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The original article, without student edits, may be found at Wikipedia page: Darknet.

This page is about networking technology. For other uses, see Darknet (disambiguation). For websites that exist on top of this technology, see Dark Web.

A darknet (or dark net) is an overlay network that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, often using non-standard communications protocols and ports. Two typical darknet types are friend-to-friend[1] networks (usually used for file sharing with a peer-to-peer connection)[2] and anonymity networks such as Tor via an anonymized series of connections.

The reciprocal term for an encrypted darknet is clearnet[3][4][5] or Surface_web when referring to search engine indexable content.[6]

As of 2015, "The Darknet" is often used interchangeably with "The Dark Web" due to the quantity of hidden services on Tor's darknet. Often conflated with Deep Web search,[2][3] the Dark Web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets, overlay networks which use the public Internet but which require specific software, configurations or authorization to access.[4] The Dark Web forms part of the Deep Web, the part of the Web not indexed bysearch engines.

Origins

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Originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for security purposes,[7] darknets were able to receive data from ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists and would not answer pings or other inquiries by/from external servers.

The term gained public acceptance following publication of "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution",[8] a 2002 paper by Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and Bryan Willman, four Microsoft employees who argued that the presence of the darknet was the primary hindrance to the development of workable DRM technologies and hastened the inevitability of copyright infringement.

Sub-cultures

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Journalist J._D._Lasica in his 2005 book Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation describes the darknet's reach encompassing file sharing networks.[9] Consequently, in 2014, journalist Jamie Bartlett in his book The Dark Net would use it as a term to describe a range of underground and emergent sub cultures[10], including

Characteristics

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According to Aked, Bolan and Brand[12], the five distinguishing characteristics that separate a Darknet from a Clearnet or from falling under the same categorization as the Deep Web or the Dark Web are as follows:

Encryption

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All data found on the darknet is encrypted, meaning that all data is channeled through different algorithms pre-transmission, adding extra processing load to the destination’s infrastructure. As Darknet participants form part of the routing infrastructure, the extra processing required to encrypt the data stream is shared amongst all participants.[12]

Anonymity

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IP addresses and their respective ISP's are logged by the computer system through which they are accessed and are accessible by the government, law enforcement, and even businesses willing to pay for customer demographic information. To prevent this, on the darknet each data stream is encrypted and routed in such a way that the source and destination of the request cannot be determined outside of user or program error.

Applications

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Unlike Clearnets,which host multiple portals for information transfer, darknets must run external software to be able to tap into the darknet and gain access to file-sharing capabilities, transfers etc. This software then directs data through to a specific conduit, leading the information through one specific medium into the Darknet network.

Routing

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For Darknet traffic, the path that data takes is designed to be untraceable. The route may be based on a number of factors including link stability, latency and bandwidth, but will change frequently and randomly to ensure that analysis cannot determine either the source or destination of the request, assuring the anonymity of both source and destination of the data.[12]

Visibility

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Unexplained surpluses of usage or storage may suggest that something is amiss in typical network traffic analysis if the user/IP address is hidden or operating on a hidden network overlay[13], however unless individual participants are identified as the source of bandwidth usage or using non-standard ports on a regular basis, there is very little to incriminate or indicate specific users of the Darknet, or view their activities if it cannot be proven they are illegal in nature.

Uses

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A cartogram illustrating Tor usage

Darknets in general may be used for various reasons, such as:

Examples

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  • Political Activism (positive); see Arab Spring (2011)
  • Political Terrorism (negative); ISIS members using memes & internet virality tricks to spread propaganda and illegal content (I.e. using popular hashtags, usings cats in propaganda videos)
  • Whistle Blowing & News Leaks; see Julian_Assange and/or WikiLeaks, Edward_Snowden,
  • Black Markets (i.e. sales of goods banned by NAFTA or illegal goods incl. poached animals or parts thereof, drugs, weapons[14] etc.)
  • Human Trafficking
  • Pornography
  • Live Streaming
  • DDos attacks such as those recorded by EU Interpol and iOCTA[15] in 2015 where employees were tricked into transferring money to fraudulent 'senior management' representatives via this specific network hack.

Note: Some anonymous portals for free speech exist on the Clearnet, such as the New Yorker's Strongbox[16], which allows for completely anonymous citizen reporting

Software

All darknets require specific software installed or network configurations made to access them, such as Tor, which can be accessed via a customized browser from Vidalia, aka the Tor browser bundle. Alternatively, the darknet can be accessed via a proxy server configured to perform the same function. The use of spoofed IP packets to confuse analysis engines reporting network traffic is a growing concern in the attempt to maintain total anonymity, however only 1.26%[17] of darknet traffic can currently be attributed to spoof packets making further data analysis of little statistical significance.

Main page: Category:Anonymity networks

Active Servers

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File:Darknetroutingpattern.PNG
A diagram showing how a secondary network is overlaid to create a darknet

Defunct/Deactivated Servers

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Buying & Selling (Marketplaces)

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One of the major draws of the Darknet is its ability to facilitate 'invisible transactions', ones that do not show up on a credit card as what they really are - only appearing as an online payment made to a generic online currency generator (E.g. bitcoin). Using a hidden VPN, this makes the sale virtually invisible to anyone without the knowledge of exactly what networks have been re-routed or overridden by Tor or another proxy server. This includes names, addresses, credit card information, geographical location and information regarding the product/service sold.

