Tor and the Dark Internet : Follow the Bloody Silk Road

  Tor, previously TOR, an acronym for The Onion Router, is free software for enabling online anonymity.  It directs Internet traffic through a worldwide network of thousands of relays to conceal a user's location or usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis.  Tor makes it more difficult to trace Internet usage, including browsing, posts, IMs, and others, back to the user, and is meant to protect their personal privacy.  It is intended to ensure their freedom and ability to conduct confidential business by preventing their internet activities from being monitored.  It is a low latency anonymity system.  This figures prominently in today's world, being that there are many different levels of freedom from nation to nation, and that in some places censorship is very heavy and strict.  What we might consider trivial or inconsequential here in the United States, could see you imprisoned or worse elsewhere.

A random path

  As stated before, TOR is an acronym for The Onion Router.  Onion Routing refers to the layers of the encryption used.  Data is encrypted and re-encrypted multiple times and sent through a virtual circuit made up of repetitive, randomly selected Tor relays.  Each relay decrypts a layer of encryption to reveal only the next relay in the circuit, and so forth and so on.  The final relay decrypts the last layer of encrytion and sends the original data to its destination, without revealing, or even knowing, the sender.  This method makes it almost impossible to eavesdrop on the data in transit, and hides its routing.

An "onion"

The "functional and deployed" alpha version of Tor was announced on September 20, 2002.  It has gone through many developmental stages since then, and the current project no longer considers the name to be an acronym for "The Onion Router" project that it began as.
  The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory originally sponsored development of Tor.  From 2004 to 2005 it was supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  As of 2012, the U.S. government contributes %80 of Tor's $2 million annual budget, with the Swedish government and other organizations contributing the rest.
  This short overview only begins to scratch the surface of the subject of Tor.  There is much more information, both technical and political, available on this and other alternative network systems and low latency anonymity systems.
  One aspect of alternative network systems is the so-called "Dark Internet", of which Tor, or rather a facet of Tor, could definitely be considered a part.  There has been a lot of publicity about the Silk Road in the news of late, and the Silk Road is a very good example of Dark Internet activity.  I included a goodly amount of information about the Silk Road in a prior posting on this same blog if you care to view it.  It's called "Social Media and the Illusion of Safety and Security in the Information Age."    

  The Dark Internet could be called the lair of drug dealers, gun runners, pornographers, and thieves, etc., ad infinitum, as in, go ahead and list any illicit or criminal activity that comes to mind.  Onion routing, or layered encrytion routing, most definitely has positive uses.  But as with anything involving human nature, it can be used for evil purposes.  And evil loves to hide.  So a "Dark Internet" is a perfect place to do it.  "Dark Web", "Black Web", "Deep Web"............ there are many names.  And it's right here, right under all our fingertips.  And unfortunately under the fingertips of those who would do harm.   And the powers that be are concerned.


  Aside from the crime involved, governments do not like the implications of unregulatable markets and currencies.  This "Dark" place has created both.  Governments derive their lifeblood from taxes. How can an invisible realm be taxed?  Bitcoin is the internet standard in currency, yet such currency is very difficult to regulate.
  We are in an interesting state of flux with these things and more, and these are definitely interesting times. And there will be more to come...................

Careful what you reach for.