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seem to be a stretch to assume that at least part of its funding is coming from criminals who have a vested interest in Tor’s research. It is a little ironic that this is a project that is likely co-funded by the US government and organised crime.
    ‘Tor’s original design was to give users privacy and anonymity online and that’s still the core of what we do,’ Lewman said. ‘The vast majority of Tor usage is by normal people who are just looking to not give out all their information; who they are, where they are and every website they visit. Of course jerks and criminals do use Tor but frankly they have far better options.’
    WikiLeaks is one example of an organisation that took advantage of darknets to maintain the integrity of its submissions, recommending that those who required anonymity when whistleblowing use Tor. Even if a server were to be confiscated, there would be little risk to users of the site, because there would be no IP trail and no typical user traffic trails that led out of the server. Conversely, traffic of visitors was also protected from their end, because they would not leave a trail of where they were going or what they were doing when they got there.
    ‘Of course criminals will pick up on that too, but criminals are opportunistic,’ Lewman said when quizzed. ‘That’s why they’re criminals.’

It has become apparent that high-tech crime permeates traditional crimes with new crimes, for example, fraud, the theft of electronic wealth using malicious software, cyber stalking, extortion, espionage, hacking, child exploitation and the online grooming of young people. The ability to use technology to commit crime, attack critical infrastructure, engage in terrorist activity and undermine the national security is a very real threat.
    From a law enforcement perspective this means we need to develop new methodologies to ensure perpetrators cannot hide behind technological advances.
    – Australian Federal Police statement on the dark web

The Internet’s Evil Twin
    S ilk Road was by far the most famous site linked by the Hidden Wiki by mid-2011. Clicking on the link would bring a potential customer to a homepage that asked for login details, with a subtle link to register. All the site required was a username, password and a fake email address, and a buyer could get started.
    A basic green-and-white themed web page filled the browser with pictures of some of the wares you might want to buy: 5 grams of hash, a gram of cocaine or MDMA, an enticing pile of pink pills, Xanax, something called ‘shake’. A single vendor would have multiple listings for different quantities, ranging from a single pill or joint up to amounts that were clearly not intended for personal use. Underneath each picture was a price displayed in bitcoin or US dollars, depending on the setting chosen by the user.
    Drugs were not the only goods for sale. The site also listed clothes, books, computer equipment and fake IDs. A link that said ‘XXX’ offered login details to premium clearweb (regular internet) porn sites. ‘Books’ proved to be a relatively harmless collection of self-published tomes offering assistance on picking up girls or setting up hydroponic gardens, as well as people offering downloads of ‘banned books’ for about half a bitcoin. The ‘Money’ listing didn’t offer forged notes, but ways of obtaining bitcoin anonymously.
    The ‘Drugs’ listing was broken up into sublistings: cannabis, psychedelics, stimulants, prescription and so on, all waiting to be popped into a shopping basket. They included hard-to-come-by designer drugs, such as a subcategory called the ‘2-C Family’ – psychedelics in pill, capsule or powder form. Before the Road, the most popular, 2CB, was virtually impossible to obtain in Australia without a friend in a chemical laboratory.

    Beyond Silk Road, the dark web is divided into porn, hacking communities, illegal commerce and crackpots. It is also a place where