On the Necessity of Developing a Unified Definition of «Darknet» in Criminalistics

Abstract

The article is devoted to counteracting crimes committed with the use of information-telecommunication technologies, specifically, the Internet. Criminals use the Internet actively to conduct criminal business transactions while hiding in the shadow part of the net — Darknet. This net provides offenders with opportunities for hiding by offering anonymous nets that guarantee a high level of confidentiality. This fact makes it considerably harder for law enforcement bodies to counteract crimes committed with the use of information technologies. Besides, an analysis of the criminal situation in the Russian Federation showed that law enforcement work of counteracting this type of crimes is not effective at the present stage. Due to this, there is a need for improving the level of “digital” literacy of law enforcement employees as well as the development of a criminalistic base that takes into account the digital progress. The authors offer a definition of “Darknet” that describes the essence of this net and that will become the starting point for researching the Darknet phenomenon as an object of criminalistics. The conducted research will make it possible to obtain new sources for building the elements of criminalistic description of crimes and a special criminalistic theory of investigating crimes committed with the use of Darknet.