Still, the evidence shows that it previously constituted a primary propaganda aggregator of the HTS, consisting of images of mujahideen, videos, and group’s announcements.

onion URL proved to be unavailable in 2021. Its main surface website- TahrerSham (Figure 1)-has redirected users to a TOR address since at least 2020. However, at the beginning of 2021, all publicly available URLs of the KC proved to be inactive.Īlso, the Syrian-based Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was known for experimenting with the dark web.

It also changed its addresses at least twice. Analysis of dark web link collections (for instance, the Uncensored Hidden Wiki) shows that the KC has utilized the. For a long time, this domain was engaged in proliferating releases of the Caucasus Emirate. At least one of them was dedicated to promoting audiovisual productions of the IS exclusively.Īnother notable example of Salafi-jihadist propaganda dissemination in TOR is related to the Kavkaz Center(KC), one of the oldest and most popular Chechen extremist web pages. onion domains of the group available there. Aside from the aforementioned Isdarat, which was probably established in 2015 and constituted the most abundant repository of propaganda of Daesh (IS) on the dark web, there were only a few other. Previous research shows that even at the apogee of the Islamic State’s online campaign in 2014-2015, this group was not very keen to exploit TOR on a massive scale. The exploitation of the Onion Router by the Salafi-jihadist VEOs is usually perceived by academia as an essential means of propaganda dissemination, but few examples prove that. In search for Salafi-jihadist propaganda on the dark web Therefore, this note aims to reinvigorate this discussion by briefly outlining the specificity of digital jihadist environments that were detectable with open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools in the Onion Router at the beginning of 2021. In the last decade, only a few papers that discussed this problem were published in internationally recognized journals, and most of them were not even evidence-based. In this context, it is quite surprising to note that the academic debate on the activities of Salafi-jihadist VEOs on the dark web is quite limited. Moreover, recent reports suggest that terrorist organizations have also attempted to utilize the potential of the rapidly developing ZeroNet. At the time also the popular Shumukh al-Islam message board was available in this environment. However, this trend has become increasingly visible since the advent of the Islamic State’s (IS) campaign, which maintained at least several services in TOR, including the infamous Isdarat. One of the first to do so was al-Qaeda, as its affiliated message boards moved “under the surface” during the War on Terror.

They have experimented with this environment for more than a decade. Unique technical traits of the dark web have also attracted attention from Salafi-jihadist violent extremist organizations (VEOs) that are in constant search of new technologies allowing safer and more persistent communication with their sympathizers and members. Effectively, the dark web has become an online communication layer known not for the freedom of speech but rather for popular drug markets, firearm vendors, leaked databases, or illegal pornography. Cybercriminal underground quickly realized that these technologies substantially facilitate the exchange of illicit goods, services, and content. