DarkNets: not tomorrow, but here and now
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- In the 1990s I had a site called OTRiCS (On The Road in CyberSpace) which became popular with certain elements of the very deeply underground hacking fraternity. And even back then, the term DarkNet was in common usage.
Now, more than a decade later, DarkNets will ultimately become the principal method of online file-sharing, say the pundits and gurus. But I’d suggest that far from looming in the future, DarkNets have been the underground mainstay since the year dot, and that far more ‘product’ is moving around on them than even entertainment cartel statistic creators could come up with in their wildest imaginings. And I’m very far from being alone in holding this belief.
I was recently talking with surfer and Anon, both of them integral parts of the Internet underground, including the DarkNets, almost since day one.
DarkNets range from simply passing (and mailing) discs around, to WASTE, through trusted friend-to-friend bulletin boards, FreeWAN cells, Freenet-type sites, physical and WiFi sneaker nets of various kinds, hidden sites, and so on, and we thought our conversation would probably make an interesting post.
Surfer said he’d make a general representation of a typical file sharing ‘network’ as a graphic, and Anon would provide a few thoughts.
The results are below.
But first, in a famous Microsoft paper, The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution, Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado and Bryan Willman say:
“We investigate the darknet — a collection of networks and technologies used to share digital content. The darknet is not a separate physical network but an application and protocol layer riding on existing networks. Examples of darknets are peer-to-peer file sharing, CD and DVD copying, and key or password sharing on email and newsgroups. The last few years have seen vast increases in the darknet’s aggregate bandwidth, reliability, usability, size of shared library, and availability of search engines.”
They also say »»»
The idea of the darknet is based upon three assumptions:
1. Any widely distributed object will be available to a fraction of users in a form that permits copying.
2. Users will copy objects if it is possible and interesting to do so.
3. Users are connected by high-bandwidth channels.
The darknet is the distribution network that emerges from the injection of objects according to assumption 1 and the distribution of those objects according to assumptions 2 and 3.
One implication of the first assumption is that any content protection system will leak popular or interesting content into the darknet, because some fraction of users — possibly experts — will overcome any copy prevention mechanism or because the object will enter the darknet before copy protection occurs.
The term ‘widely distributed’ is intended to capture the notion of mass market distribution of objects to thousands or millions of practically anonymous users. This is in contrast to the protection of military, industrial, or personal secrets, which are typically not widely distributed …
Says Anon
The idea of file sharing is based on the same precepts as the internet itself. It’s a decentralized endpoint of commonality, but the MAFIAA don’t get it: file sharing is becoming MORE popular, not less.
The unregulated hodge-podge of connectivity that exists today exemplifies the fact that file sharing is easy, real easy, and isn’t going away anytime soon. Surfer made a chart (ref: pic) that overly generalizes how a miniscule corner of the file sharing community might be connected.
There are countless solutions out there designed to move digital data. Can the MAFIAA sue them all? I hardly think so. If that were its goal, it’d be suing Google by now.
Picture the campaign; Rape Napster into obedience, tweak the application to default share a folder, release a ‘new’ version, and then sic MediaSentry on them with a ‘modified’ client to start takin’ names.
DMCA gets passed. Bingo! License to sue — sue the shit out of the low hanging fruit suckered into entrapment (complimentary ‘devastation’ of civil rights included) and then march the ‘criminals’ down to the gates of hell for sharing a fucking Beatles song that should have been public domain 40 year ago.
Setting precedence by suing printers and dead people would give them leverage to supplement their failing business model.
If the industries only knew that their fabricated outlandish numbers they continue to spew via sockpuppets aren’t even close to actual.
If you review surfer’s graphic, you’ll notice one insider source distributes to 35 people. This example is only hypothetical, and a general overview of how sharing works, but at 1:35, do the math.
Now, God bless their souls, The Pirate Bay has distributed a Fa$eBook widget to share torrent links.
The final factor is the MAFIAA is seriously outnumbered. For every retard move they make, there are tens of thousands of internet users standing by to pwn ‘em
I do hope that Mitch and Cara lose sleep over it.
Stay tuned. Always.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
April, 2009
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April 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
and thanks to the graphic model above, I will be ‘evaluating’ the X-Men: Origins WORKPRINT tonight with a glass of wine…
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Thank you, surfer and anon, for that graphic and bit of wisdom! It helps me understand where I’m at in the scheme of things around darknet. While I have been working at the edges, onion routing and such, I havent gotten any deeper into the “dark” for lack of
connections amongst the insiders, I am a lone hack in rural podunk. But thanks for the explanations, great article!!
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@NO1UNO
you probably are linked to a darknet and don’t even realize it. It’s not like we hang out a sign..
stw
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
What you see depicted is the result of the entertainment moguls efforts to contain file sharing. It’s been around a long time.
