File Sharing and the Darknet
The public interest in free information exchange is considerable. Besides textual information, this includes multimedia content, data sets and software as well. Compared to text data, the latter require the transfer of huge data volumes, which cannot be handled via Email, forums or chats. In part, the Internet is also rooted in this interest. (Nelson et al. 1981) addressed the global exchange of research results as early as 1960 in the Xanadu project. However, the free exchange of information can also be misused for illegal measures, including copyright violations, the distribution of child pornography, illegal propaganda or instructions for building explosives. The degree of stigmatization for these use cases varies largely. Large parts of the Internet community has always supported the uncontrolled distribution of copyrighted material. This has led to a constant battle between copyright holders and file sharing activists, with technological advances on both sides. The automated crawling of IP addresses by file sharing peers was answered by obfuscation measures, which can been seen as first approaches to privacy networks. Legal discussions about the impact of file sharing for copyrights were initiated as well (Wood, 2009) These networks allowed distributing arbitrary file types, often arguing with privacy and the risk of censorship in more public file distribution networks and mentioning documents with political backgrounds as the typical data to be shared. However, they were also utilized for the file sharing of mp3s and movies. Child pornography is reported to be commonly shared via such protected networks as well. Privacy networks and the file sharing in it are typical examples of a dual use, but this work will not be discussing the pros and cons. Every side will find arguments either for supporting or prohibiting this technology. In addition, the legal aspects of file sharing and copyright differ depending on the country. Our aim is to show which role file sharing and the growing need for privacy within it played in the development of privacy networks and how to achieve privacy in file sharing networks today.