Transcript Marc Visnick_Slidesx

Hiding in the Dark: The
Internet You Cannot See
Marc Visnick
[email protected]
503-242-3637
Goals for Today
 What’s the big picture?
 Define some terms and concepts
 Situate these in the real world
The Internet
The Internet
 A global network of
networks…
 Connecting billions of
devices...
 Using various
communications
protocols…
 To provide a variety
of services.
A global network of networks…
 Many devices
 Servers, clients
 Routers
 IoT
 Many locations
 On land
 Under the ocean
 In orbit
Connected using protocols…
 Internet Protocol (IP)
 Every device must have a numerical address
 184.106.20.8
 Domain Name Service (DNS)
 Translates names to numbers
 aipla.org = 184.106.20.8
 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
 Packetizes data, ensures delivery
 Routes around blockage
To provide services.
 Services run on top of the underlying
communications protocols
 Email
 File sharing (peer-to-peer)
 Media streaming
 Virtual Private Networking (VPN)
 Web browsing
Visible net
The Internet
Dark net
The World Wide Web
 The Mother of all Services
 An information space composed of hypertext
documents (“resources”), identified by Uniform
Resource Locators (URLs).
 Resources usually constructed from HTML
(Hypertext Markup Language)
How do I find stuff on the Web?
 If the Web is the mother of all services, search
is the mother of all problems
 Search engines attempt to index accessible
web content
 Searchable content = the surface web
Surface Web
WWWW
Deep Web
The Deep Web
 Not inherently nefarious; simply means:
 Non-searchable (by standard search engines)
 Most web content, is in fact in the deep
 Intranet pages
 Paywall-protected services
 Dynamically-generated webpages
 “Dead” pages which search robots cannot reach
 The dark web
The Dark Web (here, there be Dragons…)
 Web content found on darknets
 Access generally requires specialized
software and/or authorization
 Characterized by:
 Anonymity
 Encryption
 Decentralization (Peer-to-Peer)
 Of Tor and the Silk Road…
Tor
 Software to enable anonymous
communications
 Anonymity, not end-to-end security
 Can be used for:
 Web browsing (the dark web)
 Instant messaging
 File transfers
 Wide range of users
 Not just criminals!
The origins of Tor
 Mid-90’s:
 United States Naval Research Laboratory and
DARPA
 Military wanted a way to anonymously use
Internet
 2004: NRL open-sources Tor, EFF takes over
 2006: Tor Project is formed
 Tor has been continuously funded by US
Government since its inception
Tor… not your ordinary vegetable
 “Onion routing”
 Communicate data packets by “wrapping”
those packets in multiple layers of encryption
 Each layer contains address information for a
node in a sequence of nodes, ultimately
leading from sender to receiver
 Main goal is to preserve anonymity
 Tor does not provide end-to-end security
 It does provide encryption “in the middle”
The “regular” Internet…
Alice
Address
Router
Data
Router
Router
Bob
Tor: Create the circuit..
Alice
Directory
Authority
Entry
Node
Node
Node
Node
Node
Node
Exit
Node
Node
Node
Node
Node
Bob
Tor: Build the onion, send the data...
Alice
Entry
Node
Entry node
encryption
Node
Exit
Node
Node
encryption
Exit node
encryption
Original data
Bob
Tor: Hidden services
Alice
Introduction
Point
Introduction
Point
Rendezvous
Point
Introduction
Point
Database
of Hidden
Services
Bob
Of Tor and Dark Markets…
 Dark market: A commercial website running
on a dark net, such as Tor
 Silk Road, one among many dark markets
 On Tor, usually as a hidden service
 Dark, in the truest sense…
 Havens for sale of drugs, stolen credit cards, and
a variety of other illicit goods
 “Whack-a-mole”
 Silk Road  Silk Road 2.0  Silk Road Reloaded
Of rights holders & reality…
 Shutting down dark markets is incredibly
hard
 How do you discover IP address?
 What about jurisdiction issues?
 Catch transactions once they cross into real
world
 Mail drops
 Crypto currency conversions to fiat currency
 Weakness is almost always the user, not the tech
 Shut down markets via technical hacks
https://xkcd.com/1348/
Marc Visnick
[email protected]
503-242-3637