Darknet: dark or still gray Internet?

[Father]

There are many stereotypes about the "dark side of the Internet". The most common one is the idea of the "dark side" as a haven for drug dealers, psychopaths and terrorists, in which they are anonymous and elusive.

In part, this is true – in the darknet, you can find many sites that exploit certain deviations. There are also entire marketplaces for illegal goods. But all this is just one rather insignificant segment of the"dark Internet".

This article discusses the main features of the Darknet, its content and principles of operation. Is the "dark web" really so dark, and is it really anonymous?

What is Darknet?​

Darknet is a private network built on communication between trusted participants (peers). Its characteristic feature is hiding IP addresses. The darknet is often contrasted with the" white " Internet space, but this is not entirely true, since the request comes from the dark part, but not in the opposite direction.

Another common misconception is the identification of the concepts of Darknet and Deepweb. Deepweb is a "deep web", that is, a collection of all non-indexed sites.

You can access the darknet network using special browsers that are focused on working with this segment. Tor and I2P are the most popular platforms. They use several layers of encryption and are positioned as completely anonymous.

Anonymity on the darknet​

The issue of Internet privacy is sensitive for most users. Many people position the Darknet as a completely anonymous space where you can do anything, say anything, and no one will know. And in pure theory, this can be called true if you close your eyes to a lot of factors, among which three basic ones can be distinguished:

1. Heterogeneity. The darknet does not have a single standard that all sites adhere to. Just as there is no guarantee that the user will not "catch" malware as a result of surfing.
2. A huge number of participants. To draw an analogy, the darknet is like a subway during rush hour. A huge number of interacting users who are anonymous in the aggregate and not at all anonymous when examined by a specialist.
3. The need for additional protection methods. Tor provides a high level of protection, but high does not mean absolute.

The situation with the darknet is well described by an old joke about the Elusive Joe, who remains elusive only because no one has ever looked for him.

Anton Kuzmin
Head of the Cyberart Threat Prevention Center, Innostage Group of Companies

The darknet is not as anonymous as it might seem. This is due to recent changes in the legislation of the Russian Federation. For example, providers are required to store and analyze user traffic. Traffic is stored, analyzed, and classified according to the Yarovaya Law. When you visit the site, information about the IP address, domain name, traffic volume, and connection time is transmitted. If data is transmitted over an unprotected HTTP protocol, then access is granted not only to the request history, but also to usernames with passwords.

In addition, the provider must be connected to SORM (i.e., a system of operational search measures), which is necessary for carrying out legitimate traffic interception. When using a VPN or Tor browser, analysis systems see traffic sent to a specific address or network of addresses that belong to a specific VPN service or Tor server.

Modern traffic analysis tools can easily compare the volume of traffic and its time with the traffic of any server, thereby detecting actions performed on the network.

Participants, in turn, remain anonymous due to the organization of the work of sites that do not store logs, do not respond to requests from law enforcement agencies, complicate their own infrastructure for reasons of secrecy and caution of users who turn on VPNs, do not provide personal data, and so on.

A really high level of anonymity at the moment is a privilege that requires a huge amount of resources to acquire. First of all, you will have to spend time acquiring a whole range of competencies and developing an internal culture.

What's on the dark Web​

Technically, the darknet is not much different from the "white" Internet: the same marketplaces, business card sites, blogs, forums, and other familiar sites. A significant difference lies in the content of these pages. As a rule, these materials are socially reprehensible or criminally punishable.

Speaking in the context of information security, the darknet is a market for digital services, only illegal. These include:

1. "Breakthroughs". Getting information about a person from government or other databases.
2. Hacking. From your social network account to the site admin panel or work account.
3. Database trading. A huge number of local leaks are even unknown to the company that lost the data.
4. Conditionally legal. For example, search for employees for a particular type of activity.

And a huge number of other services of varying degrees of legality. At the same time, quite harmless pages and even entertainment projects can be found on the darknet. For example, "Packages from the darknet" have become very popular. On such sites, you could buy a box with unknown contents for different amounts. In some cases, the " box " consisted of an entire quest, with a search for coordinates, walking through abandoned buildings, and so on. The result is a "sinister" set of plastic imitation human teeth, gas masks, paint-smeared blades and flash drives with "photojabs".

Results​

For anonymity, it's not enough to download Tor and enter it in the browser "darknet.org". The user's privacy is affected by a number of factors, the lion's share of which do not depend on the user himself. and from the network in which it is located.

Information found on the darknet can be useful for researchers in various fields, but it is more dangerous for an untrained person. Banning many materials does not always have a political motive; most of them are simply shocking or manipulative in nature.

Using the darknet as a zero-censorship platform is possible, but it will not protect a person from banal network trolls, which have been widely known since the first image boards. In the conditions of absolute lack of responsibility and conditional anonymity, no discussion of socially significant topics is simply impossible.

We can conclude that the darknet is heterogeneous – the network has both dark areas with creepy content, and almost legal pages with harmless humor or discussion of certain topics.