Who Really Needs Hidden Networks? A Note Without Romantic Myths About the Darknet

Resilient communications are my passion. As much as I can, I research, document, and try to explain in simple terms the network technologies that can resist censorship—after all, truth is born in debate, not behind an iron curtain. At the same time, the words “darknet” and “deep web” seem marginal and clickbaity to me, because they barely reflect the essence of the topic.

The idea for this article came from a conversation with young system administrators who, in all seriousness, started retelling wild stories about mysterious packages from the darknet, online torture chambers, Japanese evil spirits invading minds through the Tor network, and other trashy content.

So, what are hidden networks, and why is the reality for IT professionals more fascinating than YouTube horror stories?

Sensational Stories

People tend to fear the unknown, and some of us even enjoy the thrill of fear: that’s why we have horror movies, scary games, and books full of ghost stories. Sometimes, the unknown sparks not fear but curiosity, especially among the younger generation.

A YouTube search for “darknet” almost fully explains the origin of popular scary stories about the shadow internet. My favorite is the whole saga of videos from various bloggers about “darknet packages.” These videos were especially popular from about 2016 to 2019, until viewers got bored of the content. The most disappointing part? There was never anything illegal in those packages.

I honestly watched a few of these videos all the way through. It’s pure clickbait: the promise of shocking content, building up suspense, and then, after forty minutes, you see an airsoft gun and a chunk of ground beef—vegans, look away!

Imagine, centuries ago, young boys would listen in awe to sailors’ tales of the unknown. Today, there are no more blank spots on the map (except maybe the ocean floor), and almost any information can be quickly checked online.

Still, the craving for accessible thrills hasn’t gone away, so some viewers eagerly soak up stories about “red rooms” where, supposedly, you can watch live streams of violent acts and even influence the outcome with a cryptocurrency donation.

Fortunately, for most teens, the thrill comes not from real violence, but from the fantasy that such scary places might exist—something to gossip about with friends.

Closer to Reality

A quick look at search queries shows that the Tor network is at the heart of most scary internet stories. But (!) if a die-hard creepypasta fan actually launches Tor Browser and tries to find anything from those stories, they’ll be disappointed—the darknet is boring!

If you don’t have an unhealthy interest in unhealthy things, half an hour of surfing onion sites will just leave you bored. There’s no shocking content: a bit of illegal substances, some taboo erotica, a couple of forums with wannabe hackers, and countless scam sites promising everything under the sun for crypto prepayment—from smartphones to phonographs. That’s it.

“There are no red rooms in the darknet, move along!” some disappointed horror fan might say, but don’t close the page just yet. I wrote this article not to state the obvious, but to redirect young explorers’ energy into something constructive.

I’m deeply interested in hidden networks, but I don’t engage in criminal activity or hunt for forbidden stuff. I think a brief explanation of what fuels my interest might be useful for anyone curious about resilient and hidden networks, or who’s just heard about them.

Why Would an Ordinary Person Need the Darknet?

Linking your phone number to accounts on various services has become the norm. On one hand, it offers some protection against profile theft, but it’s also a direct identifier of your real identity behind a nickname. This limits freedom of expression and opens the door for third-party intrusion into your private life—from ad targeting to political repression.

You can’t determine the jurisdiction of a site in a hidden network, so laws barely apply there and everything is based on internal agreements among users, which can also remain a mystery. I can say for sure that chats without registration, SMS, or provider identifiers are a pleasant place to relax with a laid-back atmosphere. Using hidden networks requires some skills, so the community is usually a friendly group of educated IT folks—cozy chats and forums about software and networking. It’s reminiscent of the old days of ham radio, when people could talk freely across thousands of miles without restrictions.

Yesterday, Roskomnadzor blocked torrent trackers, today it’s the FBK website (a banned organization in Russia), and tomorrow, maybe all religious organizations not affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. This list could go on with thousands of past and even more future blockings. Most of my friends don’t see blocked web resources as dangerous. If you check the official registry, you’ll definitely find sites whose bans are ethically justified: child pornography, drug sales, and so on. But blocking politically inconvenient resources alongside terrorist sites is outrageous! Again: drugs and illegal porn can be found on the regular internet, because you can’t block information instantly. If you’re not interested in that, you won’t seek it out in hidden networks either.

