Originally published on the CGS blog on October 25, 2013.
Freedom is a popular rhetorical tool. It’s central to the American narrative of democracy, market capitalism, and civil rights. It’s often alluded to in our foreign policy when we push for countries to adopt similar polices of open government. In the past decade we have seen this narrative take a more extremist tone with libertarians espousing interpretations of this concept that most people would find unfathomable or unrealistic at the least.
Unabated freedom can also be dangerous. No policy area has seen the effect deregulation has had on our society than technology and more specifically the internet. While the internet has been an invaluable engine for growth, it has also been utilized by the less wholesome. This is especially true for the Darknet, an encrypted internet that exists on the same servers as the “regular internet”, can only be accessed by special software and allows its users to remain mostly anonymous. Of course, this can be used to subvert government surveillance and censorship, but it is also the home of illicit arms and drug dealers and pedophiles rings.
The Darknet made international news with the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the proprietor of Silk Road, an online marketplace for illicit drugs. Two years after founding the website, he made 3.6 million dollars and months before he was arrested, was in the process of paying a hit man to assassinate a cofounder of the website.
While the Darknet allows for near unlimited freedom in how it’s used, it can also be used for good. It was originally made to subvert SOPA, John Hopkins University, Purdue University, the State Department, and the One Laptop Per Child program have all experimented with similar models to circumvent censorship by foreign regimes or in OLPC’s case, provide internet access to users who don’t have access to ISPs.
As is the case with many emerging technologies, policy is always one step behind. Just as we grapple with what it means to be free, we must also debate how to move forward with the free, anonymous, Darknet.
