The Dark Web Has Shrunk By 85% (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The number of Dark web services has gone down significantly following the Freedom Hosting II hack that took place at the start of February, and only consists of around 4,400 services, according to a recently published OnionScan report. Previous research published in April 2016 by threat intelligence firm Deep Light had the total number of Dark Web services at around 30,000. Comparing the two numbers, the report shows a decrease of over 85% in the overall size of Dark Web in the last year alone. According to the recent OnionScan statistics, the Dark Web is laughably small, with around 4,000 HTTP websites, 250 TLS (HTTPS) endpoints, 100 SMTP services, and only 10 FTP nodes.

Comments

Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[GuB-42]

Or has it became 85% darker?

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Damn! I came here to ask the same question. I would say it is FAR more likely in fact. It doesn't make sense that 85% of them suddenly stopped being greedy and slimey all of a sudden. Every criminal thinks they will never get caught, or has already resigned themselves to the idea that it is part of the game. Some might have closed up shop, but 85%? I highly doubt it.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[farrellj]

True! I doubt that they have simply gone off-line. They must have found some other system since they know TOR has been compromised.

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[DivineKnight]

Thank You.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I was thinking that, and it is still in my opinion the most likely explanation, but alternatively maybe 85% of the dark web was run by the US government and now they have cancelled the op?

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[denis.goddard]

I briefly skimmed the OnionScan report when /. ran a story about the site a few months (?) ago. IIRC, her whitepapers said her scan did things like honor robots.txt and had other selectors for what would be indexed. The report was discussed on darkweb sites, not surprising if dark web operators took measures to not be indexed on principle.

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Anonymous Coward]

No 85% lighter.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Baron_Yam]

After the first report:

"HEY! I indexed all you guys who don't want to be indexed, because you tell me you don't want to be indexed!"

After the second report:

"If I ignore how much I ignored due to 'do not index me' requests, it looks like everybody is gone!"

Yeah, perhaps not the best methodology.

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[JasterBobaMereel]

The part they counted previously, is now 85% smaller when they recounted it

and the part that they didn't count previously is .... still not counted

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[magical liopleurodon]

Very good point. Also, this article seems to only talk about Tor? Maybe people have switched to I2P?

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[ShanghaiBill]

The only way to become "darker" is to become harder to access and with fewer on-ramps. That leads to fewer customers and lower revenue, and will lead to decline. So if law enforcement is forcing the dark web to become darker, that is a sign of effectiveness.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[farrellj]

LOL!

That could be the explanation! I hope not...But the American Government has done weirder things! :-)

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Anonymous Coward]

unless your customers arrive by sneakernet with lotsa cheese pizza with hotdogs ontop and a big purple triangle on a hat.

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[JoeMerchant]

Calling TOR the Dark Web is like calling a movie you can stream on Netflix "obscure, exclusive, and little known."

The real Dark Web is the stuff you don't know that you don't know about. Packets passing through the backbone that nobody but the sender and receiver understand.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[RandomFactor]

You don't like dark humor?

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[AmiMoJo]

TOR isn't compromised. Stop spreading FUD.

The loss of Freedom Hosting did take a lot of sites down, but it's likely a lot are still up and just unlisted. It's not like the normal web with DNS servers and ranges of IP addresses to scan for HTTP servers.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I don't think that word "obfuscate" means what you think it means. Obfuscation is also often referred to as "Information Hiding" if that helps.

Re:Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[jon3k]

No, just consolidated I assume. If Sprint collapsed and all the customers rushed to Verizon I don't think we'd say the cell phone market has shrunk.

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[farrellj]

If you believe that TOR is not compromised, then you should read this excerpt from this article in WIRED magazine...there are similar stories from many other outlets as well.

"The Feds Would Rather Drop a Child Porn Case Than Give Up a Tor Exploit

The Department of Justice filed a motion in Washington State federal court on Friday to dismiss its indictment against a child porn site. It wasn’t for lack of evidence; it was because the FBI didn’t want to disclose details of a hacking tool to the defense as part of discovery. Evidence in United States v. Jay Michaud hinged at least in part on information federal investigators had gathered by exploiting a vulnerability in the Tor anonymity network.

“Because the government remains unwilling to disclose certain discovery related to the FBI’s deployment of a ‘Network Investigative Technique’ (‘NIT’) as part of its investigation into the Playpen child pornography site, the government has no choice but to seek dismissal of the indictment,” federal prosecutor Annette Hayes wrote in the court filing on Friday. She noted that the DoJ’s work to resist disclosing the NIT was part of “an effort to balance the many competing interests that are at play when sensitive law enforcement technology becomes the subject of a request for criminal discovery.”

In other words, the feds are letting an alleged child pornographer free so that officials can potentially catch other dark-web using criminals in the future."

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/...

Re: Has the dark web shrunk 85%?

[AmiMoJo]

That's not TOR, that's the browser that ships with the TOR Browser Bundle.

Or perhaps they're 85% sneakier?

[TimothyHollins]

That's nothing, when I put my hands over my eyes 100% of the dark web goes away. I suspect that our methods are similar.