The key advantage of hidden networks is that it’s impossible to block individual web resources. There are ways to paralyze an entire hidden network, but the whole community fights those challenges, not just the admins of targeted sites.

This leads to the issue of censorship—or rather, its absence in hidden networks. Should we accept restrictions on free thought in the regular internet, all in the name of “information hygiene”? I don’t think so. Kids learn about sex from any modern movie or music video, about drugs from graffiti on the walls, and a pedophile can watch schoolgirls in the yard… I try to look at this critically: law enforcement is necessary, but not to jail people for likes and reposts, but to catch real criminals. But how can you go after real criminals when you can just fine a housewife or a schoolkid for a questionable comment on VKontakte? That’s half a day’s work, and you get a promotion. Infiltrating a criminal ring, gathering evidence, and actually catching dangerous criminals is much harder. Honestly, I admire foreign news about large-scale arrests and shutdowns of major marketplaces selling illegal goods and services. That’s what makes me respect the word “police.” As for punishing someone for liking an opposition post: if you bugged every kitchen in the country, you’d see there aren’t enough prisons for all the “offenders.”

If hidden networks become as common as web browsers or messengers, maybe law enforcement will finally focus on real threats instead of fifth-graders, because spending a year tracking down a schoolgirl for a fine isn’t exactly a career highlight. What’s left is to go after the real bad guys.

Freedom of speech and lack of censorship are just part of the story. For the average IT specialist, seasoned geek, or computer science student, the real appeal is deeper—in the very implementation of hidden networks. These are masterpieces of human ingenuity: transmitting information over the internet with almost no way to determine the user’s real location or intercept their traffic.

I’m a beginner C++ programmer: I’ve read a few books and watched some pirated video courses. I gained a huge amount of practical skills and theoretical knowledge in the I2Pd developer community. The enthusiasm in these open projects is totally different from the fanaticism around Apple or other proprietary tech. These protocols are fully open, as is the source code for client programs. Most open-source hidden network software is developed purely on volunteer enthusiasm—it’s incredibly engaging and the people are great! In commercial projects, it’s all “pay for life.” Popular Russian programming courses openly say they charge “crazy” prices so as not to “devalue knowledge.” After what I’ve seen—free knowledge in a cozy chat with high-level discussion—commercial slogans just make me smile. I can’t imagine how many tens or hundreds of thousands of rubles I’d need to spend on hyped-up courses to get the same deep knowledge of cryptography I got in a year and a half for free. If you’re interested in cryptography, check out I2P—it’s a cryptographic atlas: I’ve never seen such complex and diverse crypto anywhere else (Tor is much simpler). Sure, veteran developers might send you straight to the source code, but getting comments and explanations from the community is normal too. No one hides knowledge, because people in the hidden network community have learned two things: by helping others, you grow yourself, and you build human resources for future development. Those who don’t get this don’t last in the community.

The vast majority of modern online services are centralized: social networks, forums, etc.—outsiders can only be consumers. The same goes for ISPs. Hidden networks, unlike “Vasya-Telecom LLC,” have no CEOs, admins, or license restrictions. This means anyone can not only use the technology but also contribute: from translating documentation to running your own node, which becomes an equal part of the network.

By the way, I can’t remember the last time I played an online game, because the hidden network community has become my second life, like an MMORPG for a hardcore gamer: I don’t know the members personally, so their nicknames feel like character names. Our “guild” always has big plans, and it’s incredibly fun to contribute as much as possible! And if you have a few spare bucks, donations are welcome: you can directly support developers or help fund network infrastructure (like server hosting).

To illustrate the equality in the community: I’m a nobody, barely an admin, but I hosted the first Yggdrasil bootstrap node in I2P. I had to solve a couple of small quests: write a script to create a bootstrap package with routers that have Yggdrasil addresses, and figure out how a reseed (bootstrap node) should work. When it was done, I felt real satisfaction—level up! Some might find this boring, but it’s this kind of enthusiasm that keeps the darknet alive and growing.

Hidden networks aren’t a place for horror stories—they’re a platform for free communication and personal growth for anyone interested in networking and cryptography.

If a government has to resort to harsh censorship, the problem is probably not an abundance of harmful information, but a dead-end political system.