Researchers Build a Browser-Based Darknet 163
ancientribe writes "At Black Hat USA next month, researchers will demonstrate a way to use modern browsers to more easily build darknets — underground private Internet communities where users can share content and ideas securely and anonymously. HP's Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood have created Veiled, a proof-of-concept darknet that only requires participants have an HTML 5-based browser to join. No special software or configuration is necessary, unlike with darknets such as Tor. Veiled is basically a 'zero footprint' network, in which groups can rapidly form and disappear without a trace. The researchers admit darknets are attractive to bad guys, too, but they say they think these more easily set-up and dismantled nets will be more popular for mainstream (and legit) users." In somewhat related news, reader cheesethegreat informs us that version 0.7.5 of FreeNet has hit the tubes.
Iran? China? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is anyone in Iran reading this right now? OK, don't respond but do pass it on to your friends.
Ditto China.
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you no shame?
Not surprising -- browsers are basically OSes (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not surprised that this functionality is able to be implemented. Essentially, Web browsers are operating systems that not just parse HTML and render that, but pass a lot of items off to subsystems to execute, such as Java, Flash, Google Gears, or other plugins.
Bad Guys (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course secrecy is attractive to bad guys. Problem is according to current legislation we are all bad guys, always crossing some obscure irrelevant law we don't know about.
So one man's secrecy is another man's privacy and protection from overreaching criminalization.
Oh, and anything you write or view on the internet, say over the phone, purchase, sms about, dial on your phone, etc. is saved and archived forever, by default, unless you make a special effort to enforce your right of privacy. Even that special effort does not guarantee protection and furthermore, that effort is not difficult to notice, and boom, you are someone with something to hide, i.e. one of the bad guys.
War is peace. Doublegood peace.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, darknet is attractive to bad guys but so is expectation of privacy in general.
Talking in secret (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure how much use it is for people to talk in secret. They probably do that now, with family etc. As we can see in Iran right now, it takes people to have the guts and will to take to the streets and make their feelings known before things change.
Easier is better (Score:4, Insightful)
If its easier to use, you will definitely see more people using it who are legitimate. Tor and other darknets are a pain in the ass to use, and they clearly have a larger proportion of people using it for more nefarious purposes. The reason is simple: they *need* to use it because they are bad guys. Good guys, unless they fully comprehend the threats against them, are less likely to go to the effort. Hopefully this works out and is secure. It would be a big plus for people who don't want to deal with the hassle, not to mention, they don't want instantly incriminating software on their machine. My guess is that the Chinese and Iranian government minders don't like you if they see you getting your hands on anything like a Tor/Freenet software package.
Re:Talking in secret (Score:5, Insightful)
Talking in secret in advance helps them to take to the streets at the same time and in the same place.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly the reason why this will be outlawed immediately as soon as a sizable portion of the population (in the western world, folks, I'm not talking about Iran, China and Burma here) uses it to circumvent the governmental snooping that's running rampart.
Can't outlaw it, you say? Because we're in a free world and thus they can't just simply outlaw encryption?
Ok, they won't. What we'll get is a law that makes you liable if you "faciliate the spread of pedophilia". After all, if you help a pedo you're in the wrong as well, ain't you? Since you can't really determine what kind of data you roll around in a darknet (it would kinda defeat the purpose if you could), darknet proponents would get their IP sniffed and law enforcement would download any kind of kiddy porn they could find in the darknet. As soon as the IP of a proponent can be linked to the porn (say, a chunk came from him because it was stored at his part of the cloud), the trap closes, the law enforcement can "prove" that darknet proponents are "only" in for the kiddy porn and thus darknet is an evil tool of child exploitation.
Gimme a single reason to believe this won't happen, I beg you.
Re:Easier is better (Score:3, Insightful)
Defining "good" and "bad" in this day and age ain't so simple anymore. A lot of "good" guys break the law.
Someone blogging about human rights in China? A bad guy, according to the Chinese government. Someone writing instructions how to use your hardware in the way you want it and not in the way its manufacturer wants? A bad guy, according to pretty much any western government. Someone telling people how to circumvent internet filters? A bad guy, in pretty much any government's eyes.
