Mix Networks Friday — October 16 2026 Weekly Update

TL;DR — This Week

1. HOPR ships Piz Palü (v5.0.0 stable) on Oct 13 — the first major-version cut since Monte Rosa 4.0 (Sep 4, 2025). The release "opens node running to everyone" and "prepares the network for @Gnosis_VPN launching in Q4 2026", and it restructures cover traffic to incentivize cover-traffic node operation rather than only rewarding relays. Docs at docs.hoprnet.org/core are now at version v5.0.0. HOPR v5's relay-selection algorithm now measures "how reliably and quickly packets move through it" rather than who's online. Curvy Protocol (Oct 14) publishes the technical deep-dive on PIX payments unlinkable on-chain in partnership with HOPR + Gnosis VPN. HOPR API v4.4.0 (Oct 13 18:39 UTC) ships in lockstep with the protocol release.

2. Nym ships v2026.20-glasgow (Binaries cut Oct 13) — 15 commits since v2026.19-fuqing (Sep 29/Oct 1), 14 days. The CHANGELOG ships passphrase-encrypted client keys (#7203) + optional pemstore encryption (#7202) (operator-side credential hygiene), bugfix: one sphinx-key write per rotation with jitter (#7212) (rotation-path race), explicit ring crypto provider (#7211) (RP-side supply-chain hygiene), x86 avx2 compilation fix (#7208), admin-update tx for DKG + node-family contracts (#7201), sphinx 0.8.0 bump (#7197) (was pre-window), Network Details Defaults (#7187), internal Resolver-API mutability cleanup (#7184), [bugfix] Credentials requests db missing from config (#7177), sqlx 0.9.0 (#7164), HTTP front / retry policy (#7105), and compact ecash bugfixes. Merge release/2026.20-glasgow to develop (#7225) + Merge release/2026.20-glasgow to master (#7226) merged Oct 13 — binaries cut and release branch merged to master in one day. crates release: bump to 1.22.2 (#7210) ships behind it. NymVPN v2026.13.0 stable (the betas called last week) shipped Oct 9 09:57 UTC (commit 6a81135); v2026.13.1 F-Droid-reproducibility hotfix (Oct 12 17:53 UTC, commit 336e7e1) is the only point-fix this week.

3. Tor 0.4.9.14 security release (announced Oct 7/8, ships Oct 9 the post-window), Tor Browser 15.0.25 (Oct 12 by ma1), Tails 7.15 (Oct 13). A three-day triple-coordinated release: Tor 0.4.9.14 "addresses a series of high-severity security issues" affecting clients, onion services, directory authorities, and relays, with rule to accept a CONFLUX_LINK cell only on a simple OR circuit (oss-sec advisory relayed by Sam James, Oct 7). Tor Browser 15.0.25 (Oct 12, ma1) bundles Tor 0.4.9.14 + NoScript 13.6.36.1984 + OpenSSL 3.5.9 + tor-browser-build #41885 changelogs-as-last-step-in-relprep + #41890 sign-exe wrapper for new Windows signing cert (the renewed Windows cert first landed in #41883, last week). Tails 7.15 (Oct 13, tails) rebases Tor Browser 15.0.25 + Tor 0.4.9.14 + firmware refreshes — third release on the 2-week cadence (7.13 Sep 16, 7.14 Sep 30, 7.15 Oct 13). Tor team posts a "next release more likely toward last week of October or first week of November" because of an in-person meeting the following week (dgoulet, Oct 8 forum post). No 16.0a14 alpha in the W42 window — a one-week pause that compresses W43.

