The internet is becoming more open and transparent, and the need for solitude is growing.

A few months ago, Hollywood burst into a "pornographic" crisis, the scope of a wide range of staggering.

While appreciating the sexy photos, it was noted that this information disclosure incident, although derived from the indifference of the celebrities ' privacy protection consciousness, but the real spread of the photos to the extent that people know the fuse, is that hackers in the "dark Net" on the price of selling these photos, which constitute the buyer two times the key prerequisite for transmission.

The so-called "dark Net", its English original name as "Deep Web", also known as Deep network, it has a generic meaning and refers to the definition of two levels.

First of all, the broad sense of "dark net" refers to those who can not be indexed by the search engine site, that is, all have non-public access to the mechanism of the site-such as Facebook, or even a register to enter the small bbs--are part of the "dark Net"; Because the search engine for the content of the site is usually traced through hyperlinks to complete, there are quite a number of pages because there is no hyperlink to the point, but also in search engine blind area, they are also included in the "Dark Net" category. and "Dark Net" corresponding, is "Ming Net", also known as the Surface Layer network (Surface Web), there have been academic institutions have been statistical "dark net" and "Ming Net" contains the data ratio, the results show that the former data stock more than the latter, and faster growth.

What is truly sensitive is the "dark net" of meaning, the deliberate concealment of information and identity, the business of illegally operating on the Internet in most countries, and the pursuit and defence of anarchism. In the second quarter of the American drama "The Card House", the female journalist Zoe was murdered by the hero Frank, her journalist boyfriend, or his friend, Lucas, to investigate Frank, who has become vice president, is using a tool called Tor to visit the "dark web", looking for hackers to help dig up Frank's secret, a process that is " Dark Net. When Netflix filmed the bridge, it even invited a real cyber hacker, Gregg Hause, to act as a consultant to restore the reality of the plot.

Therefore, the software tool mentioned in the play Tor, is a genuine key, holding this key, opened a door to the "dark Net" world. And about Tor, behind it is a "no Zuo no Die" sad story, the United States government is the beginning of all stories.

Runaway Privacy Technology

Like the delicate twist of the Russians ' invention of AK-47, who watched it become the most common device for Chechnya's armed resistance, Tor was originally a research project from Washington, D.C., until computers and the Internet had completed the transition from military to civilian. This obedient experiment was finally uncontrolled into a grinding beast and broke through a greenhouse cage, becoming one of the most vexing enemies of the American government.

In 1995, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which was named "Onion Routing" (Onion Routing), was designed to protect the communications network between ships and to avoid being tracked by enemy forces, and to launch a technology development aimed at encrypting the transmission of data through proxy servers, which is called "Onions Route".

As we all know, ordinary network access, user and server records are traceable, theoretically, a user visited a website, as long as the site's system to deploy a flow monitoring program, you can find the user's IP address, and then according to the administrative force to find his true identity. While the normal proxy server can change the access source to some extent, but the proxy server itself can not hide itself, if the proxy server fall, it will still be able to find the visitor information, or even use the compromised proxy server to fishing traps. The principle of Tor is to introduce peer-to-peer distributed mechanisms, by turning the computer of each user who installed Tor into an encrypted relay connection, when a user accesses the "dark web" based on Tor, his path is randomly (or unordered) through multiple relays, and each time is changed, No relay or server can learn the complete connection traces.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory was in a state of financial scarcity in 2004, cutting back funding for Tor and opening it up. A prominent liberal network called the Electronic Outpost (EFF), which is committed to protecting American citizens persecuted by government power, providing advocacy, solidarity, oversight, and many other forms of funding-taking over Tor's subsequent development and support-until July this year, the electronic outpost also promoted Tor on its website, The reasons listed include the inability of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to bypass the anonymous mechanism of Tor, which has been challenged many times since open source, but has never been found to have a backdoor; Tor is very easy to use and users don't need too much computer technology ...

Although the electronic outpost has done its work to uncover the prism plan, it is also one of the biggest opposition groups to the US government's monitoring of Internet events, but conspiracy theorists have pointed out that Tor was deliberately "a big chess" by government agencies, accusing the US government of seeming to believe in the anonymity of Tor, And then you'll be able to sneak up on people using Tor sweep.

