To access Abacus anonymously, users must navigate through the intricacies of the darknet. Abacus, being a darknet marketplace, operates within the hidden layers of the web, known as the deep web. Accessing such sites requires specialized software and protocols to ensure anonymity and security. This paper reports on a small-scale research project that was carried out on the Darknet.

Abacus Market

It’s just, they were essentially looking over the shoulder of organized crime in their real time. This would be fascinating to see even if it was just a ordinary phone tap, as it used to be, but here it’s the proceeds from malware. Clearly, these people, these alleged organized criminals, thought they could speak with such impunity that they – some of them barely even used code words. Apparently, according to people who sold the phones at the time, that’s what they told me. So, it started as this word-of-mouth thing, but eventually it found a new market, specifically in Australia.

How to Access the Dark Web

We cannot, of course, deny that the Darknet presents a serious security risk. Because of its unique characteristics, such as anonymity, virtual markets, and the use of cryptocurrencies, a range of criminal activities could be performed in this network with ease. Yet, it should be noted that its inherent purpose is not to harm individuals, organisations, and societies. Instead of labelling an environment as criminogenic and its users as ‘deviant others’, a more holistic sociological understanding of the Darknet’s social characteristics and technological infrastructures is now needed. Findings from such research would help to improve security technologies and practices to better cope with some of the more unique characteristics of the Darknet identified above.

The Darknet marketplace Silk Road

• Inspector (investigation) Anwar Hossain of Gabtali police station, led by Additional Superintendent of Police Ali Haider Chowdhury, was able to identify the boy after 18 days of trying.
• Operating as a clandestine marketplace, Abacus offers a myriad of products, ranging from narcotics to counterfeit documents, catering to the clandestine needs of its clientele.
• This network requires specific software and an individual’s Internet-capable device configured in a way that marks the darknet available to their device.
• Findings from such research would help to improve security technologies and practices to better cope with some of the more unique characteristics of the Darknet identified above.
• Clearly, these people, these alleged organized criminals, thought they could speak with such impunity that they – some of them barely even used code words.
• These ultimately manifested themselves in the Y case that raised troubling issues about how the legislation worked.
• Further, general risk and threats from the Darknet have not been thoroughly investigated either (e.g. Byrne and Kimball 2017).

Yet, there is an absence of research in understanding the risk and psychological profiles of these users and research to inform and design successful interventions to deter memberships to CSAM sites that encourage offending. Research on the darknet is not easy and requires a combined effort from LEA, academia, technology service providers, and non-govermental organisations. The scant research (McMahan et al. 2023) suggests that individuals who commit sexual offences via the darknet can be assessed using available assessment measures but may have different profiles from clearnet users. By better understanding users of CSAM darknet sites, practitioners and LEAs would be better able to address the needs and risks posed by this subgroup of individuals at risk for sexual offences.

Elysium Market

Websites on Darknet are clear examples of crowd-based power (Labrecque et al., 2013), since they are based on community sharing (Wikileaks), and creation of marketplace (Silk Road) sharing economy (sites with ebook sharing). That’s when I got into the story, and I thought I’d reach out to somebody I know connected to Encrochat, and they sent a very lengthy statement. I think it was one whole page saying that we’re a legitimate company, we’re been unfairly targeted, and we’re going to see what we can do about this. We don’t know exactly what the owners are doing now, and the French police actually said we’ve been unable to identify the owners of Encrochat. But I lie to myself when I say that privacy is the most important feature when it comes to buying a phone, because I always end up buying one of these phones that logs, collects, and sells my data instead of one that’s actually private. So, if I’m being real, features and functionalities really are the most important aspect of buying a phone for me, even though I’m so privacy-focused.