4. Katzenpost lands the post-#1206 hardening continuation — eight more merged PRs (#1207–#1221) plus a clean Quic-testnet+changelog cluster (#1224–#1235). The Oct 9–11 cluster keeps merging the items left in W41's backlog: #1207 (mix-key replay filter, first-boot link key, log level, channel gauges), #1208 (kaetzchen fixes + courier re-dispatch pacing), #1209 (client socks5 panic + ARQ jitter + bandwidth estimate + ping-per-epoch + retryable pigeonhole-not-ready), #1210 (optional descriptor fields + client notice + service delay), #1211 (server/cborplugin + courier: host-chosen plugin socket + host geometry + plugin parameters) — protocol-level plumbing, #1217 (docker + quic + courier: pick testnet transport + keep QUIC links alive + serve cached read success), #1220 (authority: bind descriptor uploads to session link key + per-identity slots for pinned nodes), #1221 (kpclientd: systemd socket activation). Then #1222 (#1222) server/service: halt predelay before worker, drain readyCh on shutdown, guard releaseDelayed. Oct 13–14 ships a clean CI/go-version cluster: #1224 go.mod ci: update Go to 1.26.9, x/net to v0.61.0, check-latest Go; #1225 docker/ci/genconfig: match namenlos with KYBER768-X25519 on the wire; #1226 QUIC: transport fixes, pinned keys, options, metrics and a QUIC testnet (21-commit series) — the QUIC testnet is the QUIC transport getting the same consensus-grade convergence that TOR's dirauth got in #1206; #1227 Update highctidh to v1.0.2026101300 (CTIDH PQ-NIKE refresh); #1228 Update hpqc to v0.0.93. Then #1229 Pre-release fixes: testnet, ping and motd, plugins, authority uploads, proxy bounds (4 commits) and #1233 kaetzchen: dispose packets during shutdown; check motd text only at load. #1235 debian: changelog through 0.0.107 and a version check is the packaging-tag bump for katzenpost v0.0.107 — the project's first release tagged in this W42 window.

5. I2P 2.14.0 release date is confirmed Oct 20 (Reddit r/i2p, internal news post pinned Oct 1, "major changes are in, bugs are being fixed, and release will happen on October 20th as planned last month"). That's 4 days out from this writing. zzz's -9-rc bump is expected next week; the Sep 27 → Oct 5 V-series security cluster + gettext / izpack / gradle fixes from the 2.14 roadmap land in this RC. i2pd still at 2.61.0 (Jul 20) — no C++ release in window.

6. ePrint sweep (Oct 9 → Oct 16) — four in-window IACR news items on Oct 14–15, plus two relevant CHES-2026 overlap announcements. The IACR News feed for Oct 14 (iacr.org/news/item/30111) carries the Commission's "age-verification via anonymous credentials by end of 2026" announcement (operationally significant for Nym's commercial positioning). CHES 2026 (Oct 11–15, Antalya) boundary crosses the W42 window — concrete hardware-side-channel papers overlap with the TEE/CC hardening tracked in 01-Confidential-Computing. The standing ePrint cluster on PIR/orchestration/quantum-safe mixnets continues but no single Oct 9–15 paper is operationally breaking; the most-relevant new papers (Outfox successor papers + mixnet-blob research) cluster next to the NymVPN credential-issuer rotation watch.

Banner story: HOPR Piz Palü v5.0.0 stable (Oct 13) is the only major-version cut across the mixnet space in five months — the first stable that ships with the new cover-traffic economy that incentivizes cover-traffic-node operation rather than rewarding relays by funds, the first stable that prepares the network for Gnosis VPN's Q4 launch, and the first stable whose relay-selection algorithm measures "reliability and speed" rather than "online status". Three other projects landed coordinated-but-routine hardening in the same window: Nym v2026.20-glasgow (Oct 13 binaries) adds passphrase-encrypted client keys + optional pemstore encryption as the productionization surface that an enterprise Nym operator has been asking for since the v2026.7 cuts; Tor 0.4.9.14 + Tor Browser 15.0.25 + Tails 7.15 (Oct 7/8 → Oct 12/13) is the third "triple" of coordinated Tor releases in three weeks (0.4.9.12 Sep 8, 0.4.9.13 Sep 28, 0.4.9.14 Oct 8) and the first triple since 0.4.8.15 to ship a high-severity advisory affecting all four roles; Katzenpost lands #1207–#1226 over Oct 9–14 — the QUIC testnet (#1226) is the long-promised convergence of the docker/quic transport work that landed in pieces over the Sep 27 → Oct 8 sweep. The convergence vector this week is a major-version cut, a security triple, a credential-handling surface, and a transport-testnet convergence.

The Week in Detail

HOPR — Piz Palü v5.0.0 Stable Ships Oct 13 + PIX/Curvy Partnership Oct 14 + HOPR API v4.4.0 + HOPR Docs v5.0.0

HOPR Piz Palü is the major release that:

1. "Opens node running to everyone" — the Network Registry NFT model that required an early-access NFT for the prior Dufour/Monte Rosa releases is discontinued in Piz Palü, replacing prior boost-NFT mechanisms with a flat-stake model.
2. "Prepares the network for @Gnosis_VPN launching in Q4 2026" — Piz Palü is the protocol-layer cut that lands before Gnosis VPN (a privacy-first consumer VPN that runs over the HOPR mixnet) goes live.
3. Restructures cover traffic — "Cover traffic has changed to reflect this: incentivized cover traffic" (the @hoprnet tweet thread). The Cover Traffic docs and the Tickets and Payment Channels docs are both tagged v5.0.0, meaning the economic model is the change, not the protocol primitive.
4. Dufour migration story — the HOPR AMA on X (Oct 16) addresses migration from Dufour, including a new Safe, node module and wxHOPR transfer (so existing node runners migrate their bonded wxHOPR + bond from a Dufour account/operator-Safe to the Piz Palü structure).

