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DARKNET – THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE

“It will continue to grow, because it makes things more convenient”

Jonathan Jedrasiak

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TABLE DE MATIÈRES

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4

The Darknet and its technical aspects ................................................................................... 5

Who invented the term of Darknet? ..................................................................................... 5

How to correctly define the Darknet? ................................................................................... 5

How does it work? ................................................................................................................. 6

TOR ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Who is using Tor? ................................................................................................................... 7

What’s so special about TOR? ............................................................................................... 8

What is the purpose of Darknet? ........................................................................................... 9

What is the difference between Peer to Peer (P2P) and traditional networking? ............. 10

Why do P2P networks work so well? ................................................................................... 10

Are P2P users traceable? ..................................................................................................... 11

Examples of Peer-to-Peer Networks .................................................................................... 11

What is F2F? ......................................................................................................................... 12

What is the main goal of so called darknets? ...................................................................... 12

What is Freenet? .................................................................................................................. 13

What differs Freenet from normal P2P networks? ............................................................. 13

How is the situation regarding Copyright? .......................................................................... 13

Does copyright work? .......................................................................................................... 14

The Darknet: a practical approach ....................................................................................... 15

What are the advantages of using this infrastructure? ....................................................... 15

Where are advantages, there always must be disadvantages, what are these? ................ 15

One may question himself, what are the implications of Darknet to e-commerce? .......... 15

is there a war going on against this business? .................................................................... 16

How did Ross Ulbricht get caught knowing his skills? ......................................................... 17

What should other platforms like Agora Market do to fill the gap and to stay anonymous?17

What happened to Silkroad? ............................................................................................... 18

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Can a person be identified? ................................................................................................. 18

Darknet is virtually impossible to control. ........................................................................... 19

Are those places safe? ......................................................................................................... 20

What awaits us in the future? ............................................................................................. 21

So what to do? ..................................................................................................................... 21

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 23

Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 24

Sources ................................................................................................................................. 25

Ross Ulbricht’s court exhibit ................................................................................................ 29

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INTRODUCTION

This paper will present you the Darknet from a simple observational point of view. Its goal is to

explain the multiple layers that make such a network possible. At first we will learn how Darknet

works from a technical angle, than what are the functionalities and benefits of such a network in

our society.

Inventions like the Darknet have often as source the need to protect against something, in this

particular case, Darknet was created by the military in order to make anonymous

communications from countries at war. We will see that this invention derived into a huge

network of people who now exchange knowledge, confidential information, but also illegal goods

like weapons or drugs.

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THE DARKNET AND ITS TECHNICAL ASPECTS

In order to have a better understanding how Darknet works and what are the implications of

using such a network, we will first of all see how it is defined and what are the tools used to get

a secure access.

WHO INVENTED THE TERM OF DARKNET?

When we talk about the Darknet we refer to the underground Internet. But where does this

definition come from? Four senior Microsoft workers wrote an influential paper in 2002 entitled

“The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution”, which made quite a buzz. This term got

known by more and more people until reaching the mainstream that defines the Darknet as an

agglomeration of clandestine and illicit activities using the Internet. The Darknet nowadays

evokes nebulous and even threatening activities on private, anonymous networks including

illegal share of copyrighted files.1

HOW TO CORRECTLY DEFINE THE DARKNET?

The Darknet is a distribution network available to a fraction of internet users that non-exclusively

leak popular and interesting content into the web.

More precisely, it is a collection of non-indexed webpages hidden in the underground of the

web.2 This means in other words that they cannot be found on a normal search engine like Google

or Yahoo. Why so? Well, most of these webpages are completely illegal and are not supposed to

1How 4 Microsoft engineers proved that the « darknet » would defeat DRM, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/how-four-microsoft-engineers-proved-copy-protection-would-fail/ 2 [DARKNET] Comment je l’ai découvert et comment y accéder, http://www.parlonsgeek.com/darknet-le-web-profond/

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be found by everyday internet users. The Darknet is also called “friend-to-friend network”3,

because people on the the Darknet are presumed to be trustful. In order to find webpages within

the Darknet you have to use customized search engines like Clusty, Scirus or you can use the

default Tor search engine that has some hundred thousands of pages listed, which is not bad for

a start.4 Estimations from 2013 say they might be more than 600TB of data hidden in the

shadows.5

HOW DOES IT WORK?

