Welcome to the “dark net”, an unregulated space being used to a large extent to engage in illegal activity, discuss child abuse, search for information on censored topics, organize political action and, more and more, to buy and sell weapons and controlled substances. Of course, by sheer virtue of the dark net’s anonymity it’s difficult to be certain just who, exactly, you are communicating with, and to what degree offers and posts on various platforms and forums translate from the digital underbelly to the actual physical world.
VICE Germany editor Tom Littlewood went looking for where these two spheres come together. Tom speaks to a German weapons dealer about sales and distribution, and about how easy and reliable the system even is. Tom also catches up with cryptology specialist Karsten Nohl, torservers.net founder Moritz Bartl, and Ehsan Norouzi, an Iranian journalist who helps activists communicate safety, on the positive and negative aspects of a virtual space.