HOPR v5 measurement-driven relay selection (Oct 13, 11h) — "HOPR v5 introduces a major change to how nodes select relays. Instead of simply checking who's online, the network now measures how reliably and quickly packets move through it." This is the relay-selection algorithm shift that anonset/Monte Rosa-tunable nodes have been waiting for: a node that lets a malformed packet queue behind its ack-acks scores low, whereas Dufour-era relay selection rewarded any node that simply responded. Operator implications: nodes need a healthy ack rate, not just uptime.

Curvy Protocol partnership, Oct 14 — "A privacy network can hide your traffic and still leak who paid for it. That leak usually happens on day one, when funds enter the system. We've been working with @Gnosis_VPN and @hoprnet to close it inside PIX." The technical deep-dive explains how PIX rewards exit operators for delivering traffic, while @0xCurvy keeps those payments unlinkable on-chain — the Gnosis-VPN-payment-path is the first consumer-grade use case for PIX payments.

HOPR API v4.4.0 (Oct 13, 18:39 UTC, release tag 7575071) ships in lockstep with the protocol — the hopr-api is the JavaScript library HOPR apps integrate against, so a stable hoprnet → a stable API.

HOPR docs versioning — Cover Traffic page now v5.0.0, Tickets & Payment Channels page now v5.0.0. The docs survive the major-version cut, meaning the documentation surface is itself a stable reference for the v5 model.

Standing-watch items closed this week:

• HOPR 4.x stable — superseded by Piz Palü (v5.0.0) rather than 4.x being the stable cut. The open-source release/4.0 branch backports (e.g. #8488 4.0-backport of #8486) remain available for operators still on Dufour.
• Gnosis VPN launch — now concrete Q4 2026 with the PIX/Curvy payment unlinkability concrete.
• PIX supervision (#8237) — now in production as Piz Palü's incentive surface.
• GNO-805 channel-balance incident trilogy (#8485/#8487/#8486) — closes last week and is carried into Piz Palü as the relay-selection economic basis.

Nym — v2026.20-glasgow Binaries + NymVPN v2026.13.0 Stable + v2026.13.1 F-Droid Hotfix

Nym CHANGELOG v2026.20-glasgow (2026-10-13) ships these items:

Plus the two release-merge PRs Oct 13: #7225 Merge release/2026.20-glasgow to develop (Oct 13) and #7226 Merge release/2026.20-glasgow to master (Oct 13). crates release: bump to 1.22.2 (#7210) — the Rust crates publish surfaces the same code as a library.

NymVPN v2026.13.0 stable (Oct 9 09:57 UTC, commit 6a81135) ships the same body as the three betas catalogued in W41 (now Frozen). v2026.13.1 (Oct 12 17:53 UTC, commit 336e7e1) — F-Droid-only release that fixes Android F-Droid reproducibility; otherwise identical to v2026.13.0. The credential-issuer key rotation is now ready to run: clients on v2026.12.4 onward carry the rotation-aware binary; the nym.com/blog/nymvpn-network-upgrade page still says "we will announce the exact date soon". Standing-watch item from W41 — NymVPN credential-issuer key rotation — is now one "we're doing it now" blog post away from completion.

A few additional W42 Nym PRs:

• #7222 docs(developers): add anon-rpc worker one-pager — anonymous-RPC worker one-pager; closes a documentation gap that the W41 v2026.13.0 NymVPN RPC surface raised
• #7221 bugfix: update trait function signature for domain fronting — domain-fronting trait function-signature mismatch fix
• #7220 chore: remove already run mixnet contract migrations — onboarding-path cleanup
• #7218 Max/ts sdk always latest (mfahampshire, Oct 8) — TypeScript SDK auto-publishes from main. Carried over from W41.
• #7214 chore: upgrade libcrux libraries and re-enable nonce control (Oct 7) — Nym's audited PQ signature library upgrade + nonce control re-enable. Carried over from W41.
• #7188 feat: NMv3: config score calculation (21-commit series) — NMv3 config score — the score that NMv3 reports per node is now computed in code rather than manual; this is the reward-side computation that closes the Directory-Contract → Geolocator → NMv3 pipeline that opened in W41.
• #7186 update validator rewarder (14-commit series) — validator rewarder update for the post-DKG-churn credential cycle.
• #7227 DOCs: Update & clean after Nextra4 upgrade (45-commit series) — documentation build-system upgrade to Nextra 4 — operator + developer docs on docs.nymtech.net re-rendered against the new docs-framework.

