How to be Anonymous Online

Through my research I have stumbled upon many 'How to be Anonymous Online, 'How to Stay as Anonymous as Possible' and other such articles which explain ways of how to stay anonymous.

Many of the articles point to using a certain program called Tor, which is an anonymity network. Tor is an acronym for 'The Onion Router' the name, well specific use of 'onion', depicts the layers of encryption used within the network.

"Tor aims to conceal its users' identities and their network activity from surveillance and traffic analysis by separating identification and routing. It is an implementation of onion routing, which encrypts and then randomly bounces communications through a network of relays run by volunteers around the globe. These onion routers employ encryption in a multi-layered manner (hence the onion metaphor) to ensure perfect forward secrecy between relays, thereby providing users with anonymity in network location. That anonymity extends to the hosting of censorship-resistant content via Tor's anonymous hidden service feature.^[8] Furthermore, by keeping some of the entry relays (bridge relays) secret, users can evade Internet censorship that relies upon blocking public Tor relays.^[18]
Because the internet address of the sender and the recipient are not both in cleartext at any hop along the way, anyone eavesdropping at any point along the communication channel cannot directly identify both ends. Furthermore, to the recipient it appears that the last Tor node (the exit node) is the originator of the communication rather than the sender."

 As stated, Tor is a tool to conceal identity across the internet, and is mandatory in connection to the Darknet and the Silk Road.

So what exactly is the Darknet?

"Well, the Darknet is pretty much an anonymous Internet where you can browse the Internet and not be traced. The Darknet is often referred to as the ‘Deep Web’ and ‘Hidden Internet’, it doesn’t operate the way your used to. The address you use on the anonymous internet isn’t the same as the ‘surface’ web, for example: Typing “Google.co.uk” into your web browser will take you to Google’s British search engine, however, for a search engine on the Darknet such as TORCH Search Engine, you cannot type in “TORCH.co.uk” because the website is hidden from view. In order to go to TORCH you would have to know the URL, the URL for TORCH is “xmh57jrzrnw6insl.onion”."

Provided by theanonymousinternet.tumblr

So the Darknet is another internet which is lesser known and linked with a lot of illegal activity, but boasts anonymity, whilst staying pretty design basic.

This image is a screenshot from the Silk Road and a lovely store called 'Arms Depot' featuring assault rifles for sale at Christmas special prices "Get a fucking submachine gun for Christmas!' is a particularly gripping sentence.

So with the benefit of privacy the Darknet has accumulated a large user base, with the Silk Road being a prominent feature in this, it has created a platform for a whole host of different activities. This is similar to what happened with 4chan, a lot of good has come from the internet community within /b/, the random image board dubbed 'the internets arsehole'. /b/ is the home to probably some of the best hackers known to the world, fighting for what they believe to be 'the greater good', and causing a bit of chaos at the same time.

The chaos side of /b/ and the Silk Road both draw a lot of negative attention from the media and the positive contributions made on either are overlooked.

In summary, the Darknet could prove to be a very useful tool. Advert free, complete freedom of speech through anonymity and an untraceable connection are all very appealing.