Marketplaces

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Silk Road: Founded in 2011 by Ross William Ullbricht[19], is famous for being the first darknet black market. In October of 2013, the website was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and multiple charges were laid against Ullbricht who was ultimately convicted on all seven charges and sentenced to life in prison.

Silk Road 2.0: Former administrators of the original Silk Road reactivated the site from November 6, 2013 to November 6, 2014, when it was infiltrated and shut down as part of the FBI's 'Operation Onymous'.

Currency

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Bitcoin

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Given that servers like Tor and the darknet are built on the concept of anonymity, a form of crypto-currency is therefore required to complete financial transactions without revealing personal details or leaving trails as would be the case with credit cards etc. Bitcoin is the currency of choice for the Darknet and can be used to buy anything on the dark market, from hitman services, to illegal drugs, site access codes and hacked Paypal accounts.

Safecoin

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Safecoin works with users who receive credit for services/resources offered through a network node on their computer. It is the official crypto-currency of The SAFE Network, which is is a fledgling privacy network integrated with cloud services.SAFE stands for 'Secure Access for Everyone'.[20]

Namecoin

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"These websites cannot be censored the way a government or Internet service provider can censor a regular website by blocking access to it, because the location is not a static address on a single computer, but instead is distributed across the network."[20]

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The Darknet is a common trope in many television shows and media programs that focus on crime and/or technology, and often serves as the antagonist in the popular 'man vs. machine' trope where the protagonists are tortured by being forced to watch terrible things happening on the other end of the computer connection in real time, but are helpless to stop them, given the anonymity of the Darknet and the vast reach of the Deepweb.

Some examples of shows that have shown or featured the Darknet as a major plotline include:

Criminal Minds Law & Order: SVU

Darknet Files[21] (cancelled)

See also

  • Crypto-anarchism
  • Private P2P
  • Internet_privacy
  • Virtual_private_network (VPN)

    • References

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    1. ^ Wood, Jessica (2010). "The Darknet: A Digital Copyright Revolution" (PDF). Richmond Journal of Law and Technology. 16 (4): 15–17. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
    2. ^ Mansfield-Devine, Steve (December 2009). "Darknets". Computer Fraud & Security. 2009 (12): 4–6. doi:10.1016/S1361-3723(09)70150-2.
    3. ^ Miller, Tessa (10 January 2014). "How Can I Stay Anonymous with Tor?". Life Hacker. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
    4. ^ Torpey, Kyle (2 December 2014). "Blockchain.info Launches Tor Hidden Service". Inside Bitcoins. Retrieved 9 June 2015.
    5. ^ Roger, Jolly. "Clearnet vs Hidden Services—Why You Should Be Careful". Jolly Roger’s Security Guide for Beginners. DeepDotWeb. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
    6. ^ Barratt, Monica (15 January 2015). "A Discussion About Dark Net Terminology". Drugs, Internet, Society. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
    7. ^ "Om Darknet". Archived from the original on 25 March 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
    8. ^ Biddle, Peter; England, Paul; Peinado, Marcus; Willman, Bryan (18 November 2002). The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution (PDF). ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management. Washington, D.C.: Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
    9. ^ Lasica, J. D. (2005). Darknets: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-68334-5.
    10. ^ Bartlett, Jamie (2015-06-02). The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld. Melville House. ISBN 9781612194905.
    11. ^ Ian, Burrell (28 August 2014). "The Dark Net:Inside the Digital Underworld by Jamie Bartlett, book review". Retrieved 3 June 2015.
    12. ^ a b c Aked, Bolan & Brand (2013). "Determining What Characteristics Constitutes a Darknet". Proceedings of the 11th Australian Information Security Management Conference. Retrieved October 15, 2015.
    13. ^ "Featured Articles". www.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
    14. ^ "8 of the most unsettling things you'll find on the darknet". ITworld. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
    15. ^ "Europol has revealed the latest way cyber criminals are making money". The Independent. Retrieved 2015-10-19.
    16. ^ "Meet Darknet, the hidden, anonymous underbelly of the searchable Web". PCWorld. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
    17. ^ Masashi, Inoue, Suzuki and Nakao (2009). "A Statistical Packet Inspection for Extraction of Spoofed IP Packets on Darknet" (PDF). National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. Retrieved October 18, 2015.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
    18. ^ "Anticounterfeiting on the Dark Web - Distinctions between the Surface Web, Dark Web and Deep Web" (PDF). 13 April 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
    19. ^ "Infiltrating 'The Dark Net,' Where Criminals, Trolls And Extremists Reign". NPR.org. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
    20. ^ a b Walsh, Dean (April 18, 2015). "A Beginner's Guide to Exploring the Darknet". Internet and the Web: Trends and Culture. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
    21. ^ "Darknet Files". www.darknetfiles.com. Retrieved 2015-10-18.
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