The Dark Net

by Jamie Bartlett

  p.77 ‘At their first meeting, May set out . . .’ Much of this was taken from a paper May had written in 1988, titled ‘The Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto’. At Hughes’ house, the programmers were divided into two teams. One team sent around messages in anonymous envelopes trying to evade the attentions of the other group. By bouncing the envelopes around the group, they realised it was possible to send a message without anyone working out who it originated from.

  p.77 ‘But computer systems could . . .’ Quoted in Levy, S., Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government – Saving Privacy in a Digital Age, p.208. In 1991 Gilmore said, ‘I want to guarantee – with physics and mathematics, not laws – things like real privacy of personal communications . . . real privacy of personal records . . . real freedom of trade . . . real financial privacy . . . real control of identification.’ One early post from the mailing list gives a very good flavour of the mood: ‘The people in this room hope for a world where an individual’s informational footprints – everything from an opinion on abortion to the medical record of an actual abortion – can be traced only if the individual involved chooses to reveal them; a world where coherent messages shoot around the globe by network and microwave, but intruders and feds trying to pluck them out of the vapor find only gibberish; a world where the tools of prying are transformed into the instruments of privacy.’ In his comment about democracy not providing lasting freedom, May was in fact quoting fellow cypherpunk Mike Ingle: http://koeln.ccc.de/archiv/cyphernomicon/chapter16/16.5.html.

  p.77 ‘The list was hosted by the server . . .’ Levy, S., Crypto. Toad.com is one of the first one hundred.com domain names.

  p.78 ‘Tim May proposed, among other . . .’ He may even have been the first to write about the branch of steganography called ‘Least Significant Bit’ in which messages are hidden in parts of audio or video files, in sci.crypt mailing list, unfortunately now lost.

  p.78 ‘When Hughes put forward a programme . . .’ From Tim May, Cyphernomicon: ‘The Cypherpunk and Julf/Kleinpaste-style remailers were both written very quickly, in just days; Karl Kleinpaste wrote the code that eventually turned into Julf’s remailer (added to since, of course) in a similarly short time.’

  p.78 ‘It was Hughes who coined . . .’ http://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html (accessed 23 February 2014).

  p.79 ‘Public Key encryption transformed . . .’ Tim May offers an explanation in Cyphernomicon: ‘I did find a simple calculation, with “toy numbers”, from Matthew Ghio: “You pick two prime numbers; for example 5 and 7. Multiply them together, equals 35. Now you calculate the product of one less than each number, plus one. (5-1)(7-1)+1=21 [sic]. There is a mathematical relationship that says that x = x^21 mod 35 for any x from 0 to 34. Now you factor 21, yields 3 and 7. You pick one of those numbers to be your private key and the other one is your public key. So you have: Public key: 3 Private key: 7 Someone encrypts a message for you by taking plaintext message m to make cyphertext message c: c=m^3 mod 35. You decrypt c and find m using your private key: m=c^7cmod 35. If the numbers are several hundred digits long (as in PGP), it is nearly impossible to guess the secret key.”’ (The calculation is actually incorrect: when I asked him, May explained that Cyphernomicon was only a first draft, and that he’d never got round to checking it as carefully as he would have liked.) David Kahn, a historian of cryptography, called this the most important cryptographic development since the Renaissance. Also Schmeh, K., Cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure on the Internet.

  p.80 ‘“Before PGP, there was no way” . . .’ Interview with Zimmermann, InfoWorld magazine, 9 October 2000, p.64.

  p.81 ‘In the end, they decided against . . .’ In fact, three GCHQ mathematicians had already invented public key encryption a few years before Hellman and Diffie, but GCHQ chose to keep it secret. When he became GCHQ Director in 1996, Omand decided to publicly release their original proofs.

  p.81 ‘In 1994 May published . . .’ Cyphernomicon began: ‘Greetings Cypherpunks, The FAQ I’ve been working on for many months is now available by anonymous ftp, details below. Because there is no “official” Cypherpunks group, there shouldn’t be an “official” Cypherpunks FAQ, as I see it. Thus, others can write their own FAQs as they see fit. Cypherpunks write FAQs? I’ve decided to give my FAQ a name, to prevent confusion. “THE CYPHERNOMICON” is what I call it. (If the reference is obscure, I can explain.)’

  p.82‘The cypherpunks were advised to read . . .’ https://www.mail-archive.com/cypherpunks@cpunks.org/msg00616.html; Levy, Crypto, p.207. Hughes, in his own version of Cyphernomicon, wrote that ‘with the right application of cryptography, you can again move out to the frontier – permanently’.

