More than two-and-a-half million people currently use the Tor network to communicate anonymously via the Internet and gain access to online media that are not accessible using standard Internet technology. This sphere of communication can be described as the hidden web. In part because this phenomenon is very recent, the subject has scarcely been studied in the social sciences. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to answer four fundamental questions: What is the hidden web? What characterises the communication sphere of the hidden web in contrast to the “normal Internet”? Which reasons can be identified to explain the development of the hidden web as a new communication sphere? And, finally, what is the social significance of the hidden web? / Über zweieinhalb Millionen Menschen nutzen gegenwärtig das Tor Network, um anonym über das Internet zu kommunizieren und Zugriff auf Online-Medien zu erhalten, die mit gewöhnlicher Internettechnik nicht nutzbar ist. Diese Kommunikationssphäre kann als Hidden Web bezeichnet werden. Unter anderem weil es sich um ein sehr junges Phänomen handelt, liegen bisher nahezu keine sozialwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse zu dem Thema vor. Dementsprechend werden hier vier grundlegende Fragen beantwortet: Was ist das Hidden Web? Welche Eigenschaften weist die Kommunikationssphäre des Hidden Web im Vergleich zum „normalen“ Internet auf? Welche Gründen lassen sich identifizieren, die die Entstehung des Hidden Web als neue Kommunikationssphäre erklären können? Und welche gesellschaftliche Bedeutung kommt dem Hidden Web schließlich zu?

Das Forschungsprojekt „Exploring the Hidden Web. Zu den Nutzungsweisen, Eigenschaften und Spezifika anonymer Kommunikation im Internet“ ging im Rahmen des von der VolkswagenStiftung ausgeschriebenen Programms „Offen - für Außergewöhnliches“ von vier zentralen Fragestellungen aus. Erstens sollte erforscht werden, worüber im Hidden Web kommuniziert wird. Zweitens ging es darum, welche Medien dafür genutzt werden. Und drittens sollte danach gefragt werden, wie unter den Bedingungen der Anonymität das für Interaktionen notwendige Vertrauen hergestellt wird. Für diese drei Aspekte sollte viertens jeweils untersucht werden, welche Unterschiede, Gemeinsamkeiten und Schnittstellen zu frei zugänglichen, gemeinhin als Internet bezeichneten Medien („Clearnet“) bestehen. Diese Fragen wurden im Rahmen eines explorativen, qualitativen Vorgehens untersucht. / The research project “Exploring the Hidden Web. Use, features and specific character of anonymous communication on the Internet”, as a part of the VolkswagenStiftung funding initiative “Off the beaten track”, was based on four distinct issues: The central research questions pursued are (a) what the topics of communication on the Hidden Web are and (b) which media is used for the communication. Another issue building on this is (c) how, under the condition of anonymity, the trust necessary for any communication is built. Regarding these three aspects, the question is to be posed of (d) which differences, common aspects and interfaces there are with freely-accessible media, commonly referred to as the Internet (“Clearnet”). The empirical foundation of this project is an explorative, qualitative approach.

Background. With increased Internet usage occurring across the world journalists, dissidents and criminals have moved their operations online, and in turn, governments and law enforcement have increased their surveillance of their country’s networks. This has increased the popularity of programs masking users’ identities online such as the Tor Project. By encrypting and routing the traffic through several nodes, the users’ identity is hidden. But how are Tor users utilizing the network, and is any of it in the plain text despite the dangers of it? How has the usage of Tor changed compared to 11 years ago? Objectives. The thesis objective is to analyze captured Tor network traffic that reveals what data is sent through the network. The collected data helps draw conclusions about Tor usage and is compared with previous studies. Methods. Three Tor exit nodes are set up and operated for one week in the US, Germany, and Japan. We deploy packet sniffers performing a deep packet inspection on each traffic flow to identify attributes such as application protocol, number of bytes sent in a flow, and content-type if the traffic was sent in plain text. All stored data is anonymized. Results. The results show that 100.35 million flows were recorded, with 32.47%of them sending 4 or fewer packets in total. The most used application protocol was TLS with 55.03% of total traffic. The HTTP usage was 15.91% and 16% was unknown protocol(s). The countries receiving the most traffic were the US with over45% of all traffic, followed by the Netherlands, UK, and Germany with less than 10%of recorded traffic as its destination. The most frequently used destination ports were 443 at 49.5%, 5222 at 12.7%, 80 with 11.9%, and 25 at 9.3%.Conclusions. The experiment shows that it is possible to perform traffic analysis on the Tor network and acquire significant data. It shows that the Tor network is widely used in the world but with the US and Europe accounting for most of the traffic. As expected there has been a shift from HTTP to HTTPS traffic when compared to previous research. However, there is still unencrypted traffic on the network, where some of the traffic could be explained by automated tools like web crawlers. Tor users need to increase their awareness in what traffic they are sending through the network, as a user with malicious intent can perform the same experiment and potentially acquire unencrypted sensitive data.

