Concept: darknets

The Darknet is a relatively new concept. The term was coined in a scientific paper four Microsoft researchers released in November 2002 at a computer conference.

The researchers defined darknets as “a collection of networks and technologies used to share digital content.” But that's techie talk. They really were referring to the vast, gathering, lawless economy of shared music, movies, television shows, games, software, and porn—a one-touch jukebox that would rival the products and services of the entertainment companies.

The researchers' major conclusion was that media companies ought to use copy protection judiciously, because users don’t like digital locks, somebody will figure out how to pick them, and content will spill into the Darknet despite the best efforts to wall it off. The best way companies can fight darknet piracy, they said, is by offering affordable, convenient, compelling products and services. In other words, the most effective copy protection system is a great business model.

(In a terrific twist, Cory Doctorow traveled to the headquarters of Microsoft Research Group in June 2004 and gave a talk about copyright, technology and digital rights management, relying on the Darknet paper as Exhibit A.)

Soon afterward, the press picked up on the term and began using other definitions. The New York Times, for example, described darknets as private, invitation-only cyberclubs or gated communities requiring an access code to enter. At the same time, librarians have used the phrases Dark Web, Invisible Web, and Dark Net to refer to the information such as books and periodicals that reside inside walled-off online databases that are off-limits to search engines and indexing software robots. Others refer to the Dark Net as the world of cybercrime, spammers, terrorists, and other underworld figures who use the Internet to avert the law.

In this book, I use darknets as a catch-all term to refer to networks of people who rely on closed-off spaces—safe havens in both the virtual and real worlds where there is little or no fear of detection—to share copyrighted digital material with others or to escape the restrictions on digital media imposed by entertainment companies.

The capitalized Darknet will refer to these networks in a collective sense. For the most part, the Darknet is simply the underground Internet. But there are many darknets: the millions of users trading files in the shady regions of Usenet and Internet Relay Chat, students who send songs and TV shows to each other using instant messaging services from AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft, city streets and college campuses where people copy, burn, and share physical media like CDs, and the new breed of encrypted dark networks like Freenet that I report on in chapter 12. (Kazaa, Grokster, BitTorrent, and other aboveground networks won’t qualify for Darknet status until they provide users a true measure of anonymity. The copyright cops claim no one is anonymous on the Internet, but as we’ll see, they are blowing smoke.)

Darknets may sound sinister, but their roots can be traced to such all-American activities as trading and dubbing cassette music tapes in the ’60s and ’70s, as well as the computer club boom of the ’80s when people freely exchanged software on floppy disks, an activity dubbed the “sneakernet.”

The Microsoft researchers see darknets as falling squarely in the same tradition:

Students in dorms will establish darknets to share content in their social group. These darknets may be based on simple file sharing, DVD-copying, or may use special application programs or servers: for example, a chat or instant-messenger client enhanced to share content with members of your buddy-list. Each student will be a member of other darknets: for example, their family, various special interest groups, friends from high-school, and colleagues in part-time jobs.

The Darknet is less a place or a thing than an idea. On a mundane level, the Darknet is about getting free stuff. On a deeper level, it’s about millions of people engaging in a shared media experience and finding a clandestine way to detour around restrictions imposed by the entertainment industries.

Certainly, much Darknet conduct is illegal. Clearly, many underground activities are ethically dubious or flat-out wrong. But much of it is also understandable as people look for ways to restore balance to a system that has become stacked against digital culture. My intention is not to glamorize the Darknet or condemn it, but simply to help understand it.

What will the Darknet look like tomorrow? Ultimately, its dimensions will be shaped by the actions of entertainment companies and policymakers. If people are prevented by technology or law from being able to control their own media experiences, they will not fall back into passive consumer roles. Instead, they will journey underground. The Darknet may become the last refuge for the digital freedom fighters.