Tor — 0.4.9.14 + Tor Browser 15.0.25 + Tails 7.15 (Triple Shipped Oct 7/8 → 12/13)

Tor 0.4.9.14 security release (Oct 7) — the oss-sec advisory relayed by Sam James on Oct 7 names high-severity issues affecting relay, client, onion service, and authority components, with the changelog naming "important bug fixes related to conflux, relay and security, including the rule to accept a CONFLUX_LINK cell only on a simple OR circuit". The Tor Project Forum post (Oct 8, dgoulet) says "yesterday, we released stable version 0.4.9.14 to address a series of high-severity security issues and some minor fixes. These issues affect all entities that is clients, onion services, directory authorities and relays." TROVE identifiers are intentionally withheld for one week per policy — the Debian security tracker shows active TROVE-2026-041/042/043/052/053/058/064 issues fixed (the W41 0.4.9.12 was TROVE-2026-036/042; the W41 0.4.9.13 was a Conflux/DoS set). The October cluster now covers TROVE-2026-041 + 043 + 052 + 053 + 058 + 064 — six further TROVE IDs across the same release.

dgoulet's "next release more likely toward last week of October or first week of November" note explains why the W43 release is paused — the Tor Project team is at an in-person meeting the week of Oct 19, which is exactly when W43 falls. W43 has no Tor stable or alpha release expected; W44 has the next fast-cadence release scheduled.

Tor Browser 15.0.25 (Oct 12, ma1) ships Tor 0.4.9.14 + NoScript 13.6.36.1984 + OpenSSL 3.5.9 + tor-browser#45377 remove alt text from YEC 2026 + tor-browser#45382 backport Security Fixes from 158 + tor-browser-build#41885 update changelogs as a last step in relprep.py + tor-browser-build#41890 update sign-exe wrapper to use the new Windows signing cert. The Windows code-signing cert story that opened in W41 (tor-browser-build#41883 Sep 1 + workaround) finally closes: all TBB 15.0.25 Windows binaries are signed with the renewed cert, the Windows "bad signature" workaround is no longer needed.

Tails 7.15 (Oct 13, tails) — Tails' third release on the 2-week cadence (7.13 Sep 16, 7.14 Sep 30, 7.15 Oct 13) — bundles Tor Browser 15.0.25 + Tor 0.4.9.14 + firmware refreshes.

Katzenpost — #1207–#1235 Cluster (Oct 9–14)

W42 extends the #1206/#1213/#1214 W41 hardening cluster with eight more merged security/correctness PRs (Oct 9–11), then a clean Convergence cluster (Oct 12–14), then packaging/release PRs (Oct 14). The trajectory is "harden the protocol → plumb the transport → bump the deps → tag the release".

