Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier.
Ben holds a MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Criminology from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He is a Cambridge Cybercrime Centre postdoctoral researcher and long-term collaborator with this interdisciplinary center, focusing on online hacker communities and cybercrime markets. Today he is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Methods at the University of Edinburgh within the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS).
The Dark Web is a subset of the internet that was designed to be hidden from search engines and requires specific software, like Tor. Well known for illegal marketplaces (Silk Road) for drugs, firearms, murder for hire, stolen data, selling breached data, and hacking services, yet in fact is also serving as a privacy resource. Here forums allow users to exchange data regarding whistleblower platforms and also permits journalists to communicate in countries with strict censorship.
Insert irony: the very markets trafficking in illicit goods today rely on a architecture engineered by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
Tor 101: a history lesson
Ben is writing a biography of Tor, which holds both a cultural and technology history of power, privacy, international relations. His interviews with the original core designers, developers, and activists, permits a unique history between the US Government and hackers known as Cypherpunks. Ben is in fact revealing how each group is using Tor:
Activists: Civil libertarians and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation) who reframed Tor as a human rights tool.
Engineers: The original architects focused on the mathematical and technical robustness of onion routing.
Volunteers: Those relay operators who provide the physical infrastructure at significant legal and personal risk.
Another title, Tracers in the Dark is recommend as a companion to understand in detail the types of global criminal activity on the Dark Web:
In conclusion, Tor is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the recent past and the future of the internet. Ben’s focus on a criminology perspective revealing how Tor’s infrastructure can be a resource for state power and a resource of individual resistance. To many access to Tor is a simple black and white issue. However we live in a grey world.