kind of like swarm of uh um of uh drones, AI powered drones, but that don't uh attack humans for some reason.

And we have to find a way to control them. And that will be more powerful than the drone swarm uh managed by a centralized authority. So a decentralized authority has to be stronger than a centralized authority. And there will be worse uh like this. But um that will be the key point when we will have one is like there the monopoly of violence as a shifting to the to the decentralized institution.

Yeah, I totally agree with this take like on digital state. It's a really huge question like how do you reduce this monopoly on violence

which is so heavily abused now especially today it's like crazy but

it's abused because they are losing power on the rest. They don't have control of communication. They don't have control of money anymore. They going know they're losing control everywhere. So the only thing to assert your authority is is violence.

That's the only thing.

Yeah. But do you think like is there any way maybe political through pavis or maybe like personal uh to kind of make this beautiful bright future like more possible like in nearest future not some time ago like not in not in a very distant future. Yeah, I I think it it is possible but it's um uh it will also depend on the culture uh because every region has a different culture um and so some uh uh countries have a culture that allow these kind of changes to happen and some are resistant right so if you look in in in Europe for example uh myself I'm in Switzerland Switzerland if you look at history again if you look at the first big revolution u Switzerland was on the forefront front of the ideas. It was shifting slowly to a democratic and decentralized system uh and it was fueling the other revolution. It was it was helping the other countries but it never really had the revolution in the country.

It was a slow movement, right? Um France on the contrary uh has to go to the limits of the the logic of the old system and then when the old system is breaking then eventually there's a new system is coming and then it's my French revolution. Um the the US will have a problem because US was born directly from this new revolution. The French revolution uh was uh together at the same time of the American re Americans uh independence war. So it it uh it's going to be hard for them because they didn't live a transition.

They were born from this new uh revolution and uh it's going to be pretty pretty violent. And I'm very afraid of like countries like for example uh China or or some uh more Asian countries which have this tendency of going into authoritarian regimes and they don't have a cultural strong cultural uh um incentive to to move to uh to uh to democracies they have because of this contious uh theory or or or culture of like group thinking which is more important. So it it makes sense right but uh they will they will live okay but because we're in a globalized world uh they will be some there will be some tensions that we already see now between democracies and authoritarian world and the problem that we have now is that the democracies are moving into the authoritative world slowly because the old regimes of them. So what we have to find is places where we can define the new institutions of the new democracies or or forms of uh of uh forms of government that uh is good for people uh in a decentralized way. Maybe it's not a democracy.

Maybe it's something close but uh but but basically uh and I think like Switzerland for example could be a place that that moves into that that direction. Um I think for example there's another place in in the world right now which is trying to go into that direction which is uh Kurdistan uh where you have the Rojaba experiment and they they are they're writing a lot on democratic conferralism and and it's very close to Switzerland and there's actually some connections between the web three world the the cipher punks and Rojava and the and the Kurdistan that fuels between the the groups. So, so these connection exist. I I'm pretty also very um excited by by Latin America in general because Latin America has this culture of when when some new form of institution or new form of society appears they are the first one willing to embrace it in a very hard way in very quick way. Uh so we have a tiny example of Salvador and and Bitcoin.

It's not the perfect example, right? Because it's still authoritarian uh state. Um but still it shows that when you have like a crazy technology, a a government or a local um institution can take this uh very quickly. So Latin America is something to watch um because I think it will be one of the places uh when the the revolution the the the digital human revolution is advanced enough they will massively switch to that side.

Yeah it's I would love to explore this topic. I mean uh like MLE latan but we don't have time for that. So I will ask you more populist question. I would say like uh I know three practical steps for everyone to make this bright future happen. I mean I mean n users or like people who follow web privacy now as so like if you don't have political power for like a radical change you're just a web user right

what you can do to kind of improve improve this global situation like on a practical level it's a very good question then we have our question um well I would say that the The first answer is to is to use uh the open source tools, right? That's the first answer. Um and there's some good signs, right? Uh we we saw that statistics from France where now um 10 or 11% of all the computers are on Linux, which is like that there was like a really a big shift which was provoked by the the the upgrade of on Windows 11, which people hate because they have to pay, it's complicated, whatever. So like people are switching to Linux um and and that's good right so this is this is pushing uh a lot um I think like using the tools at home it's one it's one good thing uh if you are even in a professional environment this is even better because you can you can push these these tools into uh into this uh environment.

Yeah. Um I I would say of course uh embrace um the new um the new finance. Um um and I don't say that in a in a speculation way, right? uh it's not about playing on coins or whatever and investing in whatever new shitcoin that comes out but it's actually uh trying to understand what is happen because it is a big is something really important is happening and it's about uh shifting um uh some usage over there because you will find out that right now it's still a bit hard for common people to use because you don't have many places to buy and sell uh stuff with it. uh but once you start using it you start gaining a freedom that you don't have uh with traditional tools uh for example you can move money and suddenly when when when you move money and your bank is calling you why do you do this right if you use bitcoin and money no bank is going to ask you anything so um and you're in control so there's much more freedom uh and once you learn how to use this you are gaining a lot of confident in your personal financial freedom even if it's small amounts doesn't mean need need to be a big few few hundred bucks few tens of bucks that you can try out and you will see the power of being uh free and autonomous on the financial side using cryptography using those open tools right so that's that will be the the second uh the second thing and the third thing uh for me and that's a personal thing is uh is um is basically coming out on uh in the discussion with people but also with the administration.

Once you every time you face um private companies uh you talk to or you you use uh private public administration that you go to um uh be strong on your on your rights uh in and on the new forms of rights. So it's not just about privacy because privacy people sometimes they they they will tell you oh but you have something to hide if you want to be private. No no no it's your right to be autonomous to be free. It's your it's your uh right to um your to protect your digital integrity. The same way you protect your physical integrity and your mental integrity.