...and all of them are run by FBI

[hlavac]

There is no dark web these are probably all honeypots :)

Re:...and all of them are run by FBI

[Z00L00K]

And they try to trap each other because they are run by different three letter agencies.

Re:...and all of them are run by FBI

[johnsmithperson123]

Mine certainly is. One AWS instance with a Tor hidden Wordpress site that I'm using to analyze script kiddie activities on the Darknet.

Re:...and all of them are run by FBI

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The old statement still holds:

The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents.

Moved over to i2p

[Anonymous Coward]

Moved over to i2p. .onion is so, so, so, 2009.

Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Playhouse

[geekmux]

Like good chocolate, the dark web has gone 85% darker.

The dark web found Darth Vader on Tinder, and has gone to the Dark Side.

The dark web has been replaced by FBI honeypots. Pay no attention to those FTP servers. It's totally legit. Honest. We pinky swear.

The dark web is actually a spoon, because the Sysadmin is Neo.

Kind of fun playing conspiracy theory playhouse, but on a serious note, fucking FTP? And we wonder why identities get stolen by by grade-school kids these days. Even the dark web can't learn to be secure.

Re: Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Playhouse

[geekmux]

More like 1/16 actually, my math sucks today. Ignore me.

Perhaps the more relevant analysis is what percentage of the most popular websites on the internet have switched to HTTPS by default in recent years.

Re: Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Playhouse

[Entrope]

Don't feel bad, 15/16ths of statistics are made up on the spot.

Re: Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Playhouse

[Z00L00K]

And any 1/2" fixed width spanner is always 65/128 in width causing round nuts.

Not all activity is illegetimate

[DrYak]

It doesn't make sense that 85% of them suddenly stopped being greedy and slimey all of a sudden.

Every criminal thinks they will never get caught, or has already resigned themselves to the idea that it is part of the game. Some might have closed up shop, but 85%? I highly doubt it.

Not 100% of what goes on the dark web is criminal.

Take tor as an example:

Yes, some of them use .onion tor web services for the purpose of hiding ethically-dubious criminal activities.
(silk road used to be an example back then).

BUT, some use them for very practical reason like evading censorship (though it is *still* considered illegal in some specific jurisdiction, globally it's not and it's hardly unethical).
The popular Duck Duck Go search engine also has a .onion tor server.
If you're in China, and want to get informations about Tibet or the Tiananmen Massacre or simply about Taiwan, you can't through a normal search engine. They are either blocked in China or collaborate with the government and only report government-approved informations.
On the other hand, if you have access to the tor network (along with VPNs that's one of the few popular solutions to get around China's Great Firewall) you can search the web using Duck Duck Go's onion tor server. (And then read the source using your tor socks proxy).

As needs come and go, or because ressources are limited, some of these non-criminal dark web site are going to disapear.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[Zero__Kelvin]

Not everyone who buys Zig Zag wraps is rolling a blunt either (only about 99.99% are.) What's your point?

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[denis.goddard]

I use tor for random browsing all the time. Just using the network increases its usefulness, same way encrypting all emails increases the part of the digital universe that has "gone dark" to spy orgs of all stripes

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[goarilla]

since everyone buys those for one damn reason.

Yes to try something new and fresh and have a flavoured smoke.

People sure as hell aren't buying grape-flavored shit to fill it with tobacco.

Ever heard of a hookah ? It's a bong usually used to smoke "flavoured tobacco". So I wouldn't feel confident to put the 100% number out there, heck I know people who use tips and long leaves regardless of the cilinder's contents.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[Zero__Kelvin]

Indeed I am, and quite proud of it thank you very much

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[Ol Olsoc]

Not everyone who buys Zig Zag wraps is rolling a blunt either (only about 99.99% are.) What's your point?

Oh Gawd, they are going to crucify you since you messed up between joints and blunts. But your point is still valid.

If you use Tor, you are immediately interesting. If you have something new, it better use invisible packets, or it is only a matter of time before you are found out. The internet is an inherently insecure place. Perhaps some day people will understand that.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[pr0fessor]

I would like to point out that there are a lot more places that sell wraps than places that sell tobacco you could put in them. The ratio in my town is about 11:1 granted that's not 100% although it is approaching statistically insignificant.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[JoeMerchant]

So, I'd call TOR the "light grey market" of the web, just shady enough to slip past those who haven't bothered to shut it down yet.

It's also a good way to draw attention to yourself... very few people actually use it, so a search of just them is much more practical.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[goarilla]

That's kinda weird.It's different here across the pond. I've yet to find bluntwraps in places that do not sell tobacco.
And not all tobaccoshops or nightshops sell them anyway. I would like to say it's 3:1 (tobacco store vs tobacco store with wraps).

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[pr0fessor]

Cultural geographical differences... I image that the average US town is more like where I am a lot of places that sell wraps and very few that sell tobacco.

A hookah on the other hand is probably harder to come by since I rarely see them, although we used to have a Turkish restaurant with hookahs where you could get a smoke after dinner.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[Zero__Kelvin]

They have already tried and failed miserably. I specifically referred to Zig Zag (blunt) wraps, not rolling papers. I just rolled a blunt (not joint) with one ... Green Apple flavor and Cinderella Cush. Yum!

