The high level of anonymity of the dark web, which is accessible via conventional servers and cloud hosting is operated, but only via Gate protects people in dictatorships from persecution and censorship. At the same time, however, the Dark Web is also used by criminals, for example to trade drugs and weapons and to exchange child pornography.
A study by Virginia Tech, published in PNAS has now investigated which use of the dark web predominates.
"As with any tool that can be used for good or evil, the question is whether the benefits outweigh the negatives."
Eric Jardine
Guard Nodes of the Tor network operated
To analyze the traffic, the researchers operated one percent of the guard nodes (entry nodes) of the Tor network from December 2018 to August 2019. This allowed them to record whether the network was only used for anonymous internet use or whether onion/hidden services (hidden pages) were accessed via it.
What content Tor users searched for on the dark web and the "normal" part of the Internet was not tracked by the researchers thanks to the anonymity of the Onion network. Also IP addresses of the user were only partially stored in order to identify the country from which the respective request comes.
"For the purposes of our analysis, however, we assume that the Tor clients targeting Onion/Hidden Services are likely to have predominantly illegal activities in mind, such as visiting hacker forums, drug trafficking sites, or child pornography sites."
Eric Jardine
Dark Web content hardly used
Extrapolated, the study data shows that about two to 2.5 million people use the Tor network every day. A large proportion of these use Tor only to access the normal Internet anonymously, but do not access dark web content.
"Only 6.7 percent of all Tor users in our sample visited Onion/Hidden Services sites. In other words, only about one in 20 Tor users use the system for illegal purposes on any given day."
Eric Jardine
The study thus refutes the common assumption that the Tor network is mainly used by criminals.
"Our Data are more likely to indicate that Tor users are generally doing relatively legal things with the Tor network, and are not even looking at content from Onion/Hidden Services".
Eric Jardine
Gate use depending on form of government
The analysis also shows that the way in which the gate is used differs significantly between countries. People in politically unfree states use Tor more often to anonymously access the regular Internet. The percentage of dark web access in Algeria, Russia, China, and other countries with government censorship is only 4.8 percent. By contrast, in countries with liberal systems and freedom of speech, 7.8 percent of all Tor accesses to dark web content are on the dark web.
These results suggest that the legal and illegal use of the Tor network differs significantly depending on the political context. Potentially criminal use tends to be concentrated in free regimes, while users from non-free countries tend to use the system for political and civil rights purposes".
Eric Jardine
Study proves ethical-legal dilemma of the Dark Web
The researchers state that the study confirms ethical-legal dilemmas of the dark web. It must therefore be discussed within a society whether and up to what point the disadvantages of criminal use outweigh the advantages of anonymous Internet use. This is particularly problematic because the cost-benefit calculation must also include other countries with significantly different political conditions.
: "Leaving the Tor network active and free from legal surveillance can cause harm because the system encourages drug trafficking, child abuse, and arms trafficking. Shutting down Tor would harm dissidents and human rights activists - especially in repressive systems where such technological protection is most needed."
Eric Jardine
Some countries, including Germany, are now planning special laws as a reaction to the criminal use of the dark web, which will apply especially to Fight against criminal market places to help. However, Germany does not want to ban access to the Tor network completely.