You have a right to to to protect your digital integrity. and um and and and with this right to digital integrity, you have a right to an offline life. That means that it's up to you as a citizen to decide if you are going to talk to your government in an electronic way or not. And this is very important because maybe your grandmother doesn't want to use her cell phone to talk to the administration. She can go to the office.

She needs to have this right to go to the office. And you if you are a technologist you don't want to use Microsoft Teams to call to call for uh the administration you want to use an open source system. So even if you are a technologist you need to have the options the the the control should be on your side not on the government's side in the relationship with with you and we're implementing this right in Switzerland. Um and what is good is that when we make people vote in Switzerland, people had to vote on that topic in Geneva and in Mushatel it was added in the constitution and the the question was simple was do you want to have the right to digital integrity in the constitution it was yes 94% of the population 94% so it was like everyone agreed right so there is it because it's a nice it's it's a it's a right now the the the current institutions that we They are so used to be in control of the tech and to impose tech to the people

um and they are forced by big companies Microsoft who is like pushing a lot of money in there making cheap licenses for that rent and uh so so but the the the reality of those vote is that the people say well actually we don't want to have this constraint but it's very hard for common people who are not technologists to um speak out the right the right world word but when they vote on the topic that we can see the result so speak out for your rights uh your right for an offline and for your right for your protect your digital integrity

wow that's a very brilliant answer thanks for that you nailed that because it's not the easy one okay hot take on cypher punk

take on cyber punk

like because now it's like kind of hot topic And like everyone is trying to explore we as well at web priv privacy now like what what does it look like what is cipher punk and uh what should I do to be a cypher punk like because cypher punk definitely I'm not just writing code now it's much wider

yes

and yeah how do you feel about cypher punk in general and what does it mean for you

yeah so so what I noticed is that there is a revival of right so and uh and this uh and this is clear this revival is linked to the rise of Bitcoin. Um there was there was a kind of defeat moment before Bitcoin. Um uh and this defeat moment was um yeah due to the overwhelming actions of all the governments in controlling the the uh controlling the whole infrastructure. And for me this moment was like more in 2003 and 2005 where I had the chance to to be I was working at the UN I had the chance to to work at the world summit of information society 2003 2005 it was a big summit with all the states were talking about the future of internet and it was clear I was like listening to people going around and everyone was saying how do we control internet how do we control people uh and all the governments were were saying this democracies and autocracies So uh clearly at that time we we had lost um and for me um it was clear that one of the answer was going to be political. It's not of course there is technology but it has to be also political and uh and the two have to come together and this is what I like with um uh the um the anonymity we're building at NIN is that um we're going a bit away from privacy because privacy is actually a concept which is not very built in our society not very well built in our society um and in legal in legal term And uh anonymity is something which actually protects much better the the small person right anonymity for the small transparency for the big ones right so um and in order to build right anonymity you need also it needs to come together with uh legal concepts like the right to digital integrity because in the right to digital integrity in order to protect yourself you need the right not to be surveiled measure and analyzed basically it's the right to anonymous So if you build anonymity tech and you promote anonymity uh laws or or the right to anonymity together then you are you are able to uh do something which is very complicated for for pure technologists is to start changing the narrative and finding the right words that will move people into um applying those new rights and using the right technology for it.

So that's come that comes together. So cypher punk today is a movement that needs to open to uh to it needs to understand code. Of course we all understand and and I I urge everyone who's uh who who is interested in this movement to learn code because you have to learn the basic part. uh you don't you might not need to learn the code but also to learn the the structure of the internet from the from the bare metal and the fiber uh until the and then the electron in the in the CPU up to uh and up to the application layer you have to learn the seven layers of of networking and so on. So um because this gives you the the vision the total v the total vision.

So I think our movement is going to open up and it's going to be much uh larger also in his thinking. It was like there was some form of utopia saying well there's the old world and there's the new world and that's it. Right? And in the old world like in one of the main papers it says the people from the old world are not welcomed. Right?

It starts like it starts like this. um from Timothy Mayor I think. Yeah. Um and but but what Rose says it says she says differently is that she says the forces the both forces are there. You have the you have the dark side and the you have the lunar prank and the solar punk uh sides which are both present and they theme each other and basically what we can see also but within the cypher punk you have people working in in in both sides basically right so being conscious that you are feeding yourself from uh surveillance tech and surveillance tech is feeding defensive tech which is again It's an infinite loop and and and what is important is to find the equilibrium in there, right?

Um so that that's Rose's work and I think uh she she she makes a a big leap in helping uh build a better utopia uh because um now we start to see a more concrete uh society and tools and institutions like we said at the beginning. how does a society look like? Uh and we can see the dystopia and the utopia. Uh so now uh we start to have like organization. I think the whole work that happened with Dows for for the last 10 years.

Uh it still needs to mature. It still needs to go much further. But it's uh it shows that there's a path to have organization which are transparent as an organization but are protecting and respecting the anonymity of the user of the of the of the person who is part of this organization. So these are this is the future and um and cipher punk means uh I think for me today um keeping the place of the human in this tech world uh because I think this is what we are striving for. We want to we are humans and we want to uh stay human and and be in control of of the society but but with you but using all this technology we want to have this AI these drone swarms these things to help us and to make us better and to have this uh energy new types of energies we want all of this right u but we want it in a way where we control it

yep 100% I think we really need to round up now So, thanks for coming. Thank you very much. Thanks for watching. Special hi to Punks. Uh, yeah.

May the privacy miss you. Ciao. [Music]