DARKNET MARKETS

• According to the police, the forum had been online for 2 years and, at the time it was shut down, had over 400,000 registered members.
• The dark web is a part of the Internet where there is no search engine, and no ordinary browser can access it.
• This section delves into the intricate workings of Abacus, shedding light on its operations within the murky depths of the dark web.
• The second section of the book contains interviews with the playwrights, giving the writers a chance to explain to an English-speaking audience the intentions behind their plays, and to reveal some of their literary and personal sources.
• The Onion Router was created by US military and it is a browser just like Google Chrome or Internet Explorer and can be easily downloaded from torproject.org.
• To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
• But here’s the part where I’m mad; I’m mad that there’s no good options for privacy-focused phones out there.
• Then, imagine they hacked into the WiFi network that phone was on and somehow captured all the traffic to that phone.

These 97% accounts were classified by this research as “lurkers” or commonly referred by members of the online CSAM communities as “free-riders”—users who benefit from the community but do not contribute. However, despite so few visitors communicating, nine out of every ten forum visitors did attempt to download CSAM at least once (van der Bruggen et al. 2022). The average visitor was active on the forum for a period of 2–3 months, spending almost 1 h per week browsing through the forum content. The rise of social media also gave rise to dedicated online forums focusing on “child love” (Goldman and Ronken 2000). Before, support groups had been a local matter, their clientele mostly coming from the city they were held in.

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Simply put, it is the only network on the Internet (a set of interconnected networks), wherein all network traffic is hidden. Thus, anyone can carry out any activity without leaving traces that could be tracked by commonplace technical tools—a place where perfect anonymity might, as a result, be possible. Pride, or excessive self-regard, is considered the original sin, the source of all others. When Lonegan’s conned in the opening act his hurt pride leads him to violently murder one con artist and send the other — Johnny Hooker — on the run.

• On the big screen, the flying cars of The Fifth Element, the uncanny, geometrical city of Metropolis and Brazil’s Kafkaian universe have all become classics.
• Major difference between forum administrators and place managers, in the common criminological use of the term, is that crime is assumed to occur in physical locations where place management is absent, ineffective, negligent, or corruptible (Eck 1994).
• Many governmental organizations, several newspapers, and myriad tech organizations have a presence on the Tor network, which keeps their identities anonymous when interacting with the Dark Web.
• As with the offline support groups, however, moderators of these forums had to be keen on members not committing crimes while in the forum environment.
• Administrators also shape forum publicity in their efforts to attract new forum members.
• Telegram facilitates the creation of large group chats and communities, enabling cybercriminals to easily communicate, collaborate, and share information with each other.

Related Content

Thousands of volunteers around the world run relays and nodes that enable the running of anonymous network traffic. If anyone gains access to a node, then the person can see the traffic that runs through it but cannot see where it comes from and where it goes to next. The anonymous nature of the Darknet and its virtual market is protected using cryptocurrencies, e.g. In recent years, the Darknet has become one of the most discussed topics in cyber security circles.

Watch our marketing video guides full of useful insights

This negative perception of the Darknet is also taken by governments and ordinary citizens at large, which may drive unnecessary moral panics and misguided policies (Murray 2014). The previous head of the UK GCHQ, for example, has likened the Dark Net to the Wild West, claiming that it needs to be controlled (Omand 2016). It’s run, as we found talking to multiple sources in and around the industry, that it’s run by two serious top-tier gangsters, colloquially known as the brothers from Scotland. They deal with a lot of the drug trade going into Scotland and then obviously beyond its borders as well. They did use Ennetcom for a while, but then they decided to – well, no; we don’t want to trust our security to this company.

Forum organization

Following the implementation of a provincial suicide prevention gatekeeper training initiative in western Canada between 2015 and 2018, we conducted a focused ethnography designed to capture the post-initiative context within one small community. Analyses of our field observations and interviews with community members suggest suicide prevention work is represented in multiple informal or coordinated actions to generate innovative pathways to provoke open conversations about suicide. Simultaneously, suicide talk is constrained and managed to limit vulnerability and exposure and adhere to community privacy norms. Further, parameters around suicide talk may be employed in efforts to construct the community and mental health care in livable ways. As the research process paralleled existing representations of suicide prevention work in the community, this paper explores our entanglement in the bounds of suicide talk during phases of recruitment, data collection and knowledge translation … There’s a tremendous benefit to be realised by enterprise in embracing this technology and the onus is on us as information security professionals to ensure that end users understand how to use these services responsibly.

