Is the Darknet a glimpse into the web of the future?

Editor’s Note: Tomorrow Transformed explores innovative approaches and opportunities available in business and society through technology. Story highlights The Darknet is an anonymised section of the net where users can operate without leaving their digital fingerprints The Darknet attracts the internet's fringe dwellers, from criminal syndicates to human rights activists and dissidents An art group has armed an internet bot to spend $100 in bitcoins a week on random articles So far the bot as bought everything from cigarettes to illicit drugs CNN — What will the internet of the future look like? “Democratic revolutionaries, whistle blowers, human rights activists who are also concerned about giving away their location also want somewhere where they can post stuff illegally and anonymously.” U.S military Bartlett said the browser was initially developed by the U.S. military as a way of traversing the internet secretly, but since then had become an open source project. “You even used to write down web addresses on pieces of paper and pass them to each other.” Art project The Random Darknet Shopper art project Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier Just what can be found on the Darknet is often the subject of wild conjecture, but a recent project launched by the!Mediengruppe Bitnik art collective – called “The Darknet – From Memes to Onionland” - shows exactly what is on offer on the Internet’s underbelly. Arming an automated internet bot with US$100 in bitcoins the “Random Darknet Shopper” trawls its murky corners and every week buys one item at random.