All in all, both the US government and the electronic outpost are now powerless to control the development of Tor, a global relay node that makes Tor completely central, with nearly 50 million people downloading Tor each year, and even the inventor of Tor admits that it is "powerless to destroy Tor". At the same time, the use of Tor began to become very diverse, some people on the sale of drugs, people regularly leaked government confidential documents, even the bomb-making materials and knowledge can be easily obtained, in China, a country with limited access rights, and a large number of users simply use Tor as a wall tool- Since connecting to Tor, users are connected to thousands of anonymous proxy servers, it is easy to access sites that have been walled off.

As the words say: "A form of affluence is bound to lead to another form of scarcity", the Internet is increasingly open and transparent, solitude's hidden demand for more and more, in the Geek view, Tor is not yet the government power and business giants to meddle in a pure land, is a free force to target regulatory oppression of a counterattack, but, In the great revolutionary ranks, it is easy to mingle with the bad guys.

Abuse, black market and crime

Tor builds the "dark web" of the cornerstone and order, and the entire "dark net" component of the content, is active in the user initiative to provide.

The most famous is the "Silk Road" (Silk M.I.), an ebay-style anonymous Web site, which has a price tag for unregistered pistols, private killers, child pornography, all contraband goods and only Bitcoin trading. "Silk Road" ceased operation in 2013, its founder Ross Ulbricht into the FBI's Honeypot (an inductive network trap) and exposed identity, was arrested in San Francisco, according to court figures, in about two years, the "Silk Road" has a total value of more than 1.2 billion dollars in turnover, The storm also led to a 15% plunge in the price of Bitcoin on the day.

The FBI's offensive appears to have played a Shajijinghou role, and the "Silk Road" competitor, Black Harsh Reloaded, the main seller of illicit drugs, has also been randomly declared indefinitely closed, but the sense of confrontation will never be extinguished. One months after the "Silk Road" was closed, an old user on the line of the new "Silk Road 2.0" site, the resumption of all commodity transactions, the alias "terrorist pirates" webmaster copied the original "Silk Road" of the closure page--FBI Bulletin shows that "this hidden site has been closed"-and the copy revision to "This hidden web site is rising again," "A lot of users in the dark web" cheered, and a user named Steve Jobs, with a sad post to bless the last war on the imprisoned "Silk Road", said: "This is a brand new day for all of us, in the excitement and dawn, Let's pray for our former pirates ... He was held in prison, suffering inhuman treatment ... He brought us here, gave us a home, and he was now displaced. ”

Pure illegal trade, but the "dark net" in the drop, more spiritual pollution of the nature, is something without any purpose, just far from ordinary people's content exchange. There used to be a site called "Lolita City" (Lolita town), there are tens of thousands of child sexual abuse photos, and even live movies, it received a huge donation from paedophilia from around the world, but also the hacker community because of the failure to watch and attack it, eventually because of "dark net" can not be traced. There is also a site called "normal pornography for Healthy people" (the normal porn for normal arranges), which exposes a number of bizarre films, such as a disabled person who has no feet and is forced to dance, a man in 7 minutes intoxicated with the tongue licking the washing machine, The process of a chimpanzee eating a blonde woman alive, and giving birth to a human baby in a doe, makes it hard to tell the truth from the heart.

With no search engine support, so the "dark net" site acquisition usually relies on the user's spontaneous collation or the private circle within the spread of the United States and the European Union are trying to retrace one by one, even the highest tolerance of freedom of the Netherlands also at the judicial level to cooperate, but in essence, "dark net" is a new need rather than a physical goal, the perpetrator can always find a way to hide their own, those who normally use Tor "dark net" users should not be implicated. During the indictment of the "Silk Road", prosecutors also said they would not be hostile to the "dark web" technology, but could not tolerate drug trafficking, murder and other acts.