I’ve known places that no longer exist back in the mid to late 80’s or so, things like ftp file servers that you had to know the address and password to enter. Once you got in the site, there were hidden folders that didn’t show. You had to know the name of them and that they existed to access them. Once you got in one of those folders, all the latest and greatest of best quality were there to be had. That’s not really dark net but it was certainly insider fed with very often material not yet out to the theater available many times months ahead of the actual release date.
What has really helped the spread of file sharing is the insane greed of those same moguls. The idea that they have to attempt to control every distribution means of a model long broken has raised the ire of very file sharing person that has ever downloaded a file. Those that understand sharing is spreading the wealth all have their own ideas of what constitutes a method to share.
Ever since the RIAA made the mistake of going after Napster instead of licensing it, the genie leaped out of the bottle and became whack-a-mole. Now there are so many different ways to find a method of sharing that for those that seek, it can be found in a many splendored fountain of opportunity that in some way you must return material so that all have access.
With the sue’em came serious problems with leechers in all forums of sharing. Now there are those that don’t want to be bothered with the return side and only want to take. Most reputable sharing sites have some method to deal with them. Because they don’t understand or don’t care about the return side for others, they are the unwanted and the shunned of file sharing communities in however those communities are formed.
Thank you for the write up on this.
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
@RW
absolutely, you hit the topic squarely. After the demise of Napster, leeching rose to an all time high, and darknet/private p2p servers just started eliminating the assholes and all that remained were die-hard enthusiasts that were more determined than ever to share everything/anything that could be digitized. There are organized darknet rings now that customize content for less redundance. Imagine a ring of 6 servers, one hosts music, one movies, one desktop publishing, one games, one fonts, one for video editing/creation, etc, etc, etc.. Its not just random guys setting up a free server for anyone anymore. The evolution has created something of a ‘codebook’ of behaviour within the private sector of file-sharing. We leave the leechers to get stuff from bittorrent, or other avenues far downstream. This organization has improved the quality of digital content to ever higher levels. Once we scrambled to be the first ‘cammer’, now we just get shit directly from the industry via insiders, its faster and better quality, besides, nobody likes a ‘cam’ anyway…
stw
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I like the connection to non-internet-based transmission. It’s been a pet thought of mine for a while, but I never dove much deeper.
The problem the RIAA will really have to fight is when people form a new “internet”, not based on ISPs, but rather based on interlinked nodes. With newer technology, I could imagine modems that are able to transmit 10x as much data as current modems. I could imagine neighborhoods or even cities that setup LANs with cheap consumer electronics like switches or routers. Neigborhoods connect to each other with 100mb switches, and setup a router in one person’s house at the edge of the neighborhood to connect to the next neighborhood, and so forth.
Such a system is obviously not practical right now. Most people don’t live in a city technically inclined enough to try this approach. But what if? A given person might forseeably have access to *two* networks: the internet, for browsing and simple forums, and a non-controlled private network of similar size where the RIAA has no control. Projects like freenet seem to be a glimmer of this concept, to me, but there is definitely room for improvement.
I see two fundamental roadblocks to this approach, however, that need to be addressed before it can happen. I mean technological roadblocks. Social roadblocks (ignorance of the general populous and laws forbidding such a network to be constructed for example) are plentiful, and they’re a separate issue alltogether — the proper motivation by the RIAA will get past those. But technologically, such a network can’t scale well with current technology.
Problem 1: too many nodes. Ethernet is a star-topology network. That means that, in general, everyone attaches to a central “hub” that passes information along. We’ve turned it into a web by using routers — but the overall structure of the network, and all low-level structures, are still based on this. As a result, there must be very large pipes as you go up the chain. The largest pipes owned by the ISPs at present are completely inaccessible to most people’s income. A huge number of smaller nodes — such as a city-wide LAN constructed from $40 routers — would have severe bandwidth limitations. The number of hops a given packet would have to traverse to get to another destination would be simply enormous, and the network wouldn’t have the bandwidth to handle it. Latency would be another result of this — but latency is rarely an issue for file sharing, of course.
Problem 2: software isn’t designed to operate under these conditions. The condition I mentioned above — that is, too many nodes, too many hops, high latency, and low bandwidth — are very difficult situations to work with using current software. Algorithms exist that can — and do — work better than this. Freenet uses many of them. Onion routing, or at least its ability to traverse many more hops than a traditional TCP packet, could be used to overcome some of these problems. Tweaking network settings in the operating system, web browser, downloader, etc. could also help. A second problem on the software side of things is the decentralized basis of the network. Addressing on the internet is accomplished smoothly because ISPs purchase a range of IPs and give each customer an IP address from that range — thus, every computer at any time has a unique IP address. Local networks, then, use NAT to subdivide it, so every local network has a set of addresses in the 192.0.0.0/24 subnet (if you use a wireless router, you do this, even if you don’t realize it). However, that method applied to 10 routers in a row means having a separate subnet for each upward route, and each lower route as you approach the destination. In a completely decentralized and unmanaged network, how do you assign IP addresses or something similar to identify any given machine uniquely? This is a fundamental requirement of a network of this size, and cannot be avoided. We need to find a better algorithm. Last, but not least, is what you do about the total or near-total lack of servers on the network. DNS servers, web servers, and even simpler ones like instant messaging servers wouldn’t exist. Most machines on the network would probably shut down on a daily basis and couldn’t act as a server in this way. Some projects — like freenet — are working to overcome some of these issues. But we have a long way to go before it becomes practical to setup a completely decentralized network in this manner.
