Research claims that paedophilia sites using Tor’s ‘hidden services’ technology attract many more visits than drug markets and whistleblower sitesMore than 80% of so-called “dark net” internet traffic is generated by visits to websites offering child-abuse material, according to a study of Tor “hidden services” websites conducted at the University of Portsmouth.Researcher Dr Gareth Owen analysed traffic to sites using Tor’s technology to hide their addresses from search engines over a six-month period, in an attempt to understand what kind of sites were most popular.“The greater the number of distinct hidden services a person visits, and the less reliable those sites are, the more hidden service directory requests they will trigger.Suppose 10 people use hidden services to look at conspiracy theories, 100 people use hidden services to buy Cuban cigars, and 1000 people use it for online chat. Continue reading...