• Here, it would be possible to predict an individual’s standing within the offending community based on online behavior (liking of posts, badges, awards).
• In fact, it is a technological platform that is used by different individuals for a variety of purposes.
• It is designed to protect the anonymity of users, but it may involve security risks.
• Authorities managed to get hold of the server, and I think it was potentially – the keys were also stored on the server, and they were able to decrypt the communications like that.
• The marketplace’s robust security features, including an escrow system, ensure transaction safety, while its active community forum fosters engagement and trust among users.

We hope this review provides researchers and practitioners alike with an overview of the darknet and encourage research to better understand users of darknet CSAM forums, so as to ultimately inform management and prevention efforts. The access to technology and a connected community via the Internet has enabled the distribution, possession, and creation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to increase. Although previously seen as an unreliable, slow, and access-restrictive technology, the darknet is now an everyday tool for 2.5 million Internet users (Wise 2022).

Thrill of Legal and Security Risks

Somewhere in that traffic are the private chat messages to that phone and with these private keys, I’m guessing it’s technically possible to decrypt those messages. This would be a pretty complex hack but I bet it’s something that US Cyber Command could do. The increased security provided by the  TOR network in Darknet allows journalists to anonymously share files using SecureDrop and GlobalLeaks.

Once I had this episode all done and ready to go, I had to get one last approval from the US government. People in US Cyber Command or MARFORCYBER had to listen to this to verify that nothing was said that shouldn’t have been said. It just makes me think that now that OGS was successful and JTF-ARES is still conducting these attacks today, I wonder what else this paved the way for. What other missions have been given the go-ahead to degrade and disrupt enemy networks? With the connected modern world we live in, a lot is possible such as remotely disabling a car or draining a crypto-wallet, or shutting off the power to a missile silo. The NSA and Cyber Command have sometimes been accused of going over the line on what they’re legally allowed to do, like surveilling innocent American people.

How to Manage Users’ Desires for New Technology

This operation used victim identification specialists, analyzing images seized from child sexual offending websites, including darknet sites. Within darknet CSAM forums, articles and videos about the operation were critically analyzed, resulting in an update of security advice from forum administrators. At the top of the hierarchy are “administrators,” sometimes further subdivided in “head administrator,” “administrators,” “co-administrators,” and “moderators” depending on the forum’s size and complexity.

Darknets as Tools for Cyber Warfare

Much like a regular business, the typical darknet CSAM forum is hierarchically organized, and different forum roles are distinguished (see Fig. 4; van der Bruggen and Blokland 2021b). The story was told through sung formal challenges, interspersed with music and dance, with each actor wearing an ornate wooden mask which was so heavy that the actors had to be replaced several times during the performance. The work was preserved through oral tradition, until 1855 when it was recorded in writing by Charles Brasseur, a French priest in the Guatemalan village of Rabinal.

• These marketplaces not only facilitate trade but also influence patterns of online activity, shaping the digital underworld in profound ways.
• And for listeners exploring those benefits on Apple Podcasts, Jack got right to the point with the in-app messaging.
• Although previously seen as an unreliable, slow, and access-restrictive technology, the darknet is now an everyday tool for 2.5 million Internet users (Wise 2022).
• Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
• Social media changed this and allowed associations with like-minded others from across the globe.
• One of the most famous Darknet markets—the Silk Road—was said to promote decentralisation of governments and socio-political movements against law enforcement agencies (Greenberg 2013; Robinson 2012).
• About one in five forum members, however, showed an escalating or continuously high frequency of forum communications throughout much of the period the forum was online.