Any of those guys "bad" by your definition?
Re:You mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
Short of shutting down the network a nicely distributed service could be very tough to disrupt. And while communications to the rest of the world are undoubtedly important, for the Iranians right now, internal communications are likely to be much more important.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:5, Insightful)
That would make sense. But do you think a judge will be able to tell the difference, more so when he is told that he should better NOT tell the difference? It will be made a tool that faciliates child porn, and no "honest citizen" needs it... do you think this argumentation wouldn't be used? And all too readily believed by those that don't really care too much as long as they got YouTube and Twitter?
The idea that something should be legal because it is usually used for legal means and only in exceptions for illegal ones is one of the past. The same analogy could be used for guns, cars, almost anything human made can be used for good and ill. The problem here is that darknets are by their very definition something governments cannot regulate or control, and thus they will bring all the firepower they have into the field to destroy them if they see wide public use. The only reason we haven't seen them cracking down hard on them is simply that the amount of people using (or even knowing about) them is minimal. If darknets become a tool usable (and used) by the average computer user, they will become a target of governments which are all too eager to control and monitor what their citizens do.
I.e. pretty much all governments on this planet.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you are probably right and this type of thing will be attempted.
However, in that situation, I would think that one could argue they had no knowledge that that's what they were partaking in. After all, that's the design of the system, right?
Hell, if I help out a guy with a flat tire who happens to proceed to rape a child, am I guilty of aiding a pedophile? No, because there are plenty of legit reasons why a guy would be driving around in a car. Just as there are plenty of legit reasons why someone would want to surf entirely anonymously.
That might be enough to convince a jury, especially if the FBI doesn't find anything else incriminating on your systems.
But it is more than enough to get a warrant, your front door kicked off the hinges, and all your equipment confiscated for literally years. And you'll be lucky to get any of it back, ever, guilty or not.
As for your example above, they will approach it in the same fashion as P2P is treated. They will simply claim that it's "common knowledge" that most users of that service are involved in some type of shady business. It really pisses me off, but it seems that these days if you show that you are trying to hide anything, you are pretty much presumed guilty of something.
Re:If I give a killer a ride... (Score:1, Insightful)
Funny how you dismiss America as "christofucks" and attempts at high morals, then disdain on Europe (which has a much lower religious attendance rate) as a bunch of lazy perverts. What do you want? Atheistic anarchy? That surely is a better way!
Re:If I give a killer a ride... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps he saw that the terrorists have already won by getting our governments to take all our freedoms away.
Yes I said it.
The terrorists have won.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's your counter argument: In repressive governments like the Chinese, those darknets serve a very sensible purpose because they allow them the right to free speech and discussion of politics. Here, there is no reason for those as you may already speak your mind, and thus the only reason to use them in the "free world" is to do something illegal.
Bet nobody realizes that they're used for exactly the same thing in "repressive" states: To do something illegal. Like, say, enjoy freedom of speech.
Isn't it strange that we're all for handing people the ability to circumvent their laws if we consider those laws "wrong", but we dread the same at home?
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:1, Insightful)
But this serves a very sensible law-breaking: the right to free speech.
This is the absolute minimum that any human should have, whether they are an upstanding citizen, or some sick fuck rotting away in prison for killing.
Re:Worried, maybe. (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Privacy in communications is the basis of free society. Placing anything and everything on the internet vastly expands a governments' ability to keep tabs on people.
Back in the day, gentlemen did not read each other's mail. With the advent of various technologies that barrier has been progressively lowered. Wiretapping POTS lines used to require special judicial approval, but it *was* given for a variety of reasons. These days the NSA (and equivalent agencies in other countries) routinely scan internet traffic to the point where the smart assumption is that you have NO privacy.
Freedom is dangerous in that people can abuse their freedoms to commit crimes. We continue to trade those freedoms for perceived security while the definition of crime becomes broader. The logical end is that all freedoms will eventually be lost in order to control ever-expanding categories of "crime".
A darknet is nothing more than the digital equivalent of a public house where people gather for discussion safe from government interference - a combination of the rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble.