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Shopping on the dark net
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Debora MacKenzie is a consultant for New Scientist
One minute interview
Shopping on the dark net What did a random shopper bot buy when it was let loose on the hidden internet? We asked its creator Carmen Weisskopf What has your shopper bot bought since you set it off again this month? Some firecrackers, a fake Lacoste shirt and two USB devices to mine bitcoins. It chose these items randomly, but it did seem like the bot was saying: “OK you’re not giving me enough money to spend”. How do you feel as you open up the unknown parcels delivered from the dark net? It’s always exciting, but it’s also scary to run the bot and to see what it will buy. We’re hoping for a diverse set of items that give a good insight into the dark net landscape.
Profile Carmen Weisskopf is part of !Mediengruppe Bitnik, a group of artists who work on and with the internet. The items bought in their dark net bot shopping spree are on display at bitnik.org/r and at Horatio Junior gallery in London, until 5 Feb
Tell me about your art project to use a bot to randomly shop on the dark net. The Random Darknet Shopper is a bot programmed to shop in the deep web or dark net once a week, with a maximum budget of $100 in Bitcoins. What exactly are the deep web and dark net? The deep web is part of the internet comprised of all the web pages that aren’t indexed by search engines, such as intranets. It’s actually larger than the “surface web” that most people are used to. Part of the deep web is encrypted and accessed through TOR browsers to hide where you come from. This is called the dark net. What has your bot bought from the dark net? Most items there have dubious legal status. Last year when we tried it we got a set of master keys used by fire fighters, cigarettes, fake jeans and trainers, some ebooks, a credit card, a scan of a passport and some ecstasy. That was the first time a bot had bought drugs. It raises the question of who is responsible for a bot’s actions.
Does anything go? What if your bot bought a bomb-making kit? $100 in bitcoins doesn’t buy that much. This ensures the items remain manageable. Also, there aren’t that many items that fill us with fear on these deep web markets. Why would you want to randomly shop for things in the dark net? Isn’t it a haven for illegal stuff? So is the surface web! This project started out with the Snowden revelations. It made us re-evaluate mass surveillance of the surface web, where everyone who uses it is trackable. So we started looking at the dark net, where encryption is built in. It is a necessity for people to remain anonymous in certain situations. We started thinking about how trust is formed in an anonymous network. And we wanted to know what was actually sold and bought there. What about trust? Has the bot been scammed yet, and paid for goods that haven’t been delivered? No. And this shows the level of trust that is there. The people who sell on these markets are used to trusting people online, and want to get a good rating. Even the Swiss police who seized the ecstasy bought by our bot were surprised at its quality compared to that available on the streets. Interview by Alison George
19/26 December 2015 | NewScientist | 41
courtesy !Mediengruppe Bitnik
Chan could have weighed in under existing rules, but didn’t – possibly because the WHO was already stretched fighting MERS, bird flu in China, and disease emergencies in the Middle East and Africa. By June 2014, aid groups declared the epidemic out of control and said the WHO was failing to coordinate the international response. GOARN staff complained up the hierarchy – only to be told, inexplicably, that there was no problem. In August, though, the WHO declared a global emergency, Chan put a new team in charge, and the response shifted into high gear. The WHO did finally do a lot to coordinate an ultimately effective response. But why the dangerous delay? After talking to many of the people involved, all I can conclude is that those who led the initial response were perhaps unduly cautious about sounding alarms and upsetting member states. All organisations have people with different predilections – that isn’t a problem unless rigid hierarchies and skeleton staffs mean there is little recourse if one person happens to make a bad call. But the real problem is that deference to governments, while almost disastrous in this case, can seem necessary at the WHO. The member states really do hold all the cards. What else can any but the bravest leader do but defer? That is the real question: what else can the WHO do? Its rebirth as an International Rescue for health is essential, and governments must pay for that to happen. But they must also agree on a mechanism for giving the WHO the clear lead in emergencies, with the resources – and accountability – to protect global health whether governments like it or not. We need a real worldwide health agency now, before the next Ebola strikes. And that could happen any time. n
Debora MacKenzie is a consultant for New Scientist
One minute interview
Shopping on the dark net What did a random shopper bot buy when it was let loose on the hidden internet? We asked its creator Carmen Weisskopf What has your shopper bot bought since you set it off again this month? Some firecrackers, a fake Lacoste shirt and two USB devices to mine bitcoins. It chose these items randomly, but it did seem like the bot was saying: “OK you’re not giving me enough money to spend”. How do you feel as you open up the unknown parcels delivered from the dark net? It’s always exciting, but it’s also scary to run the bot and to see what it will buy. We’re hoping for a diverse set of items that give a good insight into the dark net landscape.