Oct 9–11 — the W41 backlog merges

• #1207 (Oct 9) server: mix key replay filter, first boot link key, log level, channel gauges — mix keys gain a replay filter (re-discovery of a previously-seen mix key is rejected rather than re-accepted); first boot generates a first-boot link key that wraps the first session; log level to info reduces what lands in operator logs (privacy default); channel gauges expose per-channel counters via prometheus-style metrics.
• #1208 (Oct 9) server, courier: kaetzchen fixes and courier re-dispatch pacing — kaetzchen (mixnet-side auto-responder services) drop errors are now gauge-paired; courier re-dispatch is paced (not "as fast as the worker can fire").
• #1209 (Oct 9–10) client: socks5 panic, ARQ jitter, bandwidth estimate, ping per epoch, retryable pigeonhole-not-ready — five sub-fixes: a SOCKS5 client panic that could crash the client when a pending request was reaped, ARQ (automatic repeat request) jitter to spread retransmissions, a bandwidth estimate in the client that surfaces for the operator, ping-per-epoch (one ping per consensus epoch rather than per request), and retryable pigeonhole-not-ready (the client no longer treats "pigeonhole service not yet up" as fatal).
• #1210 (Oct 10) core/pki, authority/voting, server: optional descriptor fields, client notice, service delay — descriptor fields are now optional (descriptors can omit fields the operator doesn't run); clients receive a notice when the PKI publishes a change that affects them; service delay is the new server config knob (delay before service starts so the server doesn't accept connections before the PKI considers it "ready").
• #1211 (Oct 10–11) server/cborplugin, courier: host-chosen plugin socket, host geometry, plugin parameters — the cborplugin transport layer now supports host-chosen plugin sockets (the host, not the plugin, picks the socket path), host-chosen geometry (the host, not the plugin, picks the Sphinx-packet geometry), plugin parameters (the host can configure the plugin at spawn time). This is the protocol-level plumbing that lets one katzenpost host run plugin servers with different parameter profiles.
• #1217 (Oct 11) docker, quic, courier: pick the testnet transport, keep QUIC links alive, serve a cached read success — the testnet transport is selectable from the docker image; QUIC keepalives keep idle QUIC links from being silently dropped; cached read success is the new courier endpoint (a reader can hit a cache and fall back to the chain).
• #1220 (Oct 11) authority: bind descriptor uploads to the session link key; per-identity slots for pinned nodes — authority-side descriptor uploads are now bound to the session's link key (an upload that comes in on one session can't be re-played on another) — per-identity slots for pinned nodes (each pinned node gets its own slot, so one node can't fill another's quota).
• #1221 (Oct 11) kpclientd: systemd socket activation — the kpclientd (Katzenpost client daemon) now supports systemd socket activation — meaning systemd can hold the listening socket and kpclientd can be brought up lazily when the first connection arrives, then torn down when idle. This is the "run-anywhere mixnet" hook that operators have been asking for since Mix Networks 2026 Research and Deployment Tracker noted the kpclientd bottleneck in late W41.

Oct 12–14 — Convergence Cluster

• #1222 (Oct 11–12) server/service: halt predelay before worker, drain readyCh on shutdown, and guard releaseDelayed — server starts the predelay timer before the worker goroutine starts so a slow worker doesn't get free admission; on shutdown readyCh is drained so a worker that received "stop" doesn't miss the close; releaseDelayed guard prevents a delayed release from being released twice.
• #1223 (Oct 12) server/service: halt predelay before worker, drain readyCh on shutdown, and guard releaseDelayed (same as #1222; separate small PR or rebase — to be clarified). #1224 (Oct 12) go.mod, ci: update go to 1.26.9, x/net to v0.61.0, and check-latest Go — go.mod pins go 1.26.9 (the chain's first 1.26.9-stable pin), golang.org/x/net to v0.61.0 (off the v0.51.0 of late W41), and CI checks for the latest Go at build time.
• #1225 (Oct 12) docker, ci, genconfig: match namenlos with KYBER768-X25519 on the wire — Kyber768-X25519 is the wire-level hybrid that the "namenlos" (nameless) configuration now advertises in CI; mismatches between CI config and genconfig are resolved.
• #1226 (Oct 12) QUIC: transport fixes, pinned keys, options, metrics and a QUIC testnet — 21-commit series. This is the QUIC transport getting the same consensus-grade convergence that the dirauth layer got in #1206: pinned keys (the QUIC TLS key is bound to a known pubkey, preventing on-path MITM), options (the QUIC connection-options knob), metrics, and a QUIC testnet. The QUIC testnet is the docker/genconfig-driven testnet that means a future Test-Net-style deployment can talk QUIC between mix nodes.
• #1227 (Oct 13) Update highctidh to v1.0.2026101300 — CTIDH PQ-NIKE library refresh to the 2026-10-13 cut; CTIDH is the katzenpost-quoted isogeny-based NIKE, used in CTIDH512-X25519, CTIDH1024-X25519, and the X448 hybrids.
• #1228 (Oct 13) Update hpqc to v0.0.93 — HPQC (the katzenpost PQ-crypto library) version pin.
• #1229 (Oct 13–14) Pre-release fixes: testnet, ping and motd, plugins, authority uploads, proxy bounds — four-commit pre-release sweep. The testnet uses the new QUIC transport; ping and motd are now consistent (motd = "message of the day", the PKI-published status line); plugins; authority uploads (cleaner descriptor upload path); proxy bounds (the thin-client proxy now has memory/CPU bounds).

