Over the past two decades, our personal and financial lives significantly shifted online, raising concerns around privacy. While solutions like SSL and HTTPS provide some level of protection, they fall short in guarding against mass surveillance by corporations, internet service providers, and malicious actors.

Despite the efforts of many companies, true privacy will require a fundamental shift in the solutions we use.

Why Existing Solutions Fall Short

Existing tools such as VPNs, proxies, and Tor suffer from various limitations. While VPNs were initially created for internal network security and have since been repurposed, they still lack optimization for global accessibility. Additionally, VPN traffic is easily recognizable and blockable by DPI (deep packet inspection) analyzers. Proxies share a weakness with VPNs as they create a single point of vulnerability where the server possesses both user and destination information.

Tor network, known for its Onion routing that encrypts and directs traffic through multiple nodes, offers robust anonymity. However, its complex setup and slower speeds make it unfit for mass adoption. Moreover, Tor's dependency on volunteer nodes limits its scalability and reliability for commercial use.

Twilight's Privacy Layer

Twilight's enhanced design effectively addresses these challenges.

We've developed the Virtual Privacy Proxy Layer (VPPL), which combines the benefits of proxy technology — speed and flexibility — with enhanced security. VPPL routes traffic through at least two nodes, splitting knowledge between them to eliminate single points of compromise. It adds just 5 ms of latency, which is negligible as the average page load time is 3000 ms. Based on the VLESS protocol, Twilight's VPPL ensures that traffic remains indistinguishable from regular HTTPS, even to DPI analyzers.

The DePIN approach allows Twilight to quickly expand to thousands of nodes by involving independent contributors and mitigates the risks of centralized control. In addition, with a vast network of outbound nodes, Twilight users become untraceable by VPN detectors, eliminating endless captchas and restricted website access.

Did you know that centralized VPN services, relying on data center infrastructure, pay up to 10 times more for hardware? With decentralization, Twilight isn't just more secure, but it's also set to become one of the most efficient network infrastructures on the market.

Our privacy layer will be accessible to both individual users and businesses.

Users can rely on the Twilight App to secure their everyday connections. We aim to make this app the go-to solution for tens of millions of people.

We’re also creating a seamless SDK that enables businesses to quickly and affordably integrate privacy features into their products.

How Twilight works

Twilight's infrastructure operates on three core components: inbound nodes, outbound nodes, and validators. Each component has its essential role in the architecture. Inbound nodes handle user data, keeping it hidden from external view while outbound nodes ensure that the final destination remains concealed throughout the process. This enables a distributed knowledge approach, effectively removing a single point of compromise.

Here's a breakdown of a standard user request:

1. When the user opens the app or activates the SDK, it automatically retrieves a list of nodes and routing options

2. Once a request is made, the proxy client encrypts the final destination using the outbound node’s public key and sends it through the network

3. The request first reaches the inbound node, which hides the original sender's identity

4. It is then forwarded to the outbound node, which decrypts the final destination and passes it through

5. The response follows the same path back to the user

Twilight’s token

TWI tokens are used to create economic incentives across the Twilight Network while balancing supply and demand.

We settled on a Burn & Mint model, battle-tested by leading DePIN projects like Helium. Access to Twilight requires Data points, a non-transferable internal currency pegged to USD, for stable pricing. Users burn Twilight tokens to generate Data points, which are used to purchase bandwidth. Node providers earn Data points based on traffic handled, which they can then burn to mint Twilight tokens.

To ensure security from day one, we're attracting a set of trustworthy validators through emerging restaking technology. The staking mechanism will also enhance both security and network stability.

TWI's governance role will also become vital to its utility as the network grows and attracts thousands of contributors.

Conclusion

For years, true online privacy has been within reach but required a few simple yet essential upgrades to existing solutions. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we’ve enhanced proven technologies to address the lack of interoperability and decentralization. Twilight is set to revolutionize online privacy in the same way HTTPS  transformed the Internet’s security.

If you’re interested in chatting more about privacy, feel to free to find us on X.