All websites hidden in the Darknet finish by

“.oignon”, it is a specific suffix from a browser

called Tor. In order to access them you need to

install this navigator that is based on the Firefox

navigator, but having unique features.6 More

precisely, this navigator makes it possible to connect from one pc to another one using a proxy

connection, so that authorities are not able to backtrack the user. Adepts of these kind of hobbies

also use the virtual currency called “Bitcoin”7. This currency allows to make transactions between

3 Private Communication Through a Network of Trusted Connections : The Dark Freenet, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEcQFjAHahUKEwiBv-L0mLXIAhXDvhQKHXfnD2g&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreenetproject.org%2Fpapers%2Ffreenet-0.7.5-paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE4RIW2_WAHycZVhWYROfF_VyF02Q&sig2=bAf6fa9YaEy52emCuQ8cDA&cad=rja 4 Five search engines for exploring the darknet / deep web, http://www.depotekk.com/2015/02/five-search-engines-for-exploring.html 5 Forensic Memory Dump Analysis And Recovery Of The Artifacts Of Using Tor Bundle Browser – The Need, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEcQFjAHahUKEwiBv-L0mLXIAhXDvhQKHXfnD2g&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreenetproject.org%2Fpapers%2Ffreenet-0.7.5-paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE4RIW2_WAHycZVhWYROfF_VyF02Q&sig2=bAf6fa9YaEy52emCuQ8cDA&cad=rja 6 How to use the Tor Browser to surf the web anonymously, http://www.pcworld.com/article/2686467/how-to-use-the-tor-browser-to-surf-the-web-anonymously.html 7 Dark Net Drug Sales Using Bitcoins Are Booming After Fall Of Silk Road Marketplace, http://www.ibtimes.com/dark-net-drug-sales-using-bitcoins-are-booming-after-fall-silk-road-marketplace-1960833

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two virtual wallets without the capability to track who send the money to who, very handy to

stay anonymous.8

TOR

The Tor network allows people to navigate through the Internet in a more secure and anonymous

way thanks to volunteer-operated servers around the globe. The main idea is to connect through

a series of virtual tunnels in order to hide who connects and from where.

People who use Tor benefit from not getting tracked by websites. Thanks to Tor it is also possible

to publish websites and other services without getting located. This is crucial in order to develop

an active community. Software developers also find their interest in this network, they can work

together without getting tracked either. Social sensitive information can be communicated

through private chat rooms and forums.9

WHO IS USING TOR?

Well, not as you may think, Tor is not only used by criminals. The truth is Tor is very useful to

journalists.10 Indeed they communicate with ease with whistleblowers and dissidents. When this

network got created, one of the most important ideas was to ensure free speech. There are

countries where you cannot express yourself and the deep web gets in handy.

NGO’s members use Tor to connect to their websites and communicate with the services

avoiding everybody around them knowing that they’re working with that given organization.

Activist groups use Tor in order to keep their members safe while organizing themselves.

8 How To Use Bitcoin Anonymously, http://cryptorials.io/how-to-use-bitcoin-anonymously/ 9 https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

10 https://freedom.press/bundle/encryption-tools-journalists

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Even the US Navy uses Tor, their mission is to gather open source intelligence.

It is the variety of users that makes Tor such a good performing network. In other words, the

more crowded the Tor network is and the more diverse it is, the more anonymous it becomes. It

is also important to keep in mind that using TOR is completely legal, it only depends what you do

with it that can make it illegal. You can for example just browse on normal internet in order to

avoid being tracked by robots.

WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT TOR?

This infrastructure is working on the same principle as the internet itself, it only has some

fundamental differences. The most outstanding ones are the fact that it is an anonymous and

decentralized network that cannot be controlled by a single individual.11 These are the main

reasons why people tend to use TOR in order to navigate on the Darknet.

