Darknet

A darknet or dark net is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization,[1] and often uses a unique customized communication protocol.

[4] The term "darknet" was popularized by major news outlets and was associated with Tor Onion services when the infamous drug bazaar Silk Road used it,[5] despite the terminology being unofficial.

Technology such as Tor, I2P, and Freenet are intended to defend digital rights by providing security, anonymity, or censorship resistance and are used for both illegal and legitimate reasons.

The term gained public acceptance following publication of "The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution", a 2002 paper by Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and Bryan Willman, four employees of Microsoft who argued the presence of the darknet was the primary hindrance to the development of workable digital rights management (DRM) technologies and made copyright infringement inevitable.

[15] Subsequently, in 2014, journalist Jamie Bartlett in his book The Dark Net used the term to describe a range of underground and emergent subcultures, including camgirls, cryptoanarchists, darknet drug markets, self harm communities, social media racists, and transhumanists.