#DarkWeb - My Year on the Hidden Internet
Our reporter Micky Welch is keen to answer any questions you may have on the DarkWeb.
Over the course of this week he'll be updating this page with the findings from his investigation.
But if you're dying to know more or have any questions for him then email or tweet us.
In the meantime here's a blog piece from Micky on the DarkWeb.
My Year on the DarkWeb
So it's 2014, we've just finished our Catching Predators Investigation and as part of that I'm hearing more and more about the DarkWeb. It's not something I've come across before - I've heard of SilkRoad in the news, but I'd have no clue how to get on it, or what exactly it is.
After a lot of research and planning I formulated an idea for a story, if I'm going to use the DarkWeb I'll have to make it relatable for people in the North East.
The getting on bit is actually easier than I thought, I won't give you the details as I wouldn't want to be held responsible for whatever you might get up to on there.
Once on your greeted with a completely blank screen, as if you've just opened a new tab and you're ready to browse, as I would on the "normal" internet I go to Google. Yes DarkWeb has all the sites we're used to, but what you get on there is access to all the sites you can't see on our "normal" internet.
As stupid as this may sound I Googled drugs, as well as all the normal results Google would find it also brought up "onion" addresses. These are DarkWeb sites.
If you're using webpages starting with www. on the DarkWeb you'll get "normal" webpages. if you use onion. webpages then you'll get sites that nobody on our "normal" internet can see.
Following me so far? If not just ask me a question, all the addresses to get me on are above.
By the time I'm starting out on there the infamous SilkRoad has been taken down - that was a marketplace - a black market for anything, drugs, guns, fraud, goods and services, it was the biggest and the best at its peak - At one point it's estimated it was making $200M a year.
With that gone it was a task to see where SilkRoad users were now doing their business.
Through lots more research and making contacts I was pointed in the direction of Evolution.
People were calling it the new SilkRoad, it was very user friendly and easy to navigate, which for the DarkWeb is very surprising. Some of the onion. sites I found were very, very basic, it was like looking at the internet from 1997.
That's another thing about the DarkWeb, you think it's going to be this fast, exciting world.....it's not. It's very laggy and at times you feel like you're on a dial up connection it's that slow.
Back to Evolution, the site at times had over 25,000 listings, that was anything from guns to drugs to fraudulent services.
I could have bought a lifetime Netflix account for less than ÂŁ1, I could have bought ÂŁ1000 in counterfeit cash for ÂŁ50 with a money back guarantee if they didn't work.
New passport? driving licence? fake utility bills? half price train tickets? credit cards, bank details, PayPal accounts...the list of illicit services was beyond anything you could ever imagine.
Drugs wise the choice was even bigger, benzos, cannabis, dissociatives, ecstasy, opioids, prescription, psychedelics, steroids, stimulants, tobacco, weight loss, there was 18,000 listings alone for drugs.
Is if that isn't mind-blowing enough Evolution sellers or vendors as they’re called on the DarkWeb are given a ratings system, so really it is like Amazon or eBay, if a seller has a high rating then you know they’re the ones to buy from.
Some of the users had over 10,000 feedback ratings, going to show the amount of drug deals that were happening on the site.
Evolution also offered its users a forum, where you could go an discuss vendors, discuss drugs, request services, talk “off-topic” amongst yourselves. It was on here I found some contacts.
One of the users on the forum was a Doctor, whether they were in real life is another question, you never know who you’re actually dealing with on the DarkWeb, this Doctor was on hand to talk through any questions users had around drugs, to give advice on any problems people were having.
Naively I told people I was a journalist, within minutes I had death threats, accusations of being LE (Law Enforcement) and a massive amount of hostility. I wouldn’t have expected anything less really, if you’re a criminal committing fraud and buying guns and drugs you don’t want people to know your identity.
Lesson learnt, username changed and tactics revised. I posed as a complete newbie to the DarkWeb, which to be honest, I was. Users were much easier to deal with and keen to offer advice about buying, selling and what they were using the DarkWeb for.
It was around this time that Northumbria Police swooped on an address in Newcastle where an 18 year old was arrested for various offences including intent to endanger life, making explosives and having a cache of weapons.
As that story developed the teenager was named as Liam Lyburd and more details about what weapons he had emerged.
Through searches on Evolution I found a user with the screen name DonaldTrump, they purchased the same items as Liam Lyburd…..this got my mind going, what if Lyburd bought all his weapons on the DarkWeb, when you think about it how can an 18 year old in Newcastle purchase weapons and ammunition?
I went through all of DonaldTrump’s posts, he was searching for guns and ammunition, but not only that he was adept at using the DarkWeb to commit various types of fraud – as stupid as this may sound he was using people’s PayPal details to buy himself takeaways and have them delivered to his house.
Quick tip on that by the way – CHANGE ALL YOUR PASSWORDS NOW – most of us have the same password for everything, bank, groceries, takeaways, PayPal, so change your passwords as often as you can.
Back to DonaldTrump, the user was firmly established on Evolution, he, in some posts, was helping other new users navigate the DarkWeb. He was also known for outlandish boasts for having a stash of weapons and ammunition, other users didn’t quite believe him, and others, would claim he was LE (Law Enforcement) and trying to entice sellers/vendors into giving their details out leading to arrests.
It’s so fascinating seeing the paranoia of DarkWeb users, but like one of them told me “you’ve got to be suspicious otherwise you’ll be in jail”
I kept all of DonaldTrump’s posts awaiting Liam Lyburd’s trial – we’ll get to that in a bit.
Back to the DarkWeb, I still really haven’t answered the “what is it?” question – after being on there for a while you realise it’s just a massive amount of untapped, encrypted resources – I like to tell people to imagine it as this…
You’re at the beach, you dip your big toe into the water – now that little bit of water you can feel, that’s our “normal” internet, your online banking, shopping, your social media, basically any site you use on a daily basis.
Now the rest of the water in the sea, and all the other oceans around the world combined, well that’s the DarkWeb, it’s there and it’s massive.
All its users like the anonymity it brings, the hidden internet keeps you hidden whilst browsing, that’s why these marketplaces pop up offering guns, drugs, fraud, all the illicit services.
I’d say 99% of people who go on there are looking for illegal stuff, there are a few users who’re using the anonymity for good, for example in oppressive regimes like North Korea, Iran and China you can’t do much, if anything at all on the “normal” internet – so people living in countries like that use the DarkWeb to tell the truth about what’s happening where they are.
Saying that, if you’re somewhere in the UK using the DarkWeb then you’re more than likely just using it to buy illegal goods or commit fraud.
What I’ll take away from my time on there was the sheer amount and brazen attitude to fraud, there’s sites offering hacking of personal accounts, bank accounts, social media. But there’s also sites which just offer bank and credit card details for free, that they’ve stolen, just because they can.
I found literally thousands of bank details from all over the UK – here in the North East there was a few too – I found names, addresses, bank & credit card details, usernames, passwords, contact numbers, it’s really easy to see why people like Liam Lyburd don’t buy things with their own money.
I contacted a few people through the details I found on the DarkWeb, a builder from Gateshead who’s card details were registered with his work, an Army serviceman from Northumberland, a working single mam from Newcastle. The users of the fraud sites don’t care who you are, what you do, what your circumstances are, they want your card and bank details, and they want you to pay for their drugs and illegal goods.
Like I mentioned earlier, change your passwords, now.
The DarkWeb is also a somewhat safe haven for paedophiles and people committing various different kinds of child sexual exploitation, I was very aware about that from my Catching Predators Investigation. I made sure I never clicked any links that people sent me, never went on any sites which had these letters anywhere near them CP (Child Porn).
But there are people out there who are only using the DarkWeb to share indecent images of children – I must say the National Crime Agency, GCHQ and our local forces are doing as good a job as they can to catch these people – could more be done? Definitely, but the scale and the encryption that these people are working with is just massive.
So I’d been on the DarkWeb for around a year and had more than enough for a story to really shed a light on it and what people are doing on there, then the Liam Lyburd trial started.
He was accused of plotting to blow up Newcastle College and commit mass murder, his charges included intent to endanger life and various weapons charges.
Day by day more and more was released about the reclusive, now 19 year old, who’d been expelled from Newcastle College and was out for revenge. He spent his days and night online, he used the DarkWeb to blackmail paedophiles into giving him money by pretending to send them explicit photos but in fact sending them viruses. That money was in the form of Bitcoin’s, a currency favoured by users of the DarkWeb – it’s not anonymous like people believe.
It then emerged during the trial that Lyburd was using the site Evolution and he was using the screen name DonaldTrump.
I’m glad I kept all the details about DonaldTrump though – because Evolution, whilst I was using it was closed down in what’s known as an “Exit Scam” – that’s basically where the people running the site close it down very quickly and make off with ££££ - It’s estimated that the two people behind the “Exit Scam” made over £5Million each when they closed the site down.
Anyway, that’s another story, and another interesting insight into the DarkWeb.
Back to Lyburd/DonaldTrump – he was found guilty, and will be sentenced this month (September 2015) I had pieced together all the details of his transactions, whether that’s the purchasing of guns or ammunition or just buying takeaways, and Northumbria Police’s Cyber Crime Unit had too – they did it as Lyburd hadn’t fully deleted files from his computers, if he had there could have been a chance the outcome of the trial would have been different.
We await his sentencing.
So that’s my year on the DarkWeb, it’s an interesting topic that’s going to become more and more apparent and popular, I haven’t even touched on half the stuff I found on there but if you do have specific questions about anything to do with my investigation or the DarkWeb as a whole then drop me a line.