11 Deterministic Builds Part Two: Technical Details, https://blog.torproject.org/category/tags/decentralization

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WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF DARKNET?

Like you may imagine, Darknet is full of illegal things, this is why the most of the community are

hackers, outlaws, drug or weapon dealers, criminals, but also socio-phobic people that don’t

want to get their private life touched. In order to be untouched, they try to stay anonymous by

using this encrypted way to access information and exchange between two individuals. One of

the most known sites in the history of Darknet is silkroad. It is an anonymous market allowing to

buy illegal drugs, weapons, stolen credit cards, forbidden literature, high tech used to steal

personal information, but you can also hire people to kill someone or deliver goods or do any

kind of things. Some people call this site “the ebay of drugs”.12

12 Silkroad, http://silkroaddrugs.org/silkroad/

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEER TO PEER (P2P) AND TRADITIONAL

NETWORKING?

Before, computers were easily identifiable because using a server-client relation in which you

had to know an URL or IP-address in order to access the uploaded content. All sort of media files

were stored on the server (host) and could be accessed by the client (user) through websites

using internet. The client was not able to directly exchange files with other clients. A P2P network

allows all clients to share media between each other.13 There is no central server storing the files,

all exchanges are between the users that give authorization to download from or to them

directly.14

In order to exchange files in P2P networks, specific software is required. This application

establishes a connection between all users adding the possibility to chat, write comments or look

what’s on other peoples PC’s.15

WHY DO P2P NETWORKS WORK SO WELL?

Open distribution of free content is an immensely valuable method to encourage creation and

dissemination of user content. P2P is also economically very efficient since there is no main server

base. All the network cost is divided by the number of users. Equally, the more users are on a P2P

network, the more files can be browsed. And the more users are online, the bigger the capacity

of the network.16 Also networks are not limited on bandwidth, the data transfer can be very fast

13 David Barkai, An Introduction in Peer-to-Peer Computing, INTEL DEVELOPPER MAG, Feb. 2000, at 1, 3. 14 Androutsellis-Theotokis, supra note 14, at 337. 15 What You Ned To Know About Peer-to-Peer File Sharing, http://www.zonealarm.com/blog/2014/06/what-you-need-to-know-about-peer-to-peer-file-sharing/ 16 Niva Elkin-Koren, Making Technology Visible: Liability of Internet Service Providers for Peer-to-Peer Traffic, 9 N.Y.U.J. LEGIS. PUB. POL’Y 15, 22 (2006).

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and is independent of a given server. A traditional client/server model has limited capacities. We

can tell that Peer-to Peer networks improve quality of publicly available content.

Providers have a hard time shutting down decentralized servers because they are not able to

supervise activity and remove illicit content. Infringing content and users stay free and untouched

from the system. Those networks also often function on open-source code so even if someone is

able to shut it down, there are copied available to put it back on track immediately.

ARE P2P USERS TRACEABLE?

Yes, it all started then Gnutella and BitTorrent administrators created a protocol that allowed

them to know which user was uploading how much. All this to equally redistribute bandwidth

between users because there were people only downloading and never uploading and this was

counterproductive. The content industry got interested and started to target entities like Napster

and then ordinary citizens. That’s when P2P developers started to protect users with security,

anonymity and privacy and the Darknet was born.17

EXAMPLES OF PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKS

In order to better illustrate how peer to peer networks work, we will briefly see what the two

most known networks are.

NAPSTER

This service got introduced in 1999 and started mass peer-to-peer exchange. Audio files were

transferred infringing the copyright law. The specificity of this platform was that users were

allowing other users to access their content that was situated on their PC’s. With a simple search

17 MIKA SUVANTO, PRIVACY IN PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKS, 3 (2010)

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and click it was possible to listen to the desired song. This new trend should have been used in

the legal music industry, but unfortunately they missed the trend.18

GNUTELLA

Gnutella is a protocol created the 14th march 2000 that was complementary to Napster. Knowing

that Napster was already on the radar and received lots of negative criticism, Gnutella was

supposed to fix several problems. The service got centralized and every user had to pay a certain

fee in order to access the files.19

WHAT IS F2F?