This is true for science fiction, but also for more practical fields, such as urban design and architecture. With the subscription offerings set up and the new brand art in place, it was time to let the Darknet Diaries listeners know there were benefits to go along with their financial support. And for listeners exploring those benefits on Apple Podcasts, Jack got right to the point with the in-app messaging. Jack looked around at other podcasters to get an idea of what his premium offerings could look like and noticed that ad-free content and bonus episodes were the two most popular benefits. While he experimented with a few other distribution platforms, he was drawn to the simplicity of subscriptions on Apple Podcasts.

It’s already been publically reported; they had tons of telegram groups and tons of telegram accounts, so they have phones and they have e-mail addresses to set up those accounts all across the board. As they’re buying servers, you can assess that they have accounts at those specific providers. They had servers, they had domain names, they had e-mails, they had – you could look at the source code on a web page and see the file sharing server that served up the content for that web server. They didn’t care where it was in the world; they just wanted it to be cheap, fast, and readily accessible. I think it’s pretty crazy that the French police were planting spyware on phones all over the world and collecting private messages from users who weren’t even in France. Well, the internet doesn’t have physical borders, so I can see why this is a difficult problem to solve.

• It just makes me think that now that OGS was successful and JTF-ARES is still conducting these attacks today, I wonder what else this paved the way for.
• Because if you think about this, this is all going on in the same building that the NSA headquarters are in, in Fort Meade, Maryland; that big, black, box of a building that I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of.
• This might be enabling a rootkit or opening a backdoor, or leaving some program running that lets you connect back in later.
• Once I had this episode all done and ready to go, I had to get one last approval from the US government.
• It is still performed there every January – omitting the final sacrifice.
• As cyber attacks accelerate and nefarious actors all over the globe seek to more rapidly connect with buyers of illegal goods and information, the term Dark Web has entered the lexicon in a prominent way.
• For practitioners working with individuals who commit CSAM offences, it would be important to know whether interventions would differ if the CSAM was accessed in the darknet versus the clearnet.
• It’s run, as we found talking to multiple sources in and around the industry, that it’s run by two serious top-tier gangsters, colloquially known as the brothers from Scotland.

Like research on other types of social media, research examining the communication patterns on darknet CSAM forums finds that a small percentage of forum members account for a disproportionate amount of the forum’s public communications. This study further revealed that many forum members refrained from subsequent communication after their first post—which was a requirement to obtain full membership of the forum under scrutiny. About one in five forum members, however, showed an escalating or continuously high frequency of forum communications throughout much of the period the forum was online. Among those frequently communicating on the forum are many VIPs and administrators, once more underlining their importance in sustaining the online CSAM community. Studying a darknet CSAM forum—one that did not require candidate members to submit a post—Van der Bruggen et al. (2022) found that during the 8‑month period this forum was online, nearly 97% of its visitors did not communicate on the public part of the forum.

For instance, if a threat actor is in possession of stolen data from a large healthcare provider, security personnel acting on behalf of the company are likely to conduct a large portion of that investigation throughout the Dark Web. Threat intelligence gathered from the Deep and Dark Web is likely to help future threat hunting teams when analyzing telemetry from beyond their own networks, such as the Deep and Dark Web. As stated earlier, neither of these connected content repository networks are illegal to access. Indeed, they must frequently be accessed by cybersecurity organizations conducting threat hunts or defending their networks or those of their clients. The Dark Web is used by cybercriminals to buy and sell illegal goods and services, coordinate attacks, distribute malware and phishing kits, and share other prebuilt exploits.

Cybercriminals leverage Telegram to recruit new members into their networks. They may use private groups or channels to advertise their services, recruit hackers, darknetdesires or entice individuals to participate in illegal schemes such as fraud or hacking. The Bogura boy has been interested in cybercrimes for quite some time.

