Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2P

by Robert W. Gehl, Laura DeNardis (Editor), Michael Zimmer (Editor)

An exploration of the Dark Web—websites accessible only with special routing software—that examines the history of three anonymizing networks, Freenet, Tor, and I2P.

The term “Dark Web” conjures up drug markets, unregulated gun sales, stolen credit cards. But, as Robert Gehl points out in Weaving the Dark Web, for each of these illegitimate uses, there are other, legitimate ones: the New York Times's anonymous whistleblowing system, for example, and the use of encryption by political dissidents. Defining the Dark Web straightforwardly as websites that can be accessed only with special routing software, and noting the frequent use of “legitimate” and its variations by users, journalists, and law enforcement to describe Dark Web practices (judging them “legit” or “sh!t”), Gehl uses the concept of legitimacy as a window into the Dark Web. He does so by examining the history of three Dark Web systems: Freenet, Tor, and I2P.

Gehl presents three distinct meanings of legitimate: legitimate force, or the state's claim to a monopoly on violence; organizational propriety; and authenticity. He explores how Freenet, Tor, and I2P grappled with these different meanings, and then discusses each form of legitimacy in detail by examining Dark Web markets, search engines, and social networking sites. Finally, taking a broader view of the Dark Web, Gehl argues for the value of anonymous political speech in a time of ubiquitous surveillance. If we shut down the Dark Web, he argues, we lose a valuable channel for dissent.

Genres: Technology, Sociology

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 20, 2018

About the author

Robert W. Gehl is an associate professor in the
Department of Communication at the University of Utah. His research draws on science and technology studies, software studies and critical/cultural studies, and focuses on the intersections between technology, subjectivity and practice. His book, Reverse Engineering Social Media (Temple UP, 2014), explores the architecture and political economy of social media and is the winner of the Association of Internet Researchers Nancy Baym Book award. At Utah, he teaches courses in communication technology, software studies, new media theory and political economy of communication.

Reviews

[ada · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly informative yet concise analysis of the multiple ways in which the Dark Web is attempting to obtain its 'legitimacy.' Most importantly, the author highlights the Dark Web's potential for free social and political discourse; the potential of the Dark Web as a means for democratic emancipation in a world where state & corporate surveillance increases day-by-day.

Perhaps implicitly, Gehl makes a powerful case of how the Dark Web's need for legitimacy and the average citizen's need for privacy (or, freedom from the state and/or corporations' illegitimate actions regarding our data, etc.) is intertwined and symbiotic. Our 'legitimate' uses of Dark Web will in turn grant the Dark Web the 'legitimacy' it is currently being "put on trials for" (to rephrase Gehl's metaphor.)

[Carey Platt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at the dark web from the perspective of a sociologist.

[Bilal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main goal of the author is to understand, explain, and promote legitimacy of hidden web networks, primarily the three listed in the book’s subtitle. He defines legitimacy in three ways: monopoly on violence (as by a state); propriety and control of resources (as by a corporation); and authenticity (as being who one purports to be). While analyzing legitimacy the author gives an excellent primer on what is meant by the hidden web (anonymization of producers and consumers), its size and scale (tiny compared to the clear web), its technical limitations (significant latency making real-time chat difficult), limited resources (most developers and admins work without compensation), the types of sites that exist (all types), the types of sites that are more numerous (porn, child exploitation, drug trafficking, etc.), the hopes and aspirations of hidden web developers (shun exploitative content, especially child exploitation, drugs, slavery; and attract open and civil discourse on any topic without fear of surveillance), their struggles (keeping sites true to their goals – often without success; attracting more people – a continuous struggle; ensuring people adhere to hidden web practices, i.e., to not reveal anything about themselves and always use PGP; etc.). He discusses some of the key events where law enforcement shut down and prosecuted certain actors, such as the Silk Road marketplace and its founder Ross Ulbricht, and how the developer community rationalized their downfall: poor operational security practices. He talks about Facebook forcing itself into the TOR network and its implications for the hidden web community: Some seeing this as a boost to the hidden web networks, while others—potentially most—interpreting this as a dilution of the hidden web mission. In that discussion he exposes the relatively weak position of the hidden web community against the power of the resourceful Government and corporations in influencing the IETF to grant the TLDs .local (with Apple’s clout) and .onion (with Facebook’s clout), while not .gnu, .i2p, .bit, and a few others.

The author takes exception to the portrayal of the hidden web as the dark web with its connotation that everything and everyone on it are engaged in unsavory business. He also makes it a point to communicate that the amount of content on the hidden web is but a tiny fraction of what is on the clear web, debunking the notion communicated by the term deep web, as if the hidden web is very large, and as if it is built in layer upon layer such that as you dig deeper and deeper you keep finding more and more content. (Of course, deep web is also used to refer to content in the clear web network but that may not be accessible by crawlers or anyone without login credentials, such as in protected databases, and such as the content that is generated on the fly.)

In a nutshell, this book gives one a very good idea of what’s the hidden web all about, and about the motivations of people engaged with it, their aspirations, successes, failures, and struggles, be they developers, hackers, curious common folks, dissidents, marginalized, criminals, as well as law enforcement.

[Anne Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main reason I gave this book an average rating is this: rather than being an exposé on the dark net as the title implies, it's more of a manifesto. In fact, while reading this book, it reminded me a great deal of Theodore Kaczynski's book Technological Slavery, with the oddity that Kaczynski's anti-technology manifesto was itself published on the dark net. The author "weaves" indeed, choosing to cite that which supports his definition of "legitimacy," while ignoring the other trappings of the dark net. Central to my objection is the notion that conversations which can spark social change should be hidden in the dark net to begin with, rather than openly discussed where the popularity of some "dissident" notions can be gauged. I suggest that this is not really what anyone wants, but rather (if you are a US citizen, and perhaps for many other citizens as well) true freedom of speech which cannot be realized by hiding it. And thus, it is of no surprise that the dark net continues to be a haven for not so much dissidents, but radicals, extremists, and those seeking to use the dark net as a venue for illegal activity.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

In terms of an introduction to the Dark Web for people with minimal online technical skills, this is the book to consider. There's little here by way of history of development. Instead, this book offers information that comes almost exclusively through interview and ethnographic methods. The book does have limitations by way of the fact that the author is not a computer scientist, nor trained to understand code, protocols, or network systems software. Regardless, this is a great introduction to the political, economic, activism, and ethical issues related to the dark web, and a good starting point to understand the "state" of legitimization of these kinds of network infrastructures.