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. 2020 Dec 15;117(50):31716-31721.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2011893117. Epub 2020 Nov 30.

The potential harms of the Tor anonymity network cluster disproportionately in free countries

Eric Jardine  1 , Andrew M Lindner  2 , Gareth Owenson  3
Affiliations

The potential harms of the Tor anonymity network cluster disproportionately in free countries

Eric Jardine et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The Tor anonymity network allows users to protect their privacy and circumvent censorship restrictions but also shields those distributing child abuse content, selling or buying illicit drugs, or sharing malware online. Using data collected from Tor entry nodes, we provide an estimation of the proportion of Tor network users that likely employ the network in putatively good or bad ways. Overall, on an average country/day, ∼6.7% of Tor network users connect to Onion/Hidden Services that are disproportionately used for illicit purposes. We also show that the likely balance of beneficial and malicious use of Tor is unevenly spread globally and systematically varies based upon a country's political conditions. In particular, using Freedom House's coding and terminological classifications, the proportion of often illicit Onion/Hidden Services use is more prevalent (∼7.8%) in "free" countries than in either "partially free" (∼6.7%) or "not free" regimes (∼4.8%).

Keywords: Dark Web; child abuse; cryptomarkets; political freedom; political rights.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
More politically “free” countries have higher proportions of Hidden Services traffic than is present in either “partially free” or “not free” nations (n = 195 countries). Each point indicates the average daily %HS for a given country. The white regions represent the kernel density distributions for each ordinal category of political freedom (“free,” “partially free,” and “not free”).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Throughout the observed time period (12/31/2018–8/18/2019), “free” countries typically had a higher proportion of Hidden Services traffic than either “partially free” or “not free” nations on a daily basis. The green, cyan, and mauve lines indicate the average daily %HS for “free,” “partially free,” and “not free” countries, respectively (n = 37,922 country-days).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Data show a positive association between Freedom House’s political freedom subcategories and average daily %HS. Each graph represents a different aspect of political freedom (the freedom of a country’s “electoral process,” its levels of “political pluralism and participation,” the “functioning of government,” the extent of “freedom of expression and belief,” “associational and organizational rights,” “rule of law,” and “personal autonomy/individual rights”). The same 195 countries (each represented by a point) appear in all seven graph. The blue line in each graph is a linear fitted line for the association between each subcategory of political freedom and %HS.
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References

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