  p.83 ‘Dyson replied, “for the record” . . .’ http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2011/march/1324265093/robert-manne/cypherpunk-revolutionary. Assange’s original posts are still preserved on the Cypherpunk list archive, which is available here: http://cypherpunks.venona.com/.

  p.83 ‘“I count him as one of us” . . .’ For more on the importance to Assange of the Cypherpunk mailing list, see Greenberg, A., This Machine Kills Secrets, p.127, Manne, R., pp.207–13; (Assange went as far as to publish a book in 2012 called Cypherpunks).

  p.83 ‘The experience, he later wrote . . .’ http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2011/march/1324265093/robert-manne/cypherpunk-revolutionary (accessed 23 February 2014).

  p.84 ‘His inspiration came from another cypherpunk . . .’ It now hosts 70,000 documents, including the names of CIA and MI6 agents, suppressed photos of soldiers killed in Iraq, and maps of government facilities.

  p.84 ‘We intend to place a new star . . .’ Greenberg, A., This Machine Kills Secrets, p.131.

  p.84 ‘It was finally discontinued in 2001 . . .’ http://www.securityfocus.com/news/294.

  p.85 ‘It is currently run and managed . . .’ http://cooperativa.cat/en/whats-cic/background/; https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/blogs/diagonal-english/from-critique-to-construction-the-integrated-cooperative-in-catalonia.html.

  p.85 ‘CIC’s vision is to find new ways . . .’ D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F. and Cattaneo, C., ‘Civil and Uncivil Actors for a Degrowth Society’, Journal of Civil Society: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17448689.2013.788935.

  p.87 ‘Throw in the communal cooking . . .’ ‘Degrowth in Action’, from Opposition to Alternatives Building: How the Cooperative Integral Catalana enacts a Degrowth Vision. It is the 2012 Master’s thesis of Sheryle Carlson, of the Human Ecology Divison of Lund University.

  p.88 ‘In 2009, Duran began promoting . . .’ http://enricduran.cat/en/i-have-robbed-492000-euros-whom-most-rob-us-order-denounce-them-and-build-some-alternatives-society-0/.

  p.90 ‘Although Amir’s technical know-how . . .’ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=169398.0 (some also blame him for the 2011 Bitcoinia controversy, when a Bitcoin trading exchange partly run by Amir was hacked and £145,000 in Bitcoins were stolen).

  p.90 ‘“We believe this is not in . . .”’ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/31/darkwallet-aims-to-be-the-anarchists-bitcoin-app-of-choice/.

  p.90 ‘Both he and Cody Wilson . . .’ http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/30/dark-wallet/.

  p.91 ‘Although he never attended a meeting . . .’ Levy, S., Crypto, pp.216–17. Akst, D., ‘In Cyberspace, Nobody Can Hear You Write a Check: Cash? History, The Evolution of Money is Moving Way Faster than the ATM Line. Guard Your Passwords’, LA Times, 4 February 1996.

  p.93 ‘He even added an out-of-place . . .’ http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block (accessed 9 January 2014).

  p.94 ‘In his early posts, Satoshi wrote . . .’ http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg10001.html (accessed 9 January 2014). Many of the most influential people in the development of Bitcoin in these mailing list days – Wei Dai, Nick Szabo, Adam Back and, of course, Hal Finney – were all veterans of the Cypherpunk mailing list.

  p.94 ‘Satoshi typed in his last post . . .’ Until 2014, when a Ne
wsweek journalist claimed to have found him living quietly and humbly in California. But the man Newsweek identified claims Bitcoin has nothing to do with him.

  p.94 ‘The Dark Wallet will include a number of new features . . .’ Although some users are sceptical about how well Dark Wallet will work, because it is a full reimplementation of the Bitcoin protocol, which is highly ambitious, even for Amir.

  p.94 ‘One of the key innovations . . .’ https://wiki.unsystem.net/index.php/DarkWallet/Multisig.

  p.95 ‘Amir anticipates a lot of people . . .’ In May 2014, an alpha version of the Dark Wallet was made publicly available: Amir encouraged users to test the software as he continued to work on it.

  p.97 ‘One is a social media platform . . .’ Technically speaking, Twister doesn’t store the posts themselves into the blockchain, but rather just the username records.

  p.98 ‘So Smári and two colleagues . . .’ http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/Mailpile-taking-email-back.

  p.99 ‘The cypherpunk message isn’t going unheeded . . .’ http://www.dailydot.com/news/pgp-encryption-snowden-prism-nsa/.

