What is NAV Coin?
NAV Coin is a self-sustaining entity, built to take advantage of the benefits of decentralization, and to help more people integrate blockchain technology into their lives.
From the basic design, all cryptocurrency is all about decentralization. A product or project that is honestly built to be operated by and for the public must have the element of rigorous truth in it.
Through decentralization and subsequent automation, people who use projects like NAV Coin are in a good position to make informed decisions about some of the systems that they intend to operate. This, therefore, gives them an advantage, because, for the first time, users are able to experience a fair playing field, without interference from overlords in the form of governing bodies and other middlemen.
Apart from offering a decentralized solution to so many problems that we struggle with today, NAV Coin also offers protection to all those who use the project for one reason or the other. Hypothetically, there is safety in numbers when using projects like NAV Coin. Therefore, there is a very limited chance that someone would be able to execute a malicious attack on the system, attack or threaten those who are already using the system.
This all comes down to the fact that there are so many people involved in the project operation, and the nature of their relationships makes it very difficult for malicious attacks to thrive.
NAV Coin is not just a self-sustaining entity, it is also distributed free, as open source code. It is designed to establish and facilitate trust, and in so doing, users who meet these requirements earn rewards in the process.
What is the problem that NAV Coin Solves?
NAV Coin makes use of some of the best features inherent to decentralized tech, alongside some privacy-centered network design features. NAV Coin also uses a dual blockchain system to support the network. However, it does not depend on centralized databases.
While the dual blockchains are decentralized, all the scripts that are run through them, and process all transactions are run on a web server that the public interact with. This means that this is one network point that can easily be referenced with an IP address. All this is maintained and managed by the Nav Coin Development Team.
Safe Subchain Distribution
It is virtually impossible for someone to gain access to the subchain coins for malicious purposes, especially since the subchain is available to the public. Therefore, a supposed attacker would be unable to send the wrong instructions to a server in an attempt to gain NAV Coins from the system.
The way servers are designed in NAV Coin, they are only supposed to respond to instructions on subchains, that are considered truthful sources. Given this concept, if any user learns how to read and identify addresses from outgoing servers and send transaction requests to that address, it becomes possible for them to instruct the server to send NAV Coins to whichever address the attacker would have specified.
Protection from malicious server operations
Building on the concept of decentralization has its benefits and challenges. One of the challenges is that when unknown members of the global population have the opportunity to become server operators, there is always a risk that one of these operators might have malicious tendencies.
There is a possibility of taking advantage of system flaws. For example, the system accumulates all incoming transactions before processing them in blocks in a period of every two minutes. What this means, therefore, is that a cunning server operator has a 2-minute window within which they can take their server offline before any pending funds are processed, and in the process, steal all the NAV Coins that might have been in the input process.
Other than the risk of stealing NAV Coins, there is also the possibility that such a server operator might also be tempted to record or simply monitor all transactions that pass through their servers for whichever reason.
Power to the end user
For such a system to be in operation, there is a lot of trust needed between the users and server operators. On the part of the users, they expect that the server operator exercises due diligence in the operation, wherein they do not record any information, and besides that, offer a guarantee that the shared funds will be delivered to the intended recipients.
In a system that relies on trust, power and choice should be in the hands of the users. The reason for this is because taking away choice from users means they have no control over the platform they are using. Without control, users cannot trust the platform. It is important in the decentralization realm, that users have the ability to establish and use their own systems, instead of depending on intermediaries.
How does NAV Coin Solve the problem?
While decentralization is an important aspect of the blockchain revolution, it has certain challenges as outlined above, which should be addressed in a technical capacity. With NAV Coin, the most efficient security method that can be used to protect the system from hacks or fraudulent players is to create trusted clusters for the servers, wherein they can transact with one another.
By having servers operating in the same cluster, these servers are able to share different and layered security features. This makes it easier to prevent the processing of unwarranted transactions, hence keeping the system safe.
IP Restriction
This is one of the safest ways of preventing malicious users from gaining access to the outgoing servers. Even in the unlikely event that one such person was able to clone one of the IP addresses that are accepted by the incoming servers and request for credentials, the outgoing server would simply send the response to the original IP address (incoming server) and not the clone. Therefore, the ISP simply routes traffic to the correct incoming server IP address, instead of the one created by the malicious attacker. How is this done?
At the configuration point of all servers set to accept incoming transactions, a list of accepted IP addresses for all the servers that send outgoing transactions is provided.
The servers use this list whenever processing transactions. Therefore, the servers cannot communicate with any IP address that is not on this list.
Unless the incoming servers are undergoing scheduled maintenance, there is no IP restriction on them.
This is important so that their API stays open for prompt communication between potential IP addresses and the NAV wallets. It is also important to note that the outgoing servers are the only servers with a pre-loaded pool of NAV which can be extracted. As a result, it is important that they are given this kind of protection.
