Why are mixnets not more common?

You need individuals to run mixnet nodes in order to create a network that can be used to relay data. And all the complicated computation needed to split, mix, bundle, and route data is resource-draining for many devices. It is unreasonable to expect people to do this for free over a long period of time, so it is simpler for a company to create a VPN and charge users a fee to keep the service running. Although in recent years, with web3 and cryptography-powered decentralized incentive mechanisms, it is now possible to incentivize users while still running a private and decentralized network. So mixnets may become mainstream over the next several years.

Can intermediary nodes see my data in a mixnet?

No, your data is encrypted, and so is each layer of the “onion”. They can only open one layer at a time. This is ensured through key-pair cryptographic techniques. Your data is only visible to the receiver you are trying to send it to. This is also the case for Tor and many secure VPNs, but with them, metadata such as your IP address and device information are not sufficiently secured.

Can a mixnet be compromised?

If every node on a relay is malicious and works together, they could theoretically figure out who sent the data and where it is going. But this is impossible to do provided there is at least one honest node along a relay path. So for a decentralized mixnet to be exploitable in this fashion, you would need to run a very large proportion of all the nodes on the network. Addressing these issues is also the job of the protocol and the weighting implemented to randomize routing effectively and remove dishonest nodes.

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