  p.99 ‘In 2013, documents released by Edward Snowden . . .’ James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald, ‘Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security’, Guardian, 6 September 2013 [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security (accessed 20 November 2013)]; Ellen Nakashima, ‘NSA has made strides in thwarting encryption used to protect Internet communication’, Washington Post, 5 September 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-05/world/41798759_1_encryption-nsa-internet (accessed 20 November 2013).

  p.100 ‘By the next morning . . .’ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/eva-blumdumontet/cryptoparty-london-encryption-_b_1953705.html (accessed 23 February 2014).

  p.100 ‘I’ve documented at least . . .’ http://besva.de/mirror-cryptoparty.org/ (accessed 23 February 2014). Obviously there is no central authority for the crypto-party movement. Its reach is likely to be great because each participant is expected to take what they’ve learnt and share it with others, possibly having their own private crypto-party. Encryption takes two, after all.

  p.100 ‘There is even a free crypto-party handbook . . .’ It is available here: https://github.com/cryptoparty/handbook (accessed 23 February 2014).

  p.101 ‘Surveys consistently show that we value privacy . . .’ Bartlett, J., Data Dialogue.

  p.105 ‘Crypto-currencies can “help . . .’ http://enricduran.cat/en/statements 172013/.

  p.106 ‘A place where citizens can exist . . .’ In a 1995 email to transhumanists who were planning to build a floating seastead community to live outside national laws, May urged them to think about computer networks instead, which he considers more hospitable and secure than any physical location – even one in the ocean.

  Chapter 4

  Three Clicks

  p.110 ‘I contacted the police . . .’ Given the sensitive nature of the subject, it is worth spending a moment on definitions. The seminal psychiatric document, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (fourth edition, text revised – DSM-IV-TR) of the American Psychiatric Association, has a specific definition of paedophilia: the individual must have experienced intense and recurring sexual fantasies involving children over a minimum period of six months, or various behaviours or urges involving sexual activities with a prepubescent child or children. This individual will also experience significant impairment or distress in social, occupational or other functions due to the presence of these fantasies. Finally, a paedophile must be at least sixteen and at least five years older than their victims. (The new DSM-V – released 2013 – kept its definition exactly the same, except for a routine name change from ‘paedophilia’ to ‘paedophilic disorder’.) Child sex offending is different as it can cover people who are convicted for a range of criminal offences, including viewing illegal material. (The DSM’s definition of paedophilia has not been without controversy: critics have argued that it pays insufficient attention to factors such as paedophiles’ inability to control themselves, and also fails to distinguish ‘hebephiles’, i.e. offenders who are exclusively attracted to pubescent children.) For the purposes of this chapter, I use the terms child pornography and indecent images of children interchangeably. Specialists in the field prefer the term ‘child sexual abuse images’, because all illegal images of young people can be fairly described as sexual abuse. However, although many images are clearly ‘abuse’ in the sense most people would understand it, the term can also be slightly misleading for a non-specialist, as it gives the impression that there is always direct physical abuse involved, which is not the case. The definition cited in the text is from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2002).

  p.110 ‘The internet has radically changed . . .’ There are three different ways in which people engage in sexual offences of children online, which are often incorrectly conflated. There are those who view, collect and distribute child pornography. There are others who engage in ‘virtual’ abuse, in which an adult has some kind of sexual relationship with a child online, possibly involving webcams or exchanging images, but never meet them in person. Finally, there are those who use the internet to find and groom children, with the intention of meeting them. The relationship between these different types of abuse is murky: some offenders commit all three offences, others only the first or second.

  p.110 ‘According to UK law . . .’ This is called the Sentencing Advisory Panel scale. Level 1: Nudity or erotic posing with no sexual activity. Level 2: Sexual activity between children, or solo masturbation by a child. Level 3: Non-penetrative sexual activity between adult(s) and child(ren). Level 4: Penetrative sexual activity between child(ren) and adult(s). Level 5: Sadism or bestiality. In April 2014 this was changed to three levels. Category A (Level 4 & 5); Category B (Level 3) and Category C (defined as those not falling into Categories A or B). See Sentencing Council Sexual Offences Definitive Guidelines (2014).

  p.110 ‘During the sexual liberation movement . . .’ Tate, T., Child Pornography: An Investigation, pp.33–4.

  p.110 ‘By the late seventies . . .’ Tate, p.33; Jenkins, P., Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet, p.32. There was also surge in pro-paedophile pressure groups, which publicly called for the legalisation of sexual relationships between adults and minors. In the UK, the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was founded in 1974 and even became an affiliate of the National Council for Civil Liberties. And most famously the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), established in 1978, still campaign today. O’Donnell, I. and Milner, C., Child Pornography: Crime, Computers and Society, p.11; Ost, S., Child Pornography and Sexual Grooming: Legal and Societal Responses.