Friend to Friend or F2F is a term used by Darknet users to describe how their file sharing method

works. Actually in order to establish direct connections and share files with other persons you

must be trusted. So there will be no sharing with untrusted individuals.20

WHAT IS THE MAIN GOAL OF SO CALLED DARKNETS?

The idea is to create a closed network that enables secured communication defying detection

and penetration of unwanted public. Once inside the network you can freely download and

upload whatever suits your needs anonymously without getting identified by an outsider.21 This

means that darknet users are difficult or even impossible for outsiders to discover.

18 Hören, was die Freunde hören, http://www1.wdr.de/themen/archiv/stichtag/stichtag8360.html 19 Gnutella VS. Freenet, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEEQFjAFahUKEwjhqraworXIAhUJfhoKHX71CEY&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww-vs.informatik.uni-ulm.de%2Fteach%2Fws06%2Fp2p%2Ftalks%2Fpapers%2Fhein.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFjpRTGWyoHXupMELymCZgCzYnnuA&sig2=3-WTBhItyXR1hGOwL3YPlA&cad=rja 20 Freenet, http://gentoo-en.vfose.ru/wiki/Freenet 21 Johan A. Pouwelse et al., Pirates and Samaritians: a Decde of Measurements on Peer Production and Their Implications for Net Neutrality and Copyright, 32 TELECOMMS. POL’Y 701, 711 (2008)

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WHAT IS FREENET?

Freenet is one on the first Darknets that got introduced by In Clake who presents it by the

following: “The primary goal of this Darknet is to protect political opponents of repressive

regimes”. 22 His main idea is that without anonymity there will be no freedom of speech and

without decentralization no guarantee that the network is going to stay up all the time. He also

believes that copyright infringement is “an inevitable consequence of the design”. 23

WHAT DIFFERS FREENET FROM NORMAL P2P NETWORKS?

This software is capable of running millions of connections simultaneously. The security aspect is

widely developed, in order to ensure security the user has the choice to choose with whom he

connects with. There is no automatic connection like in P2P. This means that not only this

network is protected from outsiders but also restricted inside which makes it extremely hard to

find the identity of a given user.24

HOW IS THE SITUATION REGARDING COPYRIGHT?

Like John Perry Barlow once said: “Legal efforts to keep the old boat floating are taking three

forms: a frenzy of deck chair rearrangement, stem warnings to the passengers that if she goes

down, they will face harsh criminal penalties, and serene, glassy-eyed denial.”25 He also affirms

that pursuing someone for his crimes is only possible if you can clearly identify the infringer and

the infringing activity. Since Darknets are private and anonymous, file use is not traceable. Even

22 John markoff, File Shareres Anonymous: Building a Net That’s Provate, N:Y: TIMES, 2005 23 John markoff, File Shareres Anonymous: Building a Net That’s Provate, N:Y: TIMES, 2005 24 Is Freenet more secure and anonymous than Tor?, https://www.quora.com/Is-Freenet-more-secure-and-anonymous-than-Tor 25 Aric Jacover, Note, I want my MP3 ! Creating a Legal and Practical Scheme to Combat Copyright Infringement on Peer-to-Peer Internet Applications, 90 GEO.L.J.2207,2208 (2002).

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service providers have no access to the traffic since these networks are secured and blocking any

external intrusion. We came up to a point where it is very hard to find the responsible individuals.

DOES COPYRIGHT WORK?

The purpose of copyright is to effectively protect user content creation and so for encourage

creativity. In order to ensure the effectiveness of copyright protection so called TPM’s

(technological protection measures) got developed. The only problem with those protection

measures is that once they are unlocked they are useless. It is enough that one expert hacker

“cracks” the code and “leaks” the content to the public and the TPM has become ineffective. So

practically digital copyright management is not a very efficient way of protection, stronger

measures should be applied in order to ensure copyright owners to express their creativity. The

problem is, the more the content gets protected and the more the need of Darknet will be

accentuated.26

26 Technological Protection Measures, http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/copyright-guidelines/hot-topics/technological-protection-measures

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THE DARKNET: A PRACTICAL APPROACH

In this part, we will try to get a better understanding of the implications that Darknet has to our

society and more precisely to the users that spend their free time on illegal sites.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF USING THIS INFRASTRUCTURE?

In the early stages Darknet was used to make undercover military communications possible.

First of all, users of Darknet benefit from a very strong privacy level. This is because, if done well,

they are untraceable. This allows them to access content without any restrictions, there are no

filters, you can find about anything imaginable on this web. You have freedom, anything you want

to see or personally share is available. Working alone is not a problem, you have full

independence in an unbiased environment.

WHERE ARE ADVANTAGES, THERE ALWAYS MUST BE DISADVANTAGES, WHAT ARE

THESE?

Not only dangerous objects like weapons or drugs are sold, but you will also have access to child

pornography, illegal matters, terrorists and other trafficking rings. If you decide to buy or sell

anything on this platform you risk high bills and imprisonment.

ONE MAY QUESTION HIMSELF, WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF DARKNET TO E-

COMMERCE?

Since all transactions are made anonymously, the notion of security is different. In a normal

cyber-environment, people are not well informed of all the risks that the internet is presenting

and are open to get hacked. That is why professionals of the e-commerce domain ensure more

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or less bulletproof security and traceability of customers in financial transactions. But there is

more, they tend to prevent any hacker-attack, malware, spyware etc.27

IS THERE A WAR GOING ON AGAINST THIS BUSINESS?

In March 2014 no less than 17 people responsible of creating black-market sites were arrested

thanks to the European police office Europol. This action was able to close 414 dangerous

websites and scared with no doubt some of the Darknet users.28 The mission was to stop selling,

distribution and promotion of illegal objects like weapons or drugs. This action has shown that

those criminals are not invincible, it is a great way to calm things down.

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27 Bitcoin, the Darknet Economy, and the Low Over-Head Revolution, http://c4ss.org/content/11718 28 Darknet: Vaste opération de police contre les responsables de marchés noirs sur internet, http://www.20minutes.fr/monde/1477227-20141107-darknet-vaste-operation-police-contre-responsables-marches-noirs-internet 29 Memex – Le moteur d’exploration du DarkNet de la DARPA, http://www.undernews.fr/reseau-securite/memex-le-moteur-dexploration-du-darknet-de-la-darpa.html

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As we can see on the above image, advanced tools are used by the legal forces to better

understand what is going on in the deep web. Millions of dollars are spend hoping that thanks

to Big Data analysis, we will be able to stop all illegal activity in the Internet.

This year, Ross Ulbricht, the creator of silkroad got sentenced. Convicted of all 7 charges held

against him, he should spend his life in prison.30

Since the entire population saw Ross Ulbricht getting arrested by the FBI for being the creator of

the biggest Darknet platform called Silkroad, two main questions emerged:

HOW DID ROSS ULBRICHT GET CAUGHT KNOWING HIS SKILLS?

As we know, Ross Ulbrecht was a genius in his specialty. Nevertheless he got caught by the FBI.

How come? Well he made several mistakes:

- He used to have a LinkedIn profile in which he mentioned indirectly the existence of SilkRoad. He

wrote on this profile that he was working on an “ economic simulation’ designed to ‘give people

a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force’

by institutions and governments”31

- Even having a fake ID, he was using his real photograph while renting servers for his illegal

activities.

- He once asked a question using his real name in order to find a solution to connect to a Tor hidden

service using curl in php.

- He paid 80.000$ to kill a person, to an undercover cop…32

WHAT SHOULD OTHER PLATFORMS LIKE AGORA MARKET DO TO FILL THE GAP AND TO STAY

ANONYMOUS?

30 Silkroad mastermind Ross Ulbricht convicted of all 7 charges, http://www.wired.com/2015/02/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-verdict/ 31 Five stupid things Dread Pirate Roberts did to get arrested, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested 32 Silk Road’s mastermind allegedly paid $80,000 for a hitman. The hitman was a cop, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/02/silk-roads-mastermind-allegedly-paid-80000-for-a-hitman-the-hitman-was-a-cop/

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As the FBI published details about how they got to Ross Ulbricht, things got clearer. The main

idea was to find relative information on Google from before founding the site in February 2011.

The FBI has found messages, forum threats and similar about a person trying to see if a bitcoin

only marketplace would work and who would like to work with him. The problem was, he was

using his personal e-mail address while posting help wanted messages on the internet.

Consequences are that free users and especially owners of such platforms got more careful. It

seems that business on those marketplaces only gets bigger since Silkroad got closed. Indeed,

Agora Market added more levels of security and so customers feel more secure and that for

encouraged to make traffic happen.

WHAT HAPPENED TO SILKROAD?

The Silkroad is a website where you can buy all sort of illegal products and services. This site got

closed in 2013 by the FBI but reopened only 4 weeks later and all the users came back in no-time.

That’s why a second attempt was needed to finally close this black market. The FBI, with the help

of Europol and Eurojust, arrested the creator of this website, however all the clients were free,

so they just migrated to other market sites.

CAN A PERSON BE IDENTIFIED?

The question that a lot of people must be asking themselves is if it is possible to backtrack the

activities in order to get to the user.33 In reality yes, 90% of users that get caught made a mistake.

The system works very well, but people make mistakes. For example, if a user connects to his

33 Anonymity on the Internet: Darknet, www.it.uu.se/edu/course/homepage/sakdat/ht06/assignments/pm/programme/ljunggren.pdf

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deepweb email via a normal connection, he got exposed and can be found. This is one of many

examples of how to get caught.34

The authorities say that thanks to the LOPPSI II law (Loi n° 2011-267 du 14 mars 2011

d’orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure), a mal

ware (most often Trojan) can be introduced to some users to find out what they are typing on

their keyboard.

DARKNET IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL.

One noticeable change in the digital world is that internet users no longer passively consume

media. These days, they participate actively and create tons of content. They also choose what

to watch, where and with whom. Web 2.0 makes is all possible, forums, social media, wikis,

search engines, etc., are all technologies that make it possible to interact with others. Peer to

Peer fits perfectly into this combination.

34 Dark Net 101, http://askthecomputerguy.com/opinions/dark-net-101/

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Here you can find a listed enumeration of the most

known black market sites on the internet and their

availability. Like you can see, there are many sites,

not only Silkroad was active but lots of others.

ARE THOSE PLACES SAFE?

Well, no! You can get scammed like with the example of the Age of Evolution marketplace. They

closed and kept over 40.000BTC which represents about 12M dollars.

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Other scams taken place in the past, like the sheep marketplace scam. A Czech user has

apparently stolen a big amount of Bitcoins from the owner of the marketplace. But he got

exposed using the same IP address as the sheepmarketplace.com.

WHAT AWAITS US IN THE FUTURE?

The problem is, one big fish got caught, but new actors already appear in the market. New

websites more powerful and more diverse like Agora and Evolution are already online. As long as

there is interest in exchanging illegal things, people will find a way to make it possible. Stopping

some providers will certainly slow down the growing process, but in the end as long there is

internet, there will be Darknet. People that are in this kind of activity learn fast, there is no doubt

some of the bigger online drug lords were watching the trial of Ross Ulbricht in order to learn

what mistakes had been done. It is difficult to predict when the next one will get caught.

SO WHAT TO DO?

Darknet is one of many phenomenons that we can observe in the world. In order to find the

answer to this question we have to ask ourselves why it is so popular and observe the evolution.

We have a number of facts, for instance we cannot just close all the networks and even if we do

there will be new ones coming. So in order to get rid of all illegal activity on the internet we would

have to shut the whole internet down. But then again, exclusive underground networks could

emerge, because technology and money is not the problem. That means there is no way of

eradicating illicit activities on the internet. This means that we have to adapt.