RSA Encryption
In order for an incoming server to handle transactions or communicate with the outgoing server, there are several IP restriction tests that it has to pass. If the messages are coming from a recognized IP address, the outgoing server sends a public RSA encryption key to the incoming server.
The RSA encryption key encrypts the secrets, address, and amounts involved in the transaction before committing the transaction to the blockchain. An outgoing server receives the subchain transaction and decrypts the information on it. If the outgoing server is not able to decrypt the transaction, the transaction is sent back to the subchain from where it originated.
What is the role of this encryption? The encryption helps in keeping all information that is submitted to the subchain private as it should be. Other than that, it is only possible to access a public key through the API of an IP restricted outgoing server. For this reason, the only transactions that the outgoing servers can process and those that come from whitelisted incoming server IP addresses.
Use of Secret Tokens
When setting up an incoming server in a server cluster, a 42-character token is generated. This token is then added to a configuration file in the cluster, that identifies all the incoming servers and outgoing servers.
After creating a subchain, the secret token is combined with the address and the amount in the transaction, encrypted with the public keys for the outgoing servers, and then added to the blockchain.
Upon decryption by the outgoing server, the secret token in the transaction has to be similar to the secret that is present in the configuration file for the outgoing server. If this is not the case, the subchain is sent back to the originator.
Even with some of the best supercomputers in the world today, this is one of the most difficult RSA encryption protocols to decode or hack. Other than that, since this secret is not broadcast on any of the servers that make up the cluster, it is impossible for anyone to hack it. In fact, according to experts, it would take someone who is dedicated to hacking the secret at least 143 vigintillion years to hack this through brute force.
Server Whitelists
Each user has the capacity to determine the incoming servers that they can include in the configuration files for their wallets. In case you have already been using the NAV Coin project, your wallet configuration file should have the Official Navtech incoming servers included. In case any of the service operators you use has created a cluster of Navtech servers which you would intend to use, you can easily add the servers in that cluster to your configuration file. Presently there is no limit to the number of servers you can add to the configuration whitelist for your wallet.
What makes NAV Coin better than the competitors?
Security
NAV Coin offers a highly secure platform for users, and this is one of the reasons why it is a cut above most of the competition. In the blockchain realm, this level of security also inspires confidence in the users and makes them appreciate the project even more.
Malicious attacks
Servers in the NAV Coin project can be operated in private clusters. Because of this reason, it is virtually impossible for a malicious attacker to extract coins from the network. Assuming that the network was to be run as a large network without clusters or boundaries, it would be almost impossible for any user to be confident that their coins would safely terminate to the other end of the transaction since they have zero control over the entity in the network that processes their coins.
Public confidence
The public can be assured of transparency in the mode of operation. The public Github source and community server lists provide a level of guardianship, which helps to bestow confidence in the decentralization of this project.
How can NAV Coin be categorized?
NAV Coin is a digital currency that is built off Bitcoin. Through the Navtech system, NAV Coin presents users an opportunity to protect their privacy when engaging in financial transactions online. It offers a level of anonymity that makes transactions safe, secure and efficient.
What’s NAV Coin’s vision on Security?
NAV Coin is one of the projects that has taken security a notch higher. There are several steps in place to help with this. NAV Coin uses the server MD5 Hash. Other than users being able to add incoming servers to their configuration files, they are also able to specify Navtech hashes that should be considered as genuine.
At the point where the user wallet needs to make a transaction request to an incoming server, it must first of all request the server to hash the running file, which the server will return as part of the response. In case the hash returned by the server is not similar to the hash that was pre-identified as a genuine hash, the wallet notifies the user that the server that it has been in contact with does not have the same source code that is expected. Therefore, you need to remove that server from your list. Other than that, this automatically bars the transaction from completion.
The hash is not backed into the wallet but is user specified. The reason for this is because NAV Coin is an open-source project. In case a user would love to create their own cluster of servers and tweak the source code to meet their needs and have it perform a different transaction, NAV Coin does not intend to stop users from doing that. This is the beauty of open source development. Users are free to do as they please with the source code.
This is also aimed at making sure that whenever update hashes have been posted, they are not forced down on users to download the wallets and update their Navtech source all the time.
Examples of NAV Coin use cases/applications
NavPi Kowhai
This is a rebuild of the NavPi StakeBox with enhanced usability, performance, and security. It is specifically designed to help in making NAV staking easier for users and efficient.
Lightning Network
The implementation of the lightning network is important in the sense that it allows users to access atomic swaps, cross chain and instant transactions between NAV and any of the other cryptocurrencies that might be supported.
Resources
https://coincheckup.com/coins/NAV-Coin
https://www.navcoin.org/files/navtech-whitepaper-beta-v0.9.pdf