  p.111 ‘In the UK, many paedophiles . . .’ This information is based on an interview with a specialist who works with recovering sex offenders, and who has asked to remain nameless.

  p.111 ‘Because it was so hard to come by . . .’ Quoted in Wortley, R. and Smallbone, S., Internet Child Pornography: Causes, Investigation and Prevention.

  p.111 ‘Anonymous Usenet groups . . .’ Jenkins, P., Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet, p.54.

  p.111 ‘In 1993, Operation Long Arm targeted . . .’ http://articles.balti moresun.com/1993-09-01/news/1993244018_1_child-pornography-distribution-of-child-computer. One FBI officer involved in these raids said, ‘Of all the techniques used by child pornographers, none has been more successful than the worldwide use of BBSs.’

  p.112 ‘Prospective members had to be put forward . . .’ Wortley and Smallbone, Internet Child Pornography, p.66.

  p.112 ‘Seven UK men were convicted . . .’ Sheldon, K. and Howitt, D., Sex Offenders and the Internet, p.28: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/11/tracymcveigh.martinbright; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1166643.stm.

  p.112 ‘The infamous Lolita City . . .’ This is taken from an anonymous letter published online and available in a Tor Hidden Service, from someone
who claimed to be a member of an international child pornography ring (‘Mr X’), a German living abroad, ‘where there are no laws relating to surfing, viewing, downloading and saving any type of files’. He claims to have worked in the field of children’s models ‘and knows hundreds of paedophiles’.

  p.112 ‘By October 2007, Interpol’s Child Abuse . . .’ Cited by Elliott, I. A., Beech, A. R., Mandeville-Norden, R. and Hayes, E., ‘Psychological profiles of internet sexual offenders: Comparisons with contact sexual offenders’, Sexual Abuse, 21, pp.76–92.

  p.112 ‘By 2010, the UK police database . . .’ http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm77/7785/7785.pdf; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21507006; Finkelhor, D. and Lewis, I. A., ‘An Epidemiologic Approach to the Study of Child Molesters’, in Quinsey, R. A. and Quinsey, V. L. (eds) Human Sexual Aggression: Current Perspectives. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences; Kirwan, G. and Power, A., The Psychology of Cyber Crime: Concepts and Principles, p.115; http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-mum-dad-images-child-abuse.

  p.112 ‘In 2011, law enforcement authorities . . .’ http://www.justice.gov/psc/docs/natstrategyreport.pdf and http://www.ussc.gov/Legislative_and_Public_Affairs/Public_Hearings_and_Meetings/20120215-16/Testimony_15_Collins.pdf.

  p.112 ‘Twenty-five years on from the NSPCC’s estimate . . .’ Wortley and Smallbone, Internet Child Pornography.

  p.112 ‘CEOP believes that there are . . .’ CEOP (2013) Threat Assessment of Child Exploitation and Abuse.

  p.113 ‘According to the same source . . .’ This was a hacker named Intangir – who reputedly also runs another infamous Tor Hidden Service known as ‘Doxbin’, where the personal details of many anonymous users are listed.

  p.113 ‘One academic has recorded nine . . .’ Krone, T., ‘A Typology of Online Child Pornography Offending’, Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, no. 279. The profile of sex offenders has been the subject of a lot of academic work. See: Grubin, D., ‘Sex Offending Against Children: Understanding the Risk’, Police Research Series 99, p.14; Quayle, E., Vaughan, M. and Taylor, M., ‘Sex offenders, internet child abuse images and emotional avoidance: The importance of values’, Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 11, pp.1–11; Siegfried, K. C., Lovely, R. W. and Rogers, M. K., ‘Self-reported Online Child Pornography Behaviour: A Psychological Analysis’, International Journal of Cyber Criminology 2, pp.286–97; Riegel, D. L., ‘Effects on Boy-attracted Pedosexual Males of Viewing Boy Erotica’, Archives of Sexual Behavior 33, pp.321–3; Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D. and Mitchell, K. J., Child-Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings From The National Juvenile Online Victimization Study, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Webb, L., Craissati, J. and Keen, S., ‘Characteristics of Internet Child Pornography Offenders: A Comparison with Child Molesters’, Sexual Abuse 19, pp.449–65; Elliott, I. A., Beech, A. R., Mandeville-Norden, R. and Hayes, E., ‘Psychological Profiles of Internet Sexual Offenders: Comparisons with contact sexual offenders’, Sexual Abuse, 21, pp.76–92.