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[AmiMoJo]

There are lots of legitimate uses closer to home too. Looking up medical information that you wouldn't want traced back to you, for example. Pretty much anything you might use "private browsing" mode for, if you understand the limitations of it.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[SuricouRaven]

I've never used Tor, but I used to use Freenet, and the bulk of it consisted of the following:
1. Piracy. Music, movies, anime, the usual.
2. Porn! Of course. Surprisingly, not much really bizarre and kinky stuff.
3. Crypto-anarchist enthusiasts and free-speech advocates.
4. Paranoid political nutters describing how the UN is going to use FEMA camps to incarcerate gun owners.
5. Paranoid religious nutters describing how the Beast will take over the government and force Christians to have gay sex.

I'm sure much more illegal stuff could be found if you looked hard enough, but I never found it in the public indexes.

Re: Not all activity is illegetimate

[micahraleigh]

That's a quick way to get on a bunch of government watch lists.

The deep government has no problem charging you higher tax rates based on your opinions.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[aliquis]

I use Tor and VPN for contests and to change region pricing..

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[Mike Van Pelt]

Not 100% of what goes on the dark web is criminal.

Take tor as an example:

Yes, some of them use .onion tor web services for the purpose of hiding ethically-dubious criminal activities. (silk road used to be an example back then).

BUT, some use them for very practical reason like evading censorship (though it is *still* considered illegal in some specific jurisdiction, globally it's not and it's hardly unethical).

Or, my main use for it: investigating sketchy links in spam. There's a fraction of these malware-serving web pages that specifically check for IP addresses belonging to companies and organizations that fight this stuff. I've found that if I curl the page normally, I get something entirely innocuous, but if I curl it through tor ... there's the malware.

Alas, most of them are now blocking tor exit nodes...

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[ShanghaiBill]

Not 100% of what goes on the dark web is criminal.

... and not 100% of what is criminal should be criminal. I you want to use the dark web to buy recreational drugs, that should be nobody else's business, and I prefer you do that rather than patronize a local street dealer.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[JoeMerchant]

Congratulations, you have made the list of "the usual suspects" as described in the film Casablanca.

What I'd like to see is some kind of analysis of TOR traffic vs normal internet traffic, not bytes up/down but connections made. I suspect it's less than 1%, which already makes it a better hunting ground for illicit activity, probably much less than 1% in reality.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[aliquis]

Well.. I also post "racist" (anti-refugee pro-myownculture & people) and anti-government stuff and back in the days tried to trigger Echelon on IRC :D, many years ago I used to send encrypted e-mails and ran an IRC server on LinkNet (SSL IRC mostly used by pirates) which I also used. I speak pretty open about what I think and as a younger person of myself I always used my correct name and e-mail because I thought that was how a society should be, that one should be free to say whatever one wanted and be safe even though doing so.
So chances are I may have made the list one way or the other anyway :D

My Tor usage isn't near 1% of the traffic, as for connections .. it can't be 1% there either :), and then I at-least _USE_ it occasionally.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[JoeMerchant]

I put myself on "the list" by direct application about 8 years ago: http://mangocats.com/stegamail...

nothing bad has happened, yet.

Re:Not all activity is illegetimate

[JoeMerchant]

What kind of 2107 message board has no edit function?!? - 5 ish years ago in 2012....

conduit, not end-point

[DrYak]

So now Dark Web means SMTP and FTP? Web? Web. *facepalm*

More seriously : Nope, not at all.

Dark Web has nothing to do with *what* you're talking to (usually websites, so usually HTTP/HTTPS),
but *how* you talk to (instead of opening a simple TCP connection between your laptop and a webserver, you send your request using some form of indirect complex hard-to-track routing. e.g.: TOR (The Onion Router)).

On the tor network, there are such things as tor servers which are accessed using a special address.
e.g.: Duck Duck Go has one.

From the outside, it doesn't look like your laptop is connecting to DDG's server.
It only looks like a bunch of tor nodes passing packets around.

At least in the case of Duck Duck Go, they also have an official DNS name that is registered to them, an IP address that can be backtraced to the server on the rack in the data-center where they are renting (or to the CDN that can then in turn further find them).

But some server only exist as obscure Tor keys. It's very hard to trace them in the real world.

Hence the name "Dark Web". The web of server that is hard to trace cause they don't work over plain vanilla TCP/IP.

Are you sure?

[Mozai]

Isn't the point of the "Dark Web" is that it is obfuscated? You can count all the things you know about, but how can you count the things you don't know about?

Cultural variance

[DrYak]

It's also a good way to draw attention to yourself... very few people actually use it, so a search of just them is much more practical.

Depends on the region. Europe in general is much more privacy conscious. Specially some central / northern parts (E.g.: Germany, Switzerland).
Here you find people who use Tor regularily, just for the sake of keeping their life private.

You can thank these kind of people to help fill tor with background noise traffic.
Their are the one you make your reading of the anarchist cookbook less obvious
And who make "rounding up all tor users" completely impractical.