Afraid of the Dark (Net)

(Image from cryptocointalk)

Your humble observer is a fan of network crime shows, and several times a week a plot point will revolve around the "Darknet," the section of the World Wide Web where all sorts of nefarious, untraceable activities occur.

It turns out that one doesn't need to be a computer hacker to access the Darknet. All that's needed is the Tor browser.

Tor lets you peruse the Surface Web, just as you do with Firefox or Safari, but it also allows you to surf Amazon and Silk Road. Using a regular browser like Firefox, you can be identified by your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the numerical code that can be traced to your unique device. But on the Darknet, your location — and the locations of the people overseeing the sites you search — remain hidden. Most people use Tor for law-abiding privacy purposes. In fact, according to the Tor Project — the government-funded nonprofit that maintains the browser — Darknet surfing accounts for only three percent of Tor usage. (And criminal activities are just a fraction of that.) But because the Darknet is so seemingly shadowy and mysterious, it has become ominous in the popular imagination, a creepy catchall that includes everything scary lurking online: terrorists, pedophiles, dope dealers, hackers-for-hire.

Like other powerful inventions, the Tor browser can be used for good and bad. In fact it was invented--and has been maintained--by the U.S. Government.

Paul Syverson, a 57-year-old mathematician at the U.S. Naval Research Lab, created Tor as a means for people to communicate securely online....In 1995, Syverson and his colleagues conceived a way to make online communications as secure as possible. The idea was to provide a means for anyone — including government employees and agents — to share intelligence without revealing their identities or locations. [snip]

By using Tor in place of another browser, protesters and journalists can log on to Twitter or surf dissident chat rooms with far less risk of being tracked by a government that might imprison them or worse. "There are countries where browsing a political website about democracy can get you thrown in jail," says Jeremy Gillula, a staff technologist at the EFF. "That's the most life-and-death reason why Tor needs to exist."

Yes, the bad guys want to keep hidden, but there are perfectly legitimate reasons why good guys should have secure hiding places, too.

Hello darkness, my old friend...