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Do we need the Darknet?

In the media, the Darknet almost always comes across in a negative light. Hardly a week goes by without some news story about criminals who have been taken down after using the Darknet as a refuge, as a trading platform or as a basis for various crimes. In the Darknet, criminals can move about largely anonymously, and sell weapons, drugs and stolen goods. The Darknet contains online marketplaces for just about any and all illicit goods or services, including even contract killings. And yet the technology behind the Darknet can do much more than support such activities. And criminals make up only part of its users. The Darknet is not a bad thing per se. And society, instead of prejudging it, should learn to understand it and use it properly. A plea for a differentiated look.

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Neuer Blick aufs Darknet

Darknet is not just evil.

The Darknet hit the headlines again just a few days ago. A gang had kidnapped a British model, with the intent of making several hundred thousand euros by auctioning her off in the Darknet.  The media reported extensively about the case. A few weeks earlier, an item about the shutting-down of the Darknet websites AlphaBay and Hansa had received a similarly intensive spotlight. State investigators had closed the sites and arrested their administrators. AlphaBay had been used for sales of stolen credit card numbers, forged identity documents, counterfeit money, drugs and weapons. Over 200,000 customers had been using it regularly for purchases of illegal products. Along with drugs, the items sold on Hansa had included jewels and counterfeit goods. In line with this apparent trend, the report Cybercrime Bundeslagebild 2015 (2015 nationwide cybercrime situation), issued by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), called attention to an "increasing shifting of criminal activities from the analog world into the digital world."  But what is the Darknet, and why is it almost always seen as being tied to crime?

What is the Darknet?

The Darknet is part of the regular Internet, but it is invisible to all users who surf with standard browsers. Experts make a distinction between the "surface web," the part of the World Wide Web that is searchable with standard web search engines, and the "deep web," in which the Darknet resides. To enter the Darknet, users have to use a peer-to-peer network to route their – encrypted – data packets via the computers of other users. They enter the Internet only after such routing. Such networks are used with the help of encapsulated programs such as Tor, I2P, Freenet, GNUnet or RetroShare. Such programs make it virtually impossible for outsiders to identify the origin of a user's data packets – and thus identify users of an Internet website. In addition, the Darknet allows hiding of web addresses and websites, as well as hiding of server locations. Web pages reside on web servers located within the network. The relevant servers' addresses are encrypted in such a manner that only the network nodes can decrypt them. When a user clicks on a so-encrypted link, his/her request is routed, via several participating computers, to a node that "knows" the real address of the pertinent web server. The node requests the relevant data from the server and then forwards them to the user. The location of the server for the relevant websites cannot be determined with any conventional methods. The server is thus protected against physical interventions.

More than simply a safe harbor for criminals

A closer look shows that criminals make up a much smaller portion of the Darknet's users than is generally assumed. This really comes as no surprise, since the Darknet was actually developed by security and IT experts. Its intended purposes include enabling users to protect their privacy; supporting study of other parts of the network; and facilitating secure, provider-independent communication between users. While criminals do use it, they tend to conduct their business in other cyberspace areas. For example, only a small fraction of the European illicit drug and weapons trade is managed via the Darknet. Roger Dingledine, co-developer and co-founder of the Tor Project , which provides a system for anonymous web surfing and communication, recently released an initial set of relevant figures. This occurred in a presentation, The Tor project , that he made at the Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas in July this year. According to his statistics, Tor is now activated by about two million people per day. The great majority of these users use the proxy network in order to surf anonymously on public websites. And they use it simply for the purpose of evading state censorship and surveillance. Only one to three percent of all users, so Dingledine, actually surf in the "Onion network" – the actual Darknet – and visit its well-hidden websites. But even that section of the network does not only contain questionable sites, he reported. The most heavily visited site, he noted, is the Onion version of Facebook. Some 1 million network users visit it regularly, he explained, adding that it provides the only way to access Facebook in many countries around the world, such as China, Iran or a number of African countries. While he did concede that criminals use Tor for their own purposes, he emphasized that their small numbers have to be contrasted with the millions of honest users for whom Tor provides the only access to an unfettered Internet. 

Improve it – don't prohibit it

It is simply not fair for this technology to be widely condemned. It is wrong to think of the Internet in terms of a "good" Internet and a "bad" Darknet. The value of multi-layer encryption, of the possibility of engaging in "hidden" communication via the Internet, can hardly be overemphasized. For many people who suffer persecution or who are constantly under close surveillance, the Darknet is the only available tool for getting messages out, for communicating, and for joining forces. Via the Darknet, whistleblowers can reach out to journalists safely, without exposing themselves to potential reprisals. Journalists and bloggers can use the Darknet for anonymous research and message exchange. Citizens of countries with strict Internet controls can use the Darknet to evade censorship and communicate with the outside world. Dissidents can use it for political activism and for interaction with like-minded persons. While criminals of course also use this technology, the Darknet remains a free space for many things that are good for democracy.

Conclusion

The time has come for the media and the public to dispense with their prejudice and to see the Darknet for what it really is: a neutral platform for communications. As digitization continues, the numbers of "backrooms" and "dark entryways" in the Internet can be expected to increase. Prohibitions are not the answer; they would only lead to abuse of other levels of the deep web. The sensible approach is one of measured, balanced review, to determine what types of investigation and monitoring can make sense in efforts to solve and prevent crimes. In each case, such techniques have to be adapted to the new technology. "Freedom with security," and not "security or freedom," is the issue that the general public should be discussing – objectively.

Image "Cyber defense at Deutsche Telekom"

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