We could see on the example of Ulbrecht’s arrest and the shutdown of Silkroad that immediately

after this event new marketplaces got opened. Those last ones being even more protected and

anonymous than the one before. So it is all a question of finding the right balance between

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copyright protection and free access of user content. If legal restrictions get to stiff more and

more interest will grow in Darknet. On the other hand, the more liberty we give, the less content-

creators get encouraged to public their work in order to gain money. We can also add, the more

protection there is, and the less sophisticated the given product is. If there is no need for

bulletproof security, the producers will not create advanced technology and so the security will

not be well developed.

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CONCLUSION

As we saw Darknet is a strong creation that not only is dangerous to individuals, but also to

economic activity. Darknet can be considered like an everlasting model. It’s a low cost, high-

quality service that will always be going to be competitive against legal commerce. From an

economic point of view, the Darknet can be considered like a business model that offers the same

product as the concurrence, here legal commerce, but for free. What do legal vendors tend to

do? They think that by making their products more and more secured they will get their clients

back. Well, big mistake, in order to compete with Darknet, they have to fight on the same level,

that means, they have to make their products more convenient and low cost. Legal forces are

working on it to stop this huge marketplace and special team observe the Darknet in big numbers.

The more we can learn about it the better we can anticipate next steps and prepare for the worst.

Even if there is a predominant cr4iminal purpose to it, we could also observe the use of it in cases

like freedom of speech, communication from endangered zones or a communication tool for

journalists and socio-phobic people. Since we already know that Darknet will always exist and get

bigger and bigger, why not to try and converge it into a less dangerous space?

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APPENDIX

Sources

PowerPoint presentation about Darknet (in French)

Ross Ulbricht’s court exhibit

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SOURCES

1How 4 Microsoft engineers proved that the « darknet » would defeat DRM, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/how-four-microsoft-engineers-proved-copy-protection-would-fail/ 1 [DARKNET] Comment je l’ai découvert et comment y accéder, http://www.parlonsgeek.com/darknet-le-web-profond/ 1 Private Communication Through a Network of Trusted Connections : The Dark Freenet, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEcQFjAHahUKEwiBv-L0mLXIAhXDvhQKHXfnD2g&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreenetproject.org%2Fpapers%2Ffreenet-0.7.5-paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE4RIW2_WAHycZVhWYROfF_VyF02Q&sig2=bAf6fa9YaEy52emCuQ8cDA&cad=rja 1 Five search engines for exploring the darknet / deep web, http://www.depotekk.com/2015/02/five-search-engines-for-exploring.html 1 Forensic Memory Dump Analysis And Recovery Of The Artifacts Of Using Tor Bundle Browser – The Need, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CEcQFjAHahUKEwiBv-L0mLXIAhXDvhQKHXfnD2g&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreenetproject.org%2Fpapers%2Ffreenet-0.7.5-paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE4RIW2_WAHycZVhWYROfF_VyF02Q&sig2=bAf6fa9YaEy52emCuQ8cDA&cad=rja 1 How to use the Tor Browser to surf the web anonymously, http://www.pcworld.com/article/2686467/how-to-use-the-tor-browser-to-surf-the-web-anonymously.html 1 Dark Net Drug Sales Using Bitcoins Are Booming After Fall Of Silk Road Marketplace, http://www.ibtimes.com/dark-net-drug-sales-using-bitcoins-are-booming-after-fall-silk-road-marketplace-1960833 1 How To Use Bitcoin Anonymously, http://cryptorials.io/how-to-use-bitcoin-anonymously/

1 https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

1 https://freedom.press/bundle/encryption-tools-journalists 1 Deterministic Builds Part Two: Technical Details, https://blog.torproject.org/category/tags/decentralization 1 Silkroad, http://silkroaddrugs.org/silkroad/ 1 David Barkai, An Introduction in Peer-to-Peer Computing, INTEL DEVELOPPER MAG, Feb. 2000, at 1, 3. 1 Androutsellis-Theotokis, supra note 14, at 337. 1 What You Ned To Know About Peer-to-Peer File Sharing, http://www.zonealarm.com/blog/2014/06/what-you-need-to-know-about-peer-to-peer-file-sharing/ 1 Niva Elkin-Koren, Making Technology Visible: Liability of Internet Service Providers for Peer-to-Peer Traffic, 9 N.Y.U.J. LEGIS. PUB. POL’Y 15, 22 (2006). 1 MIKA SUVANTO, PRIVACY IN PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKS, 3 (2010)

