Lokinet is a decentralised onion router that uses Oxen service nodes as relays, giving Lokinet the same market-based Sybil attack resistance as the Oxen blockchain. Lokinet supports web browsing, onion-routed real-time voice communications, and other applications.
What can you do with the internet? Lokinet can do all that, and more.
The list of things you can do with Lokinet is very, very long (and cool). You can do almost anything. Lokinet sends and receives IP packets, so anything that fits inside of an IP packet (which is pretty much anything) can work using Lokinet. The only thing Lokinet can’t handle is protocols that embed bare IPs in their protocol, like WebRTC and BitTorrent — but these still work through exit nodes, just not within Lokinet itself.
Lokinet is one of the best ways to anonymously access the internet and communicate with other users. Because of its next generation design, it works seamlessly with absolutely any application. Other networks — like Tor and I2P — require specialised applications or custom patches to work, but not Lokinet.
Imagine if the internet was private, anonymous, and encrypted by default. There are no restrictions on what data you can send or where it goes, all packets are equal. You can play games. You can video call your family. You can write a blog. The only limit is your imagination.
While Tor and Lokinet are both onion routers, they are very different at both the protocol and infrastructure levels.
Tor relies on a network of volunteer-operated relays and a set of central directory authorities, and this infrastructure introduces a number of weaknesses and limitations. Because Tor’s circuit moderation is bandwidth-weighted, you are much more likely to use high-bandwidth nodes than low-bandwidth ones, meaning that a large percentage of Tor’s 7000+ nodes are underutilised due to having insufficient bandwidth. Additionally, Tor relies on a limited set of directory authorities. When these directory authorities are compromised or suffer from technical issues, the stability of the entire Tor network suffers because the network is unable to agree on what the node set is or the roles of nodes in the network (whether they were guard nodes, exit nodes, relays, etc.).
Instead of relying on volunteers, Lokinet leverages the Oxen Service Node Network. Because Oxen’s service node operators are required to provide high-quality nodes — and are actively incentivised to do so — Lokinet’s relay network is consistent and reliable. Lokinet also inherits the market-based Sybil attack resistance of the Oxen blockchain, increasing Lokinet’s security against such attacks.
Instead of Tor’s system of central directory authorities, Lokinet stores the state of the service node network on the blockchain. Every service node has access to this list, and comes to a consensus on it, making Lokinet significantly more decentralised than Tor.
Lokinet is also more versatile than Tor — Tor operates on the transport layer and is only able to carry TCP traffic, while Lokinet operates on the network layer, meaning it can onion-route any IP-based protocol: TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc. This means Lokinet can be used for much more than just web browsing — it can also handle things like media streaming and video conferencing.
In its current state, Lokinet has a more limited anonymity set due to having fewer active users than Tor. However, Lokinet does have some important advantages over Tor, specifically in terms of Sybil attack resistance and decentralisation, which do make Lokinet more private in some circumstances.
Sybil attack resistance
The Tor network relies on volunteer-operated relays, with very little barrier to entry for operating a relay. As a result, the network is vulnerable to something called a Sybil attack, where an attacker initialises a large number of malicious nodes, eventually controlling enough nodes to give them control of the guard and exit nodes for a given target’s circuit. This allows the attacker to conduct granular traffic analysis, de-anonymising the user and any other circuits in which the exit and guard are owned by the attacker. Lokinet increases the financial cost of this attack by requiring service nodes to stake an amount of the Oxen token before being able to register as a service node on the network. This provides strong economic protection against Sybil attacks.
Decentralisation
One of Tor’s most well-documented weaknesses is its reliance on a relatively small set of central directory authority servers which allow clients to find nodes in the Tor network. If these directory authorities are compromised, it would endanger the stability of the entire Tor network.
Instead of relying on central directory authorities, Lokinet uses the Oxen blockchain as a form of decentralised directory authority, meaning that Lokinet isn’t reliant on any kind of central server — the network is fully decentralised.
ONS provides human readable, globally unique mappings to cryptographically secure long form .loki addresses. ONS names are stored and indexed on the Oxen blockchain as transactions using a similar scheme to Namecoin or ENS. You can read more about ONS (previously called Loki name system) here. You can register one of these entries for up to 10 years. You can also periodically update the address that the mapping points to.
ONS records are purchased using the OXEN cryptocurrency. By burning OXEN, you can register a Lokinet name for up to 10 years. This can be done using the Oxen GUI wallet. Currently, you can register a Lokinet name for 1 year (15 OXEN), 2 years (30 OXEN), 5 years (60 OXEN), or 10 years (90 OXEN). In the wallet, you can select the .loki address you want to register, as well as the full Lokinet address you would like it to map to. Once you have purchased the ONS record, Lokinet users will be able to access your SNApp using either the name you purchase via ONS or its full Lokinet address.
Lokinet is the reference implementation of LLARP (Low-Latency Anonymous Routing Protocol), a next-generation onion routing protocol that aims to address issues with Tor and I2P.
Using Lokinet, you can access any website on the normal internet or discover a whole new world of private and hidden websites
Lokinet also enables access to SNApps — applications hosted on Oxen service nodes. SNApps are analogous to Tor’s hidden services, and typically appear in the form of internet addresses ending in ‘.loki’. Whenever anyone accesses a SNApp through Lokinet, the anonymity of both the user and the server is preserved by Lokinet’s onion routing protocol.
