network that is encrypted or requires a specific protocol to allow a user to connect to it. Sub-cultures Journalist J. D. Lasica, in his 2005 book Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation, described the darknet's reach encompassing file sharing networks. Subsequently, in 2014, journalist Jamie Bartlett in his book The Dark Net used the term to describe a range of underground and emergent subcultures, including camgirls, cryptoanarchists, darknet drug markets, self harm communities, social media racists, and transhumanists. Uses Darknets in general may be used for various reasons, such as: To better protect the privacy rights of citizens from targeted and mass surveillance Computer crime (cracking, file corruption, etc.) Protecting dissidents from political reprisal File sharing (warez, personal files, pornography, confidential files, illegal or counterfeit software, etc.) Sale of restricted goods on darknet markets Whistleblowing and news leaks Purchase or sale of illicit or illegal goods or services Circumventing network censorship and content-filtering systems, or bypassing restrictive firewall policies Software All darknets require specific software installed or network configurations made to access them, such as Tor, which can be accessed via a customized browser from Vidalia (aka the Tor browser bundle), or alternatively via a proxy configured to perform the same function. Active Tor is the most popular instance of a darknet, often mistakenly equated with darknet in general. Alphabetical list: anoNet is a decentralized friend-to-friend network built using VPN and software BGP routers. BitTorrent is a high performance semi-decentralized peer-to-peer communication protocol. Decentralized network 42 (not for anonymity but research purposes). Freenet is a popular DHT file hosting darknet platform. It supports friend-to-friend and opennet modes. GNUnet can be utilized as a darknet if the "F2F (network) topology" option is enabled. I2P (Invisible Internet Project) is an overlay proxy network that features hidden services called "Eepsites". IPFS has a browser extension that may backup popular webpages. RetroShare is a friend-to-friend messenger communication and file transfer platform. It may be used as a darknet if DHT and Discovery features are disabled. Riffle is a government, client-server darknet system that simultaneously provides secure anonymity (as long as at least one server remains uncompromised), efficient computation, and minimal bandwidth burden. Secure Scuttlebutt is a peer-to peer communication protocol, mesh network, and self-hosted social media ecosystem Syndie is software used to publish distributed forums over the anonymous networks of I2P, Tor and Freenet. Tor (The onion router) is an anonymity network that