Cute monster from Darknet. Or at whose expense the banquet

[DronVR]

Cute monster from Darknet. Or at whose expense the banquet

The media has long assigned the role of a cult monster to Darknet, however, with a surprisingly attractive physiognomy. It seems that this attraction is no coincidence, and its angle has begun to change. So, a year ago, when entering the word Darknet into the search, we were given this kind of infa:

the “secret” part of the global computer network that is inaccessible for indexing, which as the basis of the iceberg occupies almost 99% of the entire information space; a favorite platform for communication between hacker groups, drug addicts, terrorists, hired killers, soldiers of fortune, cryptocurrencies, but most importantly - pedophiles and employees secret slaughter departments associated with government agencies; the territory of infernal relations, which includes illegal subjects such as trafficking in drugs, people, rare animals, as well as private tracking services and contract killings.
Today the situation is changing, and TOR in the countries of the free world is advertised not as a haven for infernal perverts, but as an effective tool for the struggle of citizens of "totalitarian states" for their freedom.

Climbing Mount Darknet

Historically, Darknet is rooted in one of the most fashionable currents of intellectual infantilism 30 years ago - cryptanarchism. In August 1988, an American engineer and radical intellectual Tim May (spiritual brother of Timothy Leary and Naum Chomsky) distributed at the Crypto'88 conference the “Cryptanarchist Manifesto”, which included the exciting lines of young minds of young sociopaths:

“Computer technology is on the verge of enabling individuals and groups to communicate and interact completely anonymously. Two people will be able to exchange messages, do business, enter into electronic contracts, not having the opportunity to establish the true names and identities of each other. It will not be possible to track the interaction on the Web due to repeated changes in the routes of encrypted packets and blocks warning against unauthorized interference that endow cryptographic protocols with almost perfect protection ... cryptanarchy will allow free trading of national secrets, as well as illegal drugs and stolen goods. ”

In 1991, Phil Zimmerman invented the program PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) to encrypt correspondence. The American state fought against Zimmerman in the courts for pro forma, and then suddenly retreated, tacitly acknowledging the “defeat”.

We put the “defeat” in quotation marks, because Internet traffic containing encrypted PGP text is detected with a bang in a matter of seconds - interested structures, instead of suing Zimmerman, should immediately put him a lifetime monument for developing a method for effective self-discovery of users, deserving of further study.

In the mid-90s, cryptanarchists muddied the black market of information BlackNet with their own currency CryptoCredits and a casino exchange that accepts bets on the quick death of certain politicians. State structures, however, did not even notice all these toys, therefore, by the time the “new world order” was born (September 11, 2001), self-made “secret” and “underground” crypto-protected networks had self-destructed.

Thanks Perry

The world started talking about the birth of the true Dark Internet in 2004, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among whose founders was the late John Perry Barlow, author of the cult Declaration of Internet Independence, took control of the development of a new generation of computer networks based on the so-called Onion routing. So TOR was born, personifying Darknet today with all its chthonic-attractive horrors.

Not a panacea

At first, the attitude of American authorities towards TOR was hostile. At least in public. The situation worsened in 2010, when the first mass cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, began to spread actively, which ensured (again - in theory) the anonymity of payments. And already in February 2011, markets were opened in TOR, in which various substances were massively and briskly traded.

Happiness did not last long: in October 2013, the FBI miraculously calculated the owner of the Silk Road shop - Ross Ulbricht - and sent the craftsman to life for a long time without the right of early release, and all his bitcoins (at the current rate of hundreds of millions of dollars) were confiscated.

The cryptanarchic party was messing up and messing around, and it calmed down: hundreds and thousands of new stores came to the place of the defeated Silk Road, where everything the soul wants is offered for cryptocurrency: from international passports of any state to iPhones and weapons bought for stolen credit cards.

Whose blood

At some point, the Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly and silently singled out TOR into a separate structure - the Tor Project, and then - just as quietly and silently - it was not independent public funds that financed this structure, but surprise! - The United States government represented by its diverse departments, which began to provide 80% of the TOR budget with the wording "to help defenders of democracy in authoritarian states." The remaining 20% comes from European government agencies, NGOs and individuals.

It is immediately necessary to make a reservation that there is no direct evidence that Uncle Sam, who invented “onion routing,” has a key in his pocket that allows him to be embedded in any intermediate node of the TOR network. However, there is no evidence to the contrary. And sometimes in the evening, over a cup of strong Chinese tea, questions are asked: Who hides his true face in the shadow of darknet?

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