Profile Carmen Weisskopf is part of !Mediengruppe Bitnik, a group of artists who work on and with the internet. The items bought in their dark net bot shopping spree are on display at bitnik.org/r and at Horatio Junior gallery in London, until 5 Feb
Tell me about your art project to use a bot to randomly shop on the dark net. The Random Darknet Shopper is a bot programmed to shop in the deep web or dark net once a week, with a maximum budget of $100 in Bitcoins. What exactly are the deep web and dark net? The deep web is part of the internet comprised of all the web pages that aren’t indexed by search engines, such as intranets. It’s actually larger than the “surface web” that most people are used to. Part of the deep web is encrypted and accessed through TOR browsers to hide where you come from. This is called the dark net. What has your bot bought from the dark net? Most items there have dubious legal status. Last year when we tried it we got a set of master keys used by fire fighters, cigarettes, fake jeans and trainers, some ebooks, a credit card, a scan of a passport and some ecstasy. That was the first time a bot had bought drugs. It raises the question of who is responsible for a bot’s actions.
Does anything go? What if your bot bought a bomb-making kit? $100 in bitcoins doesn’t buy that much. This ensures the items remain manageable. Also, there aren’t that many items that fill us with fear on these deep web markets. Why would you want to randomly shop for things in the dark net? Isn’t it a haven for illegal stuff? So is the surface web! This project started out with the Snowden revelations. It made us re-evaluate mass surveillance of the surface web, where everyone who uses it is trackable. So we started looking at the dark net, where encryption is built in. It is a necessity for people to remain anonymous in certain situations. We started thinking about how trust is formed in an anonymous network. And we wanted to know what was actually sold and bought there. What about trust? Has the bot been scammed yet, and paid for goods that haven’t been delivered? No. And this shows the level of trust that is there. The people who sell on these markets are used to trusting people online, and want to get a good rating. Even the Swiss police who seized the ecstasy bought by our bot were surprised at its quality compared to that available on the streets. Interview by Alison George
19/26 December 2015 | NewScientist | 41
courtesy !Mediengruppe Bitnik
Chan could have weighed in under existing rules, but didn’t – possibly because the WHO was already stretched fighting MERS, bird flu in China, and disease emergencies in the Middle East and Africa. By June 2014, aid groups declared the epidemic out of control and said the WHO was failing to coordinate the international response. GOARN staff complained up the hierarchy – only to be told, inexplicably, that there was no problem. In August, though, the WHO declared a global emergency, Chan put a new team in charge, and the response shifted into high gear. The WHO did finally do a lot to coordinate an ultimately effective response. But why the dangerous delay? After talking to many of the people involved, all I can conclude is that those who led the initial response were perhaps unduly cautious about sounding alarms and upsetting member states. All organisations have people with different predilections – that isn’t a problem unless rigid hierarchies and skeleton staffs mean there is little recourse if one person happens to make a bad call. But the real problem is that deference to governments, while almost disastrous in this case, can seem necessary at the WHO. The member states really do hold all the cards. What else can any but the bravest leader do but defer? That is the real question: what else can the WHO do? Its rebirth as an International Rescue for health is essential, and governments must pay for that to happen. But they must also agree on a mechanism for giving the WHO the clear lead in emergencies, with the resources – and accountability – to protect global health whether governments like it or not. We need a real worldwide health agency now, before the next Ebola strikes. And that could happen any time. n