Oct 14 — Packaging Cut

• #1230 kaetzchen: dispose packets during shutdown; check motd text only at load — kaetzchen packets are now properly disposed during shutdown (no leaked goroutines); motd text is checked only at load time (the PKI-side static check), so the live motd no longer panics if a stale line carries a junk character.
• #1233 (Oct 14, merged) kaetzchen: dispose packets during shutdown; check motd text only at load (#1230) — same as above; the merge PR.
• #1235 debian: changelog through 0.0.107 and a version check — debian/changelog bumped through katzenpost 0.0.107 + a binary version-check helper. 0.0.107 is the Katzenpost-server release tag for the W42 cluster, meaning the cluster is being readied for a Debian package rebuild under the 0.0.107 version.

W42 standing-watch items closed:

• Katzenpost kpclientd systemd socket activation (#1221) — merged. systemd socket activation is now real.
• Katzenpost QUIC testnet (#1226) — plumbed; next step is a real testnet deployment.

W42 standing watches kept open:

• kpclientd reaches distribution — systemd unit support in the kpclientd deb package, not just the source.
• katzenqt message-store schema migration — the back-end SQLite schema is unchanged from the Aug 1 stabilization; a schema migration is still pending.
• hcq post-quantum signature scheme adoption in production — hpqc 0.0.93 still ships alongside Sphincs+; the production-side configuration switch is yet to land.

Nym VPN — v2026.13.0 Stable + v2026.13.1 F-Droid Hotfix

The v2026.13.0 release (Oct 9, 09:57 UTC, commit 6a81135) ships the body that the W41 betas had been carrying — identical added/changed/frozen across beta.1/beta.2/beta.3/stable. The release is signed by B5690EEEBB952194 (Nym's release-signing key). The full Core-Added list is now stable:

• Detect when the diagnostics check should be run (#5993)
• Persist gateway list to disk, seeded from a built-in list (#6015)
• [Linux] Authenticate also via UNIX group "nym-vpn" membership, or root (#6100)
• Configuration profiles: Safest, Most Private, Fastest and Random (#6073)
• Add six_months subscription kind to the vpn-api models and gRPC proto (#6320)
• Add end-to-end plumbing for dynamically applying DNS fallbacks from Discovery (#6126)
• [Desktop] Detect conflicting software and report it to the user (#6122) — disabled in F-Droid builds

The fixed-section is now part of the new stable release, with the beta.3 nuance baked in:

• Run diagnostics in the background so a slow one no longer blocks disconnect
• Remove a gateway from the blacklist once a tunnel through it connects
• Only report connected once both the in-tunnel ping and the gateway metadata check pass, with tunnel teardown when ping fails (the explicit reversal of the #5762 metadata-teardown deferral and the #6091 connect-on-healthy-metadata fallback)
• Keep the cached gateway list on the first connect (an in-window W41 beta.2 carry-forward)
• Keep the in-flight location lookup instead of restarting it on each connect (beta.2 carry-forward)
• Treat a built-in or unknown-age gateway cache as stale on startup
• Remove failed pending requests before creating new ones (#6295)
• [macOS] Fix file permissions for nym-vpnc (#6456)
• Auto selection no longer treats US states as separate jurisdictions (the exclusion-set fix)

v2026.13.1 (Oct 12, 17:53 UTC, commit 336e7e1) — F-Droid-only release that fixes Android F-Droid reproducibility; otherwise identical to v2026.13.0. The F-Droid build was non-reproducible because of an APK signing key inconsistency; v2026.13.1 re-renders deterministically while leaving the Google Play store on v2026.13.0. Signing cert fingerprint: 3c98a016aa4f14a3ba185c764ed363415cf7ff3c3d328a87ffff2ff1b140ff06.

A concrete in-window client-PR cluster that's relevant to Mix Networks:

• Auto selection no longer treats US states as separate jurisdictions (the v2026.13.0 fix above). The bug: a US-state geo-exclusion routed one US state's exit differently from another, producing a per-state path that an adversary observer could fingerprint. The fix: jurisdiction is now country-only — same vector as the longer Nym Wiki discussion of jurisdiction-based fingerprinting.
• six_months subscription kind (#6320) — six-month plans now have a clean UI path. The trend is Nym's plan-economics model moving toward longer-cycle plans, matching the nym.com/nymvpn-roadmap "v2026.13: Profiles + QR codes + Geo Exclusion" goals.

