“The Dark Web is a fascinating corridor into a hidden realm of the Internet that much of society is unaware of.”
– darknetinfo.weebly.com
Tor, originally named “hidden services,” was created to offer security protocols beyond what is used by the surface web.
Prior to the mid to late 1990s, access to websites through authenticated and encrypted connections was uncommon. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory released the first version of Tor “‘to separate identification from routing’ for networked communication,” which allowed users to visit the surface web without revealing the users’ identities. Reply onions also were released, which granted replies or connections to hidden sites.
These original releases came about because the founders, developers and researchers all believed internet users should have as much privacy as possible. After collaborating, it was decided the best way to make this happen was to create a way “to route traffic through multiple servers and encrypt it each step of the way.”
In the early 2000s, recent MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) graduates joined the project and the name was changed to Tor, derived from the acronym “The Onion Router,” to distinguish itself from the original work.
As the original premise behind Tor was “to rely on a decentralized network,” operated through trust assumptions and diverse interests, the release of its code was an open and free software license. In 2006, the nonprofit, Tor Project, Inc., was founded to maintain its development.
Many conspiracy theories surround Tor, but the deep seeded need to protect privacy lies at its core. That privacy covers a variety of users, from regular users to whistleblowers, corporations to journalists, children to victims of abuse/rape and law enforcement to overseas military field agents, just to name a few. It also protects the IP addresses of those conducting necessary online surveillance. For a more detailed list, visit https://2019.www.torproject.org/about/torusers.html.en.
To the conspiracy theorists, Michael Reed (one of the original developers) wrote:
BINGO, we have a winner! The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the invention of Onion Routing was, “Can we build a system that allows for bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?” The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their electronic trafficks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin).
And despite what many regular users think, Tor is not an invisibility cloak. As it uses a variety of node points to relay information, run by volunteers-operated servers, it is clearly stated in TorFAQ that the person running the exit node can eavesdrop and that it is not a magical encryption for all traffic across the internet.
Since its inception, Tor has continued to evolve. Its users avail themselves of its services for both legitimate and criminal purposes. But despite its detractors, the safety and anonymity it offers those whose purposes are legitimate and necessary ensures the project will continue to move forward.
Sources:
· https://www.nrl.navy.mil/itd/chacs/sites/www.nrl.navy.mil.itd.chacs/files/pdfs/17-1231-2218.pdf
· https://www.torproject.org/about/history/
· https://2019.www.torproject.org/about/overview
· http://darknetinfo.weebly.com/
· http://yellowsapphireinformation.blogspot.com/2018/06/surface-web-deep-web-dark-web-whats.html