I think that the solutions to these problems have already been conceived, but not yet put to code (probably because no such decentralized network presently exists). But could this vision — a completely independent, consumer-run network unmanaged by the ISPs and RIAA — be the future of the web? Interesting thought. I’m not sure whether I’m fantasizing or prophesying, but it’s a very tantalizing idea.
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
surfer, thnx for the encouraging reply. Part of my problems in onion routing is getting things set-up right for effective speed.
Would be great if i could get some 1on1 about settings. Or if someone here can point me to a less technical source for getting
it right I would be greatful!!! Thnx to all!!
NO1UNO
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Hey Jakykong:
These might interest you (from 2005) –
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6360
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6491
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6514
I also had an email asking what Onion Routing is – http://www.onion-router.net/
Cheers!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Interesting you should bring up wifi networks as an underground type setup. There has already been on the malware side, checks into the possibility of jumping via wifi routers through cities as a method of spread rather than the internet. I’ve read sometime in the past about the research.
For sometime now, I’ve been considering a setup with a wifi antenna to basically reach out and pull in selected connections from other wifis. It’s not my idea to try and do war driving in this manner but rather to share with a very few selected individuals through this means that totally limits outside monitoring. Other than the sneaker net, properly configured, it just strikes me that it would be hard to beat that type of setup as far as internet spying modes go. It’s like an end run around the head hunters that is hard to detect or prove.
I’m not thinking of a block full of neighbors sharing, just at most a handful. The more I think of it, the better it sounds.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Apology to Jakykong for the above miscredit.
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm
@ Jakykong:
Could you email me, please? p2pnet @ shaw dot ca.
Cheers! And thanks …
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:33 pm
“The term âwidely distributedâ is intended to capture the notion of mass market distribution of objects to thousands or millions of practically anonymous users. This is in contrast to the protection of military, industrial, or personal secrets, which are typically not widely distributed ⦔
I saw a recent propoganda piece where the cartels associate file sharing, aka ‘piracy’ and terrorism. I would like to counterpoint this stupidity immediately, prior to the sheeple asking ‘really?’, etal.. There are certain lines that I have never seen crossed in my time, cp and national security are big no nos, the DOD has a proxy sniffer than than reach 5 hops deep and find you. the nsa has a cadre of fucked hackers at their beck and call. there are things you just don’t do anymore. long ago you could hack, not so easy today. and never in my travels have I even found someone making a profit on anything shared. terrorists have JUST figured out cell phones, cmon, wake up … darknets ?!?!?!
84%, eighty four fucking percent of ‘piracy’ happens in China, and they get 1 million cartel backed songs for free as thanks, instead of lawsuits.
thanks Mitch, Cara, Dan…. cheers.
‘if your not outraged, you’re not paying attention’
stw
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:30 pm
“Radiohead famously released a digital version of its 2007 album, “In Rainbows,” on a pay-what-you-wish basis. Not only did people pay to download the tracks, but fans also purchased hard copies — at least 1.75 million of them, making the album more successful than the group’s previous two releases. The 2003 release “Hail to the Thief” sold 990,000 copies, and 2001’s “Amnesiac” sold 900,000. ”
This quote is from mediapost, a prime example of what the big 4 don’t get………..
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:31 pm
And they didnt even need Darknet!!
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
The point about the problems of having indepoendent nodes, etc connected over wide areas is well taken. However, don’t count out the FreeWans. I good place for a FreeWan to be set up is at a college dorm. In this type of situation, there are lots of people close together and there are enough people to provide content.In order for the RIAA or MPAA to monitor such a network, they or one of their lackeys would have to be physically present. Even in that case, they would have to PROVE which ip belongs to which computer. Yes, FreeWan’s can be terrible at providing a fast connection over a long distance, but they sure can provide a super fast connection over a localized area.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:42 am
ROFL
topography shown above is a good try but darknet is much more than that. when you start getting into undocumented protocols, encryption cracking on the fly, being able to get into most servers under the radar and totally without notice, siphoning off the wire and off air, piggybacking signals, accessing hd’s and other hardware directly. then you’re getting closer to real darknet
what you show here is for general public consumption, never mind other layers like ghostnet and others. hint, look at military protocols, jesuit com system, chinese and russian ones. LOL there’s much more out here than 8 bit system junk
April 6th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
‘This example is only hypothetical, and a general overview of how sharing works..’
try reading the article first…