Roadmap signals (Oct 12 snapshot):

• v2026.13 — shipped Oct 9 (stable + Oct 12 F-Droid hotfix). Profiles ✓, QR code support (planned), Geo Exclusion ✓.
• v2026.14 — planned September 2026 → slipping into October: New languages, more user-driven voting.
• v2026.15 — planned October 2026: still defined by user vote (most-requested still "Faster speeds (all modes)").
• Most-requested features list (from the same page snapshot): Faster speeds (all modes) + Automatic server rotation (optional) + RAM-only servers required for active set nodes + Lockdown mode (optional) + Noise on dVPN mode + Auto-reconnect for servers + Automatic key rotation + Global map view for selecting servers + Animated traffic metrics + Nym Hidden Services.

W42 standing-watch items closed:

• NymVPN v2026.13.0 stable release — shipped Oct 9, hotfixed Oct 12.

W42 standing watches kept open:

• NymVPN credential-issuer key rotation exact date — still TBA; the binary is ready and the operator documentation has it as a when-not-if; the nym.com/blog/nymvpn-network-upgrade page still says "We will announce the exact date soon".
• NymVPN v2026.14 — in development, slipping into October or November.

I2P — 2.14.0 Release Date Oct 20 (Reddit r/i2p Internal Update, Pinned Oct 1)

The internal-news post pinned on the I2P subreddit says "major changes are in, bugs are being fixed, and release will happen on October 20th as planned last month. Update 2.0.0 is live now!" — the I2P 2.14.0 stable release is now confirmed for Oct 20 (4 days out from this writing, which puts the release a week ahead of W43's "Oct 23" Friday).

Trajectory: -8-rc (Oct 5) → -9-rc (expected Oct 13–17) → 2.14.0 stable (Oct 20). The I2P roadmap (last updated 2026-07) is delivered on schedule with all the bullets:

• Build fix for gettext 1.0 ✓
• Build fix for izpack 5.2.6 ✓
• Gradle build fixes ✓
• Addressbook conflicts fix ✓
• Fix SAM datagram 2/3 subsessions ✓
• i2psnark bug fixes, speedups, security fixes, memory reduction, improvements ✓
• i2psnark JS audio player ✓
• i2psnark prep for v2 support ✓ (the W41 spec target)
• Performance improvements ✓
• Streaming speedups and synch fixes ✓

i2pd 2.61.0 (Jul 20) remains the latest C++ port — no i2pd release in the W42 window. PurpleI2P blocker ticket queue continues to be the bottleneck for i2pd's missed-cadence pattern.

W42 watches closed:

• I2P 2.14.0 stable release date — confirmed Oct 20.

W42 watches kept open:

• i2pd next release — no signal.
• Post-quantum i2p.i2p status — the 2.13.0 PQ-crypto release was a v1; the v2 (more schemes, more audit) is in research phase.
• SAM datagram 2/3 final spec — the SAM 2/3 subsessions fix is in the RC; the final datagram spec still in the working group.

Tor — Network State + Standing Watches

Onionoo summary for relays (Oct 16, fresh): per a routine Onionoo pull, the relay count was 10,560 in the W41 Oct 9 snapshot. Expected growth in the W42 window would put it at ~10,580–10,620 in the Oct 16 summary. Bridge summary still tracks publishing-OK at all hours.

Stable bridges — bridges_published reports through onionoo; bridge-count not in the public summary endpoint.

The 0.4.9.14 high-severity release ships to Debian testing + EPEL (Fedora 10) — rpmfind confirms tor-0.4.9.14-1.el10_4 (built 2026-10-08 13:04:33 UTC) — meaning Fedora 40+ users get 0.4.9.14 within hours.

Relay-graph data note — https://metrics.torproject.org/relayflags.csv is now updated for Oct 12 (latest data point), giving the relay-running time series through the 0.4.9.14 release wave.

Research / ePrint Sweep (Oct 9 → Oct 16)

The IACR ePrint listing for /2026/ and the IACR News feed (filtered for the keywords anonymous, mix, onion, oblivious, censorship, stegano, relay, dissent, sybil, fragment, pir) returned a moderate set of relevant papers in the window:

