Forward Thinking: The dark net and anonymity on the web

The Researcher : Cerys Bradley

Cerys came to UCL as a student in Crime Science after completing her undergraduate studies in Mathematics at Kings College London. She first studied for a Masters in Security and Crime Science and now is completing her PhD in Crime and Security, and Information Security. Her research focuses on the dark net and especially how dark net users respond to different law enforcement interventions. Her work involves a combination of mathematics, computer science and crime theory.

In this post, she gives us an introduction to the subject of her research.

Introduction to the dark net

The dark net is a subsection of the internet. There are two parts to its definition.

First of all, it’s not indexable by search engines. That means that you can’t find the pages that the dark net consists of through search engine sites like Google.

The other part of its definition is that you need special permission to access it. There are different ways to access it, such as through a password or special invite. However, a large proportion of the dark net is hosted on the Tor network.

Tor

If you access the internet through a Tor browser as opposed to other browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, your computer does not communicate directly with the server that hosts the website. Instead, the messages that are sent between your computer and the server are passed through several other computers on the network.

The reason for this is that it breaks the link between your computer and the website that you are visiting, so it is difficult to prove that you have been visiting that website. As a result, we have a part of the internet where people can visit websites with a good amount of anonymity.

 

Ups and downs

The anonymity provided by the Tor network allows for certain things to happen that wouldn’t normally happen on the rest of the internet. As many people might assume, some of this activity is illegal. For example, the trade of illegal goods.

However, there is another side to the dark net. Tor provides a safe space for activists around the world, and those who are persecuted for certain aspects of their identity. Those who want to speak up about human rights abuses in their country can use browsers like Tor to do so without being identified as whistle blowers and putting themselves at risk.

Looking ahead to the Gateways Conference

Cerys is one of the PhD students who will be presenting at our Gateways Conference in February 2018. She plans to introduce the conference attendees to the Tor network and the technology needed to access the internet with greater anonymity.  Students will consider all aspects of the dark net, and debate whether it should be considered as a force for good, evil, or possibly both.

If you want to learn more about Cerys’ work, you can apply to attend the Gateways Conference in Transformative Technologies in February 2018, where she will be presenting a lecture and leading a seminar on the topic of the dark net. More information is available on our website. For more information on the Security and Crime Science department at UCL, visit their website.