Many people, when faced with this litany of ill-uses, simply
say: “Shut it down!” In fact, a recent public opinion poll released
by the Centre for International Governance Innovation found
that 71% of people from 24 countries around the world want
the network shut down (http://tinyurl.com/jl8kzh6). To many,
that seems like a sound step.
But the interesting lipside of this number is that, despite
the truly horrible uses to which the dark web can be put, 29%
of people still want the network to stay up and active. The
reason so many people want the Tor network to remain is not
that nearly 30% of people out there are criminal in their moti-
vation, but rather that nearly 30% of people recognise that the
network can also do good.A part of the good use of the network is actually pretty banal.
While the dark web traic lowing to hidden service websites
tends to cluster in some very troubling (and rightly illegal)
ways, the Tor browser can also be used as a platform to surf
the everyday web we all use all time. In fact, one estimate on the
Tor Project blog – the incorporated not-for-proit that manages
the Tor network – estimates that only 3-6% of all Tor traic
actually goes to dark websites (http://tinyurl.com/j5robng).
The remaining 94–97% of traic went to everyday, run-of-
the-mill websites that could just as easily be accessed via Chrome
or Safari, but with less privacy protection.
The point is that dark web browsers are only rarely used to
actually access dark web websites. Most of the time the system
is used to anonymously peruse what is more commonly known
as the surface web. It is, of course, easy enough to get in a lot of
trouble on the normally accessible parts of the internet, but it
is likely that many of the everyday users of Tor are doing so
because they care about their online privacy and are willing to
take technological steps to ensure that what they are doing is
free from prying eyes.
There is also reason to suspect that people in highly repres-
sive countries need to use technologies like Tor in order to
exercise their basic political rights. I myself have taken a look
at whether there is a relationship between a country’s level of
political repression and the use of the Tor network by its popu-
lation. There is. At extreme levels of repression, in places like
China, Russia and Uzbekistan, high levels of repression do
drive people to use the network in statistically signiicant
numbers, suggesting that at a bare minimum people in really badpolitical environments are likely use the technology to avoid the
prying eyes of the state and to access restricted content
(http://tinyurl.com/zyc68gw). Using Tor could be the only
thing standing between them and the coercive arm of a repres-
sive regime.
In fact, dissidents, human rights activists, journalists and
anyone with a concern for privacy can (and do) use Tor, not
necessarily to get up to no good but to undertake activity that
repressive and powerful governments deem threatening. Media
outlets such as ProPublica, Wiredand others have dark web
versions of their websites. Even social media sites like Face-
book have set up dark web versions of their websites in order
to connect people in repressive regimes with the outside world.
In other words, the network can be used for good reasons too.
So, many people have a justiiable knee-jerk reaction to the
very idea of the dark web. Some truly horrible things go on at
dark websites, so it’s no surprise that many people simply want to
shut it down. Others recognise that there is a “dark web dilemma”
at play because even shutting down the network will hurt those
who rely upon technological systems such as Tor to exercise their
basic political rights to free expression and access to information
(http://tinyurl.com/hyvam2a). It is a no-win situation.
At the end of the day, speciic gateways into the dark web can
be shuttered. The Tor Project could be forced to close down,
making it harder for its team to maintain the anonymity of the
network in the face of an ever-evolving barrage of government
and private sector efforts to crack the code of the system.
Over the long-term, however, stopping the dark web is a lot
like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube. The technology
exists and cannot be unlearned (in fact its intellectual roots
trace back to US government research labs). Furthermore, the
volunteer network of computers that the Tor browser uses to
anonymise traic is spread throughout countries around the
world, so trying to shutter the network would require a glob-
ally coordinated effort that is unlikely to succeed.
Shutting down the dark web is not necessarily a good thing
either. Sometimes the unfortunate reality is that technologies
like Tor are a person’s last line of defence against powerful
governments bent upon repression. What we need to do is
police the system (as law enforcement agencies increasingly do)
to reduce the harm that it can cause, while still allowing it to
be used by those that need it most.
Of course, policing is not exclusive to liberal countries.
Repressive regimes can, and do, try to block access to the dark
web already, while also trying to ind ways to crack the system.
They will do this whether liberal governments try to limit the
harms found in the dark web or not, so that should be no imped-
iment to law enforcers in liberal regimes attempting to reduce
the nefarious activity on the dark web.
Eric Jardine is a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.14 | JUNE 2016
Even social media sites like
Facebook have set up dark web
versions of their websites in order
to connect people in repressive
regimes with the outside world.