Using exit nodes, users can also access clearnet websites over Lokinet, helping to anonymise normal internet browsing.
Using Lokinet’s exit nodes, all internet traffic from your computer can be onion-routed over Lokinet. This prevents people from knowing which websites you are visiting.
Your internet service provider may be able to see you are accessing Lokinet, but they will not know what websites you are looking at
You can use Lokinet on Windows, macOS, and Linux — and it’s easy to get up and running. Just go here, download the Lokinet client for your platform, and follow the easy steps to enable Lokinet. You can then start browsing securely, privately, and anonymously. If you prefer to build the Lokinet client from source directly, you can find the source code on the Lokinet GitHub.
Lokinet is not a VPN, however using Lokinet exit nodes provides similar functionality to a VPN. Typically, people use VPNs to increase their privacy online. VPNs prevent your internet service provider from knowing the websites you visit, and prevents the websites you visit from logging personal information (like your IP address).
However, the key issue with a VPN is it requires you to place trust in your VPN provider. Your VPN provider has complete information about which websites you visit and personal information like your IP.
Lokinet removes this trust, because it uses a decentralised network of nodes. No node in Lokinet’s network has complete information about you, so there is no way for an individual node to compromise your privacy.
Like a VPN, you can use Lokinet to improve the privacy and security of your online browsing. However, Lokinet offers additional benefits above a VPN.
When you use a VPN, your VPN provider is able to collect information about you, such as your IP and the websites you are trying to access.
Lokinet provides additional privacy and protection by being decentralised and onion-routed. Thanks to Lokinet’s decentralisation, no individual node (or server) used by Lokinet has complete information about you, so your privacy cannot be compromised. Onion routing also provides additional security.
Lokinet also allows you to access SNApps, which are hidden, secure, and private websites only accessible using Lokinet.
Lokinet can be used with absolutely any browser you can think of.
Because Lokinet operates on the network layer, it can interact with any browser installed on your machine, and doesn’t require any specialised browser, add-ons, or scripts to work.
Lokinet can be used with any application you use on your device.
Lokinet is not only limited to web browsers, it can also be used to secure your traffic on other internet-based applications on your computer.
Anyone can participate in the service node network that Lokinet relies on. The best way to support Lokinet is to support that network by operating or contributing to a service node.
The larger the network, the stronger and more resilient Lokinet will become. Visit the official Oxen documentation for more information about how to run a service node.
Beyond that — use Lokinet. Run a SNApp. Run it on your machine. Tell your friends about it. The more people who use Lokinet, the better. The most obvious reason being a strong core user base is core to the success of any technology, but beyond that — more people using Lokinet makes it more anonymous.
Exit nodes are specialised nodes that allow you to ‘exit’ Lokinet and access the regular internet (often referred to as the clearnet).
This means you can do all the things you’d normally do on the internet. Every site you browse, every meme you share, every video you stream — all that traffic is completely anonymised by Lokinet’s onion routing. With exit nodes, Lokinet functions similarly to a VPN — but better.
When you enable exit node browsing and connect to an exit node through the Lokinet client, your traffic is encrypted multiple times, once for every node it will travel through, then sent to a Lokinet ‘edge node’ — your entry point to the Lokinet network. That node forwards your traffic through the network until it reaches a ‘pivot node’, which knows the location of the exit node you’re connecting to. That pivot node then relays your traffic — still fully encrypted — to the exit node. The exit node then decrypts your traffic and forwards it to its destination. The process for incoming traffic is the same in reverse. The exit node may know what traffic is passing through it, but it never knows who is sending or receiving that traffic.
When you’re browsing through a Lokinet exit node, no other server, anywhere on the internet, ever gets the complete picture about what you’re accessing.
Using Lokinet exit nodes is simple. All you have to do is open the Lokinet GUI on your platform of choice, type in the address of the exit node you would like to use, and enable the ‘Use exits’ toggle.
If you would like to test out exit nodes, try out the address ‘exit.loki’.
You can use online IP-checking services or a command line interface to check your IP. If you are successfully using the exit node, your IP address should change.
SNApps are private, secure, and hidden web applications. Usually, this means websites — like the one you are accessing right now.
SNApps are analogous to Tor’s hidden services, and typically appear in the form of internet addresses ending in ‘.loki’. Whenever anyone accesses a SNApp through Lokinet, the anonymity of both the user and the server is preserved by Lokinet’s onion routing protocol.
This means SNApp operators can publish content without worrying about having their privacy or anonymity jeopardised, and users can access it with the same peace of mind.
When accessing a SNApp your data is obfuscated by being routed through multiple service nodes. However, the SNApp you are accessing can be hosted on any server, similar to hidden services in Tor. This means you do not have to operate a service node to operate a SNApp.
Although Lokinet is decentralised, SNApps are not decentralised applications. They are central servers, just like any other website you access on the internet.
SNApps are similar to hidden services in Tor; they are hosted on servers by users. What data is collected and how it is stored depends on the operator.
Of course, information like your IP address is never exposed to the SNApp operator thanks to Lokinet’s onion-routing — so it can’t be collected.