In fact, if one sees all con and heist stories as having similar structures, than the variations of the Score and Mark are what make your story different. They define your story, not the clever perambulations of your plotting or gimmickry. Thanks to its anonymity it is also used by pro-democracy campaigners, whistleblowers and journalists operating under regimes.

Furthermore, some forums required rigorous vetting processes prior to participating in any activities, e.g. posting. Overcoming these difficulties, we managed to identify four suitable forums that allowed for our research to take place. These forums were selected because these were platforms for general everyday discussions and were not dedicated to specific purposes. Subjected to an anonymous registration process, these forums are free for anyone to use, and provide a sample that closely reflects Darknet users coming from diverse backgrounds, and also, having disparate reasons behind their use of the Darknet. Forum users who wished to participate in this research could simply click on the live link and answer these 10 questions via the BOS tool. They could withdraw at any time and had the option to not submit their answers.

Social media changed this and allowed associations with like-minded others from across the globe. As with the offline support groups, however, moderators of these forums had to be keen on members not committing crimes while in the forum environment. Although visitors of these forums used nicknames to communicate online, they were very aware that their true identity could easily be exposed, either by hackers or by the police. The Darknet or Dark Web is a subset of the Deep Web, which is approximately 400–500 times larger than the Surface Web also known as the Internet that we usually use (Rudesill et al. 2015).

Unlike traditional dark web platforms on the Tor network, Telegram operates on regular internet infrastructure, making it more challenging for law enforcement agencies to trace and shut down illicit activities. When accessing Abacus, it’s crucial to utilize secure connections. Users often employ virtual private networks (VPNs) to encrypt their internet traffic and mask their IP addresses.

These responses provided valuable information on the nature of the Darknet, and some possible security threats it could generate. The data collected were analysed using thematic analysis, which is useful when investigating uncovered areas or under-researched subjects (Braun and Clarke 2006). This approach was appropriate because the Darknet was a recent phenomenon, and therefore its users were not very well understood. We wished to achieve an understanding of subjective experience by gaining insights into individuals’ motivations and actions. Of course, these individuals’ views were determined by a range of factors, such as the forums, in which they resided.

The overall aim of the research was to identify whether the Darknet is inherently criminogenic, and thus constitutes a fundamental threat to individuals, organisations, and societies. Based on a qualitative research conducted in four Darknet forums, we were able to identify five main themes from our findings, which together present an alternative view of the Darknet. The Darknet might not be intrinsically criminogenic—it does not naturally increase criminal activities; rather it might just be another tool that is used by some individuals to carry out illicit activities.

Understanding the impact of markets like Abacus is crucial in comprehending the broader dynamics of darknet economies. These marketplaces not only facilitate trade but also influence patterns of online activity, shaping the digital underworld in profound ways. Darknet, a realm veiled in mystery and intrigue, hosts a clandestine network of marketplaces operating beyond the conventional web. Amidst the vast expanse of this hidden digital landscape lies a notable entity – Abacus. This enigmatic market is not merely a site but a nexus of clandestine transactions, its presence shrouded within the layers of the deep web.

This latitude is based on the SVIP’s and VIP’s status and the potential for a negative reprisal to cause unrest within the forum community. Sipulitie Market is a Finnish darknet marketplace that has garnered attention due to its secretive operations and illegal activities. This digital black market offers a wide array of contraband goods and services, facilitating anonymous transactions through the use of cryptocurrencies. Telegram provides a secure and encrypted messaging platform, allowing cybercriminals to communicate with each other without fear of interception or monitoring by authorities. They use Telegram to discuss tactics, share information, and coordinate criminal activities. By providing a platform for anonymous transactions, Abacus empowers individuals to engage in illicit activities with relative impunity.

Reasons for this could be to show a commitment to privacy or allow people to pass them information anonymously. The Guardian newspaper has a SecureDrop facility on Tor – as does the CIA – which uses it for virtual walk-ins for anyone wanting to confidentially pass them information. Tor, for example, uses multi-layered encryption to create anonymous communication over a computer network.