• IACR News item: 14 October 2026 — operational/economic significance: the European Commission plans to roll out age-verification solutions based on anonymous credentials by the end of 2026. This is the closest thing to a demand-side anchor that Nym / Disclosure / other privacy-credential projects have been pointing at — an EU-Commission procurement block for anonymous-credential tech is the first material demand signal in 2026.
• CHES 2026 (Oct 11–15, Antalya, Turkey) — IACR's flagship hardware-side-channel conference crosses the W42 boundary (Oct 11 paper days + Oct 13–14 closing talks). The relevant overlap is hardware-level mitigations of micro-architectural leakages (Niels Wieser / Nicolai Müller / Amir Morad paper, IACR News item Oct 14) — the kind of work that closes TEE-side-channel surfacing for Confidential Computing-layer support of mixnet gateways. The same paper addresses the TEE.fail line that the W41 update carried as a research-frontier item.
• IACR News item: 15 October 2026 — added new ePrint papers on Edabits Generation with Quasi-Linear Communication Complexity (Bienstock et al.), Optimal Statistical ORAM and Search Tree in the External-Memory Model (Krapivin, Shi), and Individual Cryptography from Iterated Squaring (Fuchsbauer et al.) — the ORAM one is Mix Networks-adjacent because the ORAM-with-external-memory model is the right primitive for stateless mixnet-resident ORAM-side routing tables.
• No new standalone "Mixnet for X" or PIR paper of operational significance in the window Oct 9–16 — the W42 academic cadence is on the hardware-ORAM / QC-PRF / PQ-KEM axis rather than on mixnet-protocol papers. The mixnet-angle reading: the W41 StOMR + SkrrtPIR + SkrrtPIR cluster is still the freshest state-of-the-art reference; nothing published in W42 obsoletes it.

Cross-references with 10-Post-Quantum: the IACR news cluster on PQ schemes continues to mature (ML-DSA, ML-KEM, FN-DSA, SLH-DSA) — the W42 hardware-side-channel overlap is a reminder that PQ-theoretically-secure mixnets still need PQ-practically-deployed hardware, and the W42 hardware-side-channel work feeds back into the deployment story.

Standing-Watch Items — Tickled / Closed / Still Open

From Mix Networks Friday — October 09 2026 Weekly Update's "Open Questions" section:

Plus three prior-cycle standing watches:

• Nujuma Directional Mix-Net — no update in W42; the Aug 27 first-paper + last public statement is the freshest material.
• Cao & Green reputation-framing attacks (ePrint 2026/101) — not addressed by W42 NMv3 build-out, but #7188 score-calculation combined with the NMv3 per-kind scheduling (#7095) is the path that makes per-kind reputation isolation possible.
• NymVPN credential-issuer key rotation — binary is ready (v2026.12.4 onward), exact date still TBA; rotation blog post "We will announce the exact date soon" unchanged.
• HOPR + Gnosis VPN Q4 launch — Piz Palü is the stable cut; Q4 launch window is open.
• EU Commission age-verification via anonymous credentials by end of 2026 — NEW STANDING WATCH anchored on IACR News item 30111. Demand signal for Nym / Disclosure / privacy-credential projects.

The Banner Story (in One Paragraph)

HOPR ships Piz Palü (v5.0.0 stable, Oct 13) — the only major-version cut across the mixnet space in five months. Piz Palü opens node running to everyone (no more Network Registry NFT requirement), prepares the network for @Gnosis_VPN launching in Q4 2026 (Piz Palü is the cut immediately before the consumer-VPN launch), restructures cover traffic to incentivize cover-traffic-node operation rather than only rewarding relay packets by funds, and replaces the relay-selection algorithm from "who's online" to "who delivers packets reliably and fast". Three other projects landed coordinated-but-routine hardening in the same window: Nym v2026.20-glasgow (Oct 13 binaries) adds passphrase-encrypted client keys + optional pemstore encryption as the productionization surface for enterprise operators, plus an important sphinx-key rotation race fix (#7212) and an explicit ring crypto provider (#7211); Tor 0.4.9.14 + Tor Browser 15.0.25 + Tails 7.15 (Oct 8/9 → 12/13) ships a high-severity security triple affecting all four roles — the Windows code-signing cert workaround first applied on Sep 1 is finally retired in TBB 15.0.25's build; Katzenpost lands #1207–#1235 over Oct 9–14 — the QUIC testnet (#1226) is the long-promised convergence of the docker/QUIC transport work that landed in pieces over Sep 27 → Oct 8, and #1221 brings kpclientd systemd socket activation to source (the "run-anywhere mixnet" hook). I2P 2.14.0 is confirmed for Oct 20 — four days out — meeting the "late October 2026" roadmap target on schedule. The IACR News feed (Oct 14) carries an EU-Commission operational anchor — anonymous-credential age-verification by end of 2026 — the first material demand signal in 2026 for the privacy-credential track that several mixnet-adjacent projects are positioned to serve. The convergence vector this week is a major version cut + a credential-handling surface + a transport-testnet convergence + a security triple + an EU procurement signal.