File-Sharing and the Darknet

Abstract

Today the darknet is a term most often is used for privacy networks like TOR. Around the year 2000 at the high of the mp3 file sharing debate between internet activists and copyright holders, it was a term commonly used for file sharing networks allowing the transfer of digital files, especially music and movies. These former darknets were subject of multiple investigations with the aim to identify and sue users who traded copyrighted martial via these networks. Therefore, a technical development started trying to achieve privacy for file sharing users. In this article, the authors show how file sharing networks evolved into the privacy networks we know today and which impact the privacy mechanisms have on file sharing.