CHAPTER 4: TECHNOLOGY
Anonymity and anti-surveillance tools
4.65.
4.66.
Users of the open web who take no steps to protect their anonymity reveal information
about themselves which can be used to track the online activities of a device and to
ascertain the identities of its users. For example:
(a)
The content of communications (e.g. emails) may be monitored by anyone with
access to the relevant network infrastructure, though this may be technically
challenging as well as unlawful.
(b)
The IP address which every device must have in order to request and receive
content from websites can be recorded by the website operator.91
(c)
Cookies (text files placed by certain websites on the devices of their users) may
enable e.g. a search engine operator to remember a user’s recent search
terms. That information may be passed on to third parties who can use it for
targeted advertising.
Simple ways of hiding one’s identity include the deletion of web browsing histories and
the use of pseudonyms on social media sites. More sophisticated anonymity systems
offer stronger protection. According to a recent research note from the Parliamentary
Office of Science and Technology:
“Technologies that anonymise internet users have become increasingly
popular in recent years. They help citizens to protect their security and privacy
and to circumvent censorship. They also facilitate organised crime, such as
the billion dollar drug market known as Silk Road.”92
Those technologies can be divided into centralised trust systems such as VPNs, in
which a single entity (usually the provider of the service) can know the identity of all
users and their communications partners, and distributed trust systems, in which this
is not the case.
4.67.
4.68.
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92
The best-known distributed trust system is Tor (4.62(c) above), which consists of:
(a)
The Tor Network: some 6000 computers, provided by volunteers and forming
a global network of nodes; and
(b)
free software that enables the computers of some 2.5 million Tor users to
access the Tor Network, encrypting a user’s data and relaying them through
several nodes so as to hide the user’s IP address and other identifiers.
The Tor Project claims that c.98.5% of traffic on the Tor Network is from users
accessing the open web. It may thus be a valuable tool for anonymous activism,
dissident activity, victims of digital abuse such as cyber stalking and even covert online
surveillance by law enforcement authorities. Tor provides special nodes called bridges
IP addresses may be linked to an individual device, but are sometimes shared or re-allocated as users
connect and disconnect from the internet. IP resolution, facilitated by the CTSA 2015, aids the process
of linking device to IP address. See 4.18 above.
“The dark net and online anonymity”, (March 2015). That note is extensively relied upon in this section.
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