# The UR protocol

> Built for secure, fast, and private data transfer. The heart of URnetwork architecture.

## Architecture Overview

A continuous, automated process that ensures optimal routing, maximum privacy, and zero downtime. Each session follows these coordinated steps to deliver fast, private connectivity.

1. **Client Request** — Clients originate or receive connections, apply policy pins (region, speed, cost), and negotiate session parameters.
2. **Route Auction** — The network runs a dynamic performance auction to find the fastest, most reliable routes for the connection.
3. **Multi-Hop Routing** — Data is sharded across multiple paths simultaneously through encrypted multi-hop routing.
4. **Delivery & Settlement** — Traffic arrives safely. Routes are continuously evaluated for capacity, reliability, and quality of service.

## Supported Transports

Global transports designed to tunnel traffic that looks like a normal web browser.

## Protocol Features

- **End-to-End Encryption** — Every connection is end-to-end encrypted, masked through multiple secure hops, and free from cloud egress fees.
- **Path Diversity** — The only protocol that distributes traffic with multiple IPs using dynamic performance auctions per connection to ensure the fastest, most reliable route.
- **Zero-Trust Architecture** — Privacy preserving algorithms work on encrypted and hashed values. No central visibility into user traffic.
- **Performance Auction** — Automatically picking the fastest, most reliable, and policy-compliant routes. Seamless failover between paths.
- **On-Device Safety Guardrails** — Safety scales: a security program on every node shuts down bad behavior to give a 0% incident rate across global edges.
- **Built-in NAT Traversal** — Built-in NAT traversal for challenging network environments. Fast, direct communication between code running anywhere in the world.

## Privacy & Security Program

- **Regularly Pen Tested** — Industry-standard security audits ensure infrastructure meets the highest standards.
- **CVE Disclosure** — Security disclosures handled via standard CVE processes for full transparency.
- **Code Transparency** — Client, server, and deployment tools are public. Contributions are peer-reviewed.
- **Reproducible Builds** — Open source reproducible server and client builds ensure trust and verifiability.

Source: https://github.com/urnetwork