It is both fortunate and vaguely sad that as the previous article, Tor in most users hands is simply the wall tool, language and cultural barriers and the Chinese network environment itself, "dark net" inside almost see the figure of Chinese users, whether illegal or legal. In 2012, the University of California in the United States published a report entitled "The Underground Economic Survey of China Network" (investigating Chinese ' s online underground Economy), the conclusion is very interesting, The effect is that China also has a sizeable online black market (in 2011, about 5 billion yuan in size), but because the need to get customers through publicity, most of these users choose Baidu Bar and Tencent QQ Group to develop business, in order to prevent monitoring, Chinese users use the original method is also effective, it is slang, The researchers found slang including "horse", "underwriters", "washing" and other 84 keywords, as well as 129 for the sale of illegal goods Baidu Bar, Baidu later responded by thanking, and closed these points posted.

In addition, there is another voice, insisting that "dark net" the proportion of illegal content by irrational fear has produced amplification effect, or the stress of "persecution paranoia," which gives the excuses and opportunities for countries and governments that are willing to suppress cyber freedom, is also supported by data that Tor, though incredibly downloadable, But the daily active user is not only hundreds of thousands of (among them many are detective police), which makes too much of the "dark Net" of the harmfulness of the rhetoric immediately untenable.

Who is the enemy of cyber freedom?

In February this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a bill that would allow the government to cut off the entire internet in Russia at the necessary time, and to force Web site owners with more than 3000 daily visits to file their anonymity with the government.

This makes it more vigilant for Internet users who are committed to influencing the public through the Internet. The New York Times published an article by Guerre Beckermann, a Russian-American columnist, who recalls a Soviet-era underground magazine, The Chronicle of Affairs (Khronika), which works just like Tor:

"Anyone who wants to let the Soviets know what's going on inside the country can easily send information to the editors of the Chronicle," he said. Just give the information to the person in the Chronicle and he'll tell his home, and so on. But don't try to trace the whole chain, or you'll be considered a police informant. ”

Guerre Beckermann finally said,

"The compilation of a current chronicle is both cumbersome and dangerous." But it is this process that has spawned a group of citizens who are confident of accountability to the government in a country that has been unheard of in the event of a challenge to power. ”

Even in America, where the freedom of the internet is often crumbling, the New Yorker launched the anonymous email strongbox last year, a DeadDrop application based on the program written by the famous late hacker Allen Swartz, who can go through strongbox and the New Yorker Editorial Office communication, the whole process is also "dark net" form to achieve, will not leave traces of possible tracking.

But in contrast to the brutal, inefficient government intervention, a larger area of business penetration seems to threaten the freedom of the Internet and the privacy behind it. Just like the irony of "The Brave New World" for "1984", cloud computing makes the concept of private information fall apart, and more and more network users go to the convenient and fast cloud technology, but let "dark net" appear outdated and labeled. A Reddit user, after breaking out of the "dark net", said that defending freedom should be as straightforward as heroic feats, but it was hard to bear the surprise and suspicion of the other person when he was told he was lingering on the "dark Net".

A more cynical mainstream view is that, in the coming internet age, privacy is a right that can be waived--yes, the user can have the "right to defend", but also can not be affected by the pressure of the exercise of "waiver"-as the previous network of popular language said, "Life is like being raped, if unable to resist , just close your eyes and enjoy. ”

Other enemies of cyber freedom also lie within. In 2011, because of protests against the Japanese company Sony for supporting the US Congress's "Cyber Anti-Piracy Act" (SOPA), the anonymous hacker group Anonymous retaliatory attacks on Sony's network database, resulting in more than 100 million Sony users of personal data and credit card information leaked, Sony also found a new file in the corporate server, titled "We Are Outnumbered" (We are Legion). The logic of defending freedom by violating freedom, and the two-dollar moral bundle, is no doubt a disgrace to the reputation of liberalism.

As well as ...

As Tor may become less secure, new "dark web" technologies are being developed, from the reasonable point of view, "dark net" is an inevitable choice for the internet to reach the bottom of the rebound, it can not be completely destroyed in one day, it is not only the missing part of the "Ming net" to fill, but also the dark invisible human exports, After acknowledging the limitations of ideals, we have a sound mindset to look for higher wisdom to solve problems.

Lu Sozen said, "Life is free, but not in chains." Wang Xiaobo has also had a similar words, "People's experience is always subject to the limitations of the situation, this restriction is imperceptible, and Unbreakable", so self comfort, is some cynics, but for the idea of the flexibility, it symbolizes a kind of optimism: until people are Teng Mans, "Dark net" dark also nowhere to hide.

You know what I mean?