You may remember that I’ve talked about DarkNets before on this blog and plan on writing a whole series where I go through them and show the Internet’s thriving underbelly (if there is enough interest since the research takes time). While many of these sites are used for child pornography, identity theft, illegal products, drug trafficking, and other illicit acts it is important to remember that the dark corners of the web also provide havens for those fighting for freedom in countries like Iran, North Korea, and China. They provide free speech zones to those techno-savvy revolutionaries whose lives would be threatened without these technologies. So before I continue and your views are jaded, keep that in mind.

The DarkMarket was run by Renukanth Subramaniam out of a small Internet cafe in Wembley, England called Java Bean. Membership was by invitation only and to join you had to prove to two separate people that you had stolen approximately 100 working credit cards with over $10,000 credit lines on them. You would then be rated on the site and the more you contributed the more you could access. It essentially worked like many file sharing communities where your note-worthy contributions moved you upwards. Anything you did that negatively affected the site would cause you to drop in the rankings.

What essentially happened to the site was that Renukanth Subramaniam lost his encrypted USB stick (which was actually stolen for evidence) costing several of the site’s members over $100,000.00 in damages and posed a possible security risk — now known as a definite security risk. Even though he was the site’s founder his security status was immediately dropped to mere contributor and he had to work his way up again. This is when undercover agents were able to monitor him and eventually uncover what he was doing as he worked feverishly to gain his way to the top again.

Subramaniam, now in police custody, was also a member of the former crime forum ShadowCrew, busted for the same operation back in 2004. The more recent DarkMarket however had a far larger grasp than ShadowCrew and spanned over dozens of European countries making it fall under many organized crime laws. Even though the site was shut down back in 2008, it ran anonymously with most members never meeting in real life. This means most of the sites 2,000 vendors and thousands of members still run free. Since DarkMarket was one of the Top 10 sites out of 100, there is a lot of work still for the FBI. It just goes to show how unsafe your money really is and just how easy it is to steal your information — keep that in mind every time you think about dropping cash and using only plastic in a future economy.

Here’s a price list of what your information went for on DarkMarket and what it costs on most of the web still:

“Dumps Data from magnetic stripes on batches of 10 cards. Standard cards: $50. Gold/platinum: $80. Corporate: $180.

Card verification values Information needed for online transactions. $3-$10 depending on quality.

Full information/change of billing Information needed for opening or taking over account details. $150 for account with $10,000 balance. $300 for one with $20,000 balance.

Skimmer Device to read card data. Up to $7,000.

Bank logins 2% of available balance.

Hire of botnet Software robots used in spam attacks. $50 a day.

Credit card images Both sides of card. $30 each.

Embossed card blanks $50 each.

Holograms $5 per 100.”

(The Guardian)

Darknets are often defined by the media as havens for pirated media, child pornography, and criminal activity. While all of these exist and certainly, as is the case with pirated media, flourish on darknets, there is also a large chunk of people using darknets for other purposes. One clear example is the expanded use of Tor on Chinese and North Korean networks. These governments decided a long time ago to censor what their people see over the Internet. Tor, an anonymizing network, gives users freedom of speech without fear of being traced. It allows the dissemination of ideas to continue in places where they are otherwise oppressed. The program has spread rapidly as users pass it on, by hand, to trusted members of their social network.

If you look at Tor’s website you will see that Tor is not only used by activists but by military field agents, journalists working in high-risk areas where they are monitored by the government’s there, law enforcement for online surveillance, and dozens of human rights groups. The darknet that Tor provides has helped to reveal information regarding overseas sweatshops, corporate corruption, human trafficking, and anything else that might require an anonymous face because of danger.

While there may be an abundance of ‘bad’ material in these darknets it is important to remember that communication networks have always been exploited by criminals and always will be — just look at the amount of drugs shipped through our own mail system or old telegraph messages from mafia members. Beckett forgot, or more likely neglected to research, all of the positive aspects of  the web’s dark corners and how their existence is essential before writing such a critical article. In a world where we have government regimes monitoring and using peoples’ IP traffic against them, even using this data to threaten their lives, it is important and necessary that such services exist and are publicized.

Below is a list of publicly available darknets running on anonymous networks. You will have to find hidden VPNs, stolen address space, and Internet loopholes on your own.

Freenet ||| Tor ||| I2P