Hide your IP with Oblivious HTTP

Send relayer requests through an OHTTP relay so no single party sees both your IP and your records.

Without help, a relayer sees the IP address each request came from, and could note which IP sent which record. Oblivious HTTP splits that knowledge between two parties:

• the OHTTP relay sees your IP, but every request is encrypted to the relayer, so it cannot read it;
• the relayer reads the request, but it only ever sees the OHTTP relay’s IP.

As long as the two are run by different people, neither can tie your IP to your records.

Use it

const ark = await createPrivateClient({
  app: "my-app",
  wallet,
  ohttpRelay: "https://ohttp.example.org",
})

Every relayer call (info, submit, status polling) then goes through the relay. Nothing else changes.

Where the keys come from

Each relayer publishes its OHTTP gateway key in its heartbeat entity on Arkiv. The client reads the key from Arkiv, never from the relay, so a relay cannot substitute its own key.

Anyone can publish a heartbeat claiming any URL. The client tries every key claimed for a relayer’s URL; only the real relayer can decrypt, and its answer must name the address that created that heartbeat. A squatter’s key simply fails.

Choosing an OHTTP relay

• Operated by someone else. If the same team runs the relay and the relayer, OHTTP protects nothing.
• https. Relays forward only to https relayers on public hosts that they can verify.
• Logs off. The reference relay keeps no logs; check the operator’s proxy does the same.

Running one is a single container: see run an OHTTP relay.

OHTTP hides your IP from relayers. Your Arkiv RPC provider still sees your IP when the SDK reads Arkiv; it never sees which records are yours (see read records). To hide it too, pass your own publicClient whose transport goes through a VPN, Tor or an RPC you run.