Das Forschungsprojekt „Exploring the Hidden Web. Zu den Nutzungsweisen, Eigenschaften und Spezifika anonymer Kommunikation im Internet“ ging im Rahmen des von der VolkswagenStiftung ausgeschriebenen Programms „Offen - für Außergewöhnliches“ von vier zentralen Fragestellungen aus. Erstens sollte erforscht werden, worüber im Hidden Web kommuniziert wird. Zweitens ging es darum, welche Medien dafür genutzt werden. Und drittens sollte danach gefragt werden, wie unter den Bedingungen der Anonymität das für Interaktionen notwendige Vertrauen hergestellt wird. Für diese drei Aspekte sollte viertens jeweils untersucht werden, welche Unterschiede, Gemeinsamkeiten und Schnittstellen zu frei zugänglichen, gemeinhin als Internet bezeichneten Medien („Clearnet“) bestehen. Diese Fragen wurden im Rahmen eines explorativen, qualitativen Vorgehens untersucht.:1 Einleitung 2 Methodisches Vorgehen 3 Ergebnisse 4 Diskussion / The research project “Exploring the Hidden Web. Use, features and specific character of anonymous communication on the Internet”, as a part of the VolkswagenStiftung funding initiative “Off the beaten track”, was based on four distinct issues: The central research questions pursued are (a) what the topics of communication on the Hidden Web are and (b) which media is used for the communication. Another issue building on this is (c) how, under the condition of anonymity, the trust necessary for any communication is built. Regarding these three aspects, the question is to be posed of (d) which differences, common aspects and interfaces there are with freely-accessible media, commonly referred to as the Internet (“Clearnet”). The empirical foundation of this project is an explorative, qualitative approach.:1 Einleitung 2 Methodisches Vorgehen 3 Ergebnisse 4 Diskussion

More than two-and-a-half million people currently use the Tor network to communicate anonymously via the Internet and gain access to online media that are not accessible using standard Internet technology. This sphere of communication can be described as the hidden web. In part because this phenomenon is very recent, the subject has scarcely been studied in the social sciences. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to answer four fundamental questions: What is the hidden web? What characterises the communication sphere of the hidden web in contrast to the “normal Internet”? Which reasons can be identified to explain the development of the hidden web as a new communication sphere? And, finally, what is the social significance of the hidden web?:1 Introduction 2 Linguistic differentiation of the hidden web and an overview of the literature 3 Characteristics of communication via the hidden web 4 The creation of the hidden web as a response to the development of the visible web 5 The social significance of the hidden web 6 Summary and prospects / Über zweieinhalb Millionen Menschen nutzen gegenwärtig das Tor Network, um anonym über das Internet zu kommunizieren und Zugriff auf Online-Medien zu erhalten, die mit gewöhnlicher Internettechnik nicht nutzbar ist. Diese Kommunikationssphäre kann als Hidden Web bezeichnet werden. Unter anderem weil es sich um ein sehr junges Phänomen handelt, liegen bisher nahezu keine sozialwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse zu dem Thema vor. Dementsprechend werden hier vier grundlegende Fragen beantwortet: Was ist das Hidden Web? Welche Eigenschaften weist die Kommunikationssphäre des Hidden Web im Vergleich zum „normalen“ Internet auf? Welche Gründen lassen sich identifizieren, die die Entstehung des Hidden Web als neue Kommunikationssphäre erklären können? Und welche gesellschaftliche Bedeutung kommt dem Hidden Web schließlich zu?:1 Introduction 2 Linguistic differentiation of the hidden web and an overview of the literature 3 Characteristics of communication via the hidden web 4 The creation of the hidden web as a response to the development of the visible web 5 The social significance of the hidden web 6 Summary and prospects

This thesis deals with contemporary approaches that provide higher protection of privacy of users. It focuses mainly on a group signature. In the practical part of this thesis I designed and implemented PS that is enable to gather information with the help of signal of a mobile device. The application was designed in accordance with fundamental cryptographic requirements such as the authenticity and the integrity of transmitted data. The anonymity of users is guaranteed through an application layer (the group signature) as well as through a network layer (Tor).