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1Hören, was die Freunde hören, http://www1.wdr.de/themen/archiv/stichtag/stichtag8360.html 1 Gnutella VS. Freenet, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEEQFjAFahUKEwjhqraworXIAhUJfhoKHX71CEY&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww-vs.informatik.uni-ulm.de%2Fteach%2Fws06%2Fp2p%2Ftalks%2Fpapers%2Fhein.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFjpRTGWyoHXupMELymCZgCzYnnuA&sig2=3-WTBhItyXR1hGOwL3YPlA&cad=rja 1 Freenet, http://gentoo-en.vfose.ru/wiki/Freenet 1 Johan A. Pouwelse et al., Pirates and Samaritians: a Decde of Measurements on Peer Production and Their Implications for Net Neutrality and Copyright, 32 TELECOMMS. POL’Y 701, 711 (2008) 1 John markoff, File Shareres Anonymous: Building a Net That’s Provate, N:Y: TIMES, 2005 1 Is Freenet more secure and anonymous than Tor?, https://www.quora.com/Is-Freenet-more-secure-and-anonymous-than-Tor 1 Aric Jacover, Note, I want my MP3 ! Creating a Legal and Practical Scheme to Combat Copyright Infringement on Peer-to-Peer Internet Applications, 90 GEO.L.J.2207,2208 (2002). 1 Technological Protection Measures, http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/copyright-guidelines/hot-topics/technological-protection-measures 1 Bitcoin, the Darknet Economy, and the Low Over-Head Revolution, http://c4ss.org/content/11718 1 Darknet: Vaste opération de police contre les responsables de marchés noirs sur internet, http://www.20minutes.fr/monde/1477227-20141107-darknet-vaste-operation-police-contre-responsables-marches-noirs-internet 1 Memex – Le moteur d’exploration du DarkNet de la DARPA, http://www.undernews.fr/reseau-securite/memex-le-moteur-dexploration-du-darknet-de-la-darpa.html 1 Silkroad mastermind Ross Ulbricht convicted of all 7 charges, http://www.wired.com/2015/02/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-verdict/ 1 Five stupid things Dread Pirate Roberts did to get arrested, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/five-stupid-things-dread-pirate-roberts-did-to-get-arrested 1 Silk Road’s mastermind allegedly paid $80,000 for a hitman. The hitman was a cop, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/02/silk-roads-mastermind-allegedly-paid-80000-for-a-hitman-the-hitman-was-a-cop/ 1 Anonymity on the Internet: Darknet, www.it.uu.se/edu/course/homepage/sakdat/ht06/assignments/pm/programme/ljunggren.pdf 1 Dark Net 101, http://askthecomputerguy.com/opinions/dark-net-101/

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POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ABOUT DARKNET (IN FRENCH)

The dark side of the web

What is Darknet and how does it work?

• Collection of non-indexed webpages

• More than 600TB of illegal data

• Need of using a custom search engine like Clusty or Scirus

• Specific navigator called TOR is necessary

How does is work?

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What is the purpose of it?

Gathering place for

• Hackers

• criminals

• weapon and drug dealers

• Headhunters

• socio-phobic people

Place to exchange

• Drugs

• Weapons

• Humans

• Smuggles goods

• Human organs

• Illegal litterature

• Pictures / videos

How to fight against it?

March 2014

• 17 people got arrested

• 414 illegal websites got closed

• Europol fights against:• Selling

• Distribution

• Promotion

04 january 2015

• Ross Ulbricht guilty!

• Creator of silkroad

What awaits us in the future?

• Silkroad got replaced by Agora and Evolution

• As long as there is interest, people will make it possible

• Caution is advised: those people are smart!

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ROSS ULBRICHT’S COURT EXHIBIT

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