[NCUC-DISCUSS] email in response to ICANN blogpost

Niels ten Oever lists at digitaldissidents.org
Thu Jul 13 12:25:48 CEST 2017


Disagree that this is a good source. It repeats as lot of the BS and
gossip around 'the darkweb' without substantiating it. Most famously the
'hitman - claim'.

The one source they use to say that almost everything is illegal on the
darkweb
(https://www.ourinternet.org/sites/default/files/publications/no20_0.pdf)

says:

Classification  of  web  pages  is  a  difficult  task,  and  while
there exist automatic classifiers based on machine learning,
the  dataset  in  this  case  was  small  enough  that  manual
classification  was  not  unduly  onerous.  Additionally,  the
authors  felt  that  given  the  range  and  complex,  technical
nature of some of the content, automatic classifiers would
be insufficient due to difficulty in interpreting context and
meaning (Samarawickrama and Jayaratne 2011)

and it concludes:

This  paper  does  suggest  that  child  abuse  content  is  the
most popular type of content on the Tor Dark Net. While
law  enforcement  may  crawl  such  sites,  the  number  of
requests that would be seen would be only a tiny fraction,
and hence not skew the outline ratios. Similarly, denial of
service attacks were not observed and so are also unlikely
to  account  for  the  high  requests.  The  usage  of  Tor2Web
may underrepresent some categories, but it is not currently
clear whether, or why, such groups would exclusively use
this tool.
An  explicit  categorization  of  sites  into  illegal  and  legal
was  not  undertaken,  but  it  was  abundantly  clear  to  the
authors  that  the  majority  of  sites  were  of  questionable
legality.  While  anonymity  and  privacy  tools  such  as  Tor
might fight online surveillance, they also give an easy and
accessible route for those with criminal motivations. There
are  alternatives,  such  as  botnets,  available  for  criminal
activity, but these do not negate the comparative ease with
which Tor can be used.
It is technically possible to block Tor, although it is likely
that the Tor Project will deploy countermeasures resulting
in  the  endeavour  descending  into  a  cat-and-mouse  game
of  “circumvent-and-censor.”  In  any  case,  Tor  does  not
provide the absolute impunity that is often attributed to it.


Cheers,

Niels





On 07/13/2017 12:16 PM, Michael Oghia wrote:
> In case anyone is interested, this is the best resource I've seen on the
> dark / deep web in a while that also happens to be an infographic:
> 
> http://www.visualcapitalist.com/dark-web/
> 
> Best,
> -Michael
> 
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 12:13 PM, Niels ten Oever
> <lists at digitaldissidents.org <mailto:lists at digitaldissidents.org>> wrote:
> 
>     I've been working with Dave to update blogpost, and the blog now is
>     addressing our concerns.
> 
>     https://www.icann.org/news/blog/the-dark-web-the-land-of-hidden-services
>     <https://www.icann.org/news/blog/the-dark-web-the-land-of-hidden-services>
> 
>     Thanks everyone for making this happen so quickly, now we ensured
>     that Hidden Services are not getting a worse name than they deserve.
> 
>     Cheers,
> 
>     Niels
> 
> 
>     On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 11:03:41AM -0400, farzaneh badii wrote:
>     > Thanks Niels.
>     >
>     > We have been discussing this with EC and we can approve it as an NCUC
>     > statement.
>     >
>     > Best
>     >
>     > Farzaneh
>     >
>     > Farzaneh
>     >
>     > On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Niels ten Oever <
>     > lists at digitaldissidents.org <mailto:lists at digitaldissidents.org>>
>     wrote:
>     >
>     > > Hi all,
>     > >
>     > > This morning the ICANN VP for Security and IT published a
>     blogpost which
>     > > appeared in this mornings newsletter, as well as on ICANNs website
>     > > concerning the Dark Web.
>     > >
>     > >
>     https://www.icann.org/news/blog/the-dark-web-the-land-of-hidden-services
>     <https://www.icann.org/news/blog/the-dark-web-the-land-of-hidden-services>
>     > >
>     > > A number of us got together and drafted an email to the author
>     to give
>     > > him an opportunity to correct the falsehoods that are stated in
>     the blog.
>     > >
>     > > We have two options:
>     > >
>     > > 1. Send the letter on behalf of the NCUC
>     > > 2. Sign the letter in your personal capacities.
>     > >
>     > > Let's discuss it here, but feel free to already sign (as a fallback
>     > > option).
>     > >
>     > > You can find the draft letter here:
>     > >
>     > >
>     https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xB19ycvHPH9TagLjEiAnOpbkLbx9j
>     <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xB19ycvHPH9TagLjEiAnOpbkLbx9j>
>     > > dD49y3CAKVLoac/edit
>     > >
>     > > Best,
>     > >
>     > > Niels
>     > >
>     > > --
>     > > Niels ten Oever
>     > > Head of Digital
>     > >
>     > > Article 19
>     > > www.article19.org <http://www.article19.org>
>     > >
>     > > PGP fingerprint    8D9F C567 BEE4 A431 56C4
>     > >                      678B 08B5 A0F2 636D 68E9
>     > > _______________________________________________
>     > > Ncuc-discuss mailing list
>     > > Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <mailto:Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>
>     > > http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>     <http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss>
>     > >
> 
>     --
> 
>     Niels ten Oever
>     Head of Digital
> 
>     Article 19
>     www.article19.org <http://www.article19.org>
> 
>     PGP fingerprint    2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
>                        643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3
> 
> 
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> 
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-- 
Niels ten Oever
Head of Digital

Article 19
www.article19.org

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