
The Darknet: Is the Government Destroying “the Wild West of the Internet?” - nols
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-battle-for-the-dark-net-20151022
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kristopolous
The most compelling part of Tor is it's without social networks, ads, or
javascript. A thin presentation layer makes content or functionality the prime
focus.

No third party SSO or share widgets and no need to upload a picture or give
your legal name.

The userbase of each site is small enough to be an open free-form community
and the volume of content (especially because things like reposts and social
media don't really play) is pretty manageable and non-repetive!

Most sites are run by volunteers who aren't under the pressures of a VC round
but instead just want to keep the community going. sizes are generally > 10
and < 1,000.

Worrying about convergence, SEO, "download our app/sign up for our email"
dialogs, html5up pitch pages with marketing fluff, fade-to-black video ad
overlays --- all that modern cruft is completely absent. It's so refreshing.

Tor's like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxqfgIDvEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxqfgIDvEY)
[CBC Archives: The Internet 1993].

To quote @ 2:10:

"One would think that if you're anonymous you can do anything you want. But
people have their own sense, you know, of community and what we can do" he
goes on... "If this is the only way they can talk to somebody, this is how
they'll do it."

THAT web - the anti-establishment one - it's called Tor - a tool for the human
spirit.

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Animats
The "darknet" can't be that big. Tor has limited bandwidth. Total bandwidth
exiting from Tor is about 7Gb/s.[1] That's about 1000 video streams for the
whole world.

[1] [https://metrics.torproject.org/bwhist-
flags.html](https://metrics.torproject.org/bwhist-flags.html)

~~~
ohmygodel
If by "darknet" you mean Tor hidden services, then exit relays are not used.
The circuits are client->guard->middle->middle->middle->middle->guard->hidden
service. The bandwidth bottleneck for hidden services is probably guards,
because all relays can be used as middles. Because relays with the Exit flag
are used exclusively for exiting (due to the position weights [0], e.g.
Wgd/Wed/Wmd), an estimate of the guard bandwidth is the weight of those with
only the Guard flag, or ~40Gbps.

[0] [https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/plain/dir-
spec.txt](https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/plain/dir-spec.txt)

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mynameishere
It's strange how they always identify "Darknet" as Tor. There are other
darknets like SIPRnet, JWICS, etc, and basically anything non-government
groups want to spin up for their own purposes.

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MikeNomad
I always thought that Dark Web was sites that weren't indexed by Google, etc
al., but reachable via a standard browser & Dark Net was sites reachable only
via Tor. Do I have it wrong?

~~~
nommm-nommm
"Deep web" refers to sites that aren't indexed by search engines. A synonym is
"invisible web"

"Darknet" refers to "overlay networks that can only be accessed with specific
software, configurations, or authorization, often using non-standard
communications protocols and ports." Tor is an example of a darknet. There are
many others (someone else mentioned SIPRnet as one).

"Dark Web" refers to websites on a darknet. Dark web, by definition, is part
of the deep web. Tor hidden services are part of the dark web.

Rolling Stone is wrong when it says "The Darknet (sometimes called the Dark
Web)" that's analogous to saying "The Internet (sometimes called the World
Wide Web)."

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fiatjaf
Too much drama. They write these articles and people believe them. There's no
such thing as "the darknet".

~~~
mintplant
I have to ask, did you read through the entirety of the article before making
this comment? I found it fairly balanced, compared to previous coverage I've
seen.

~~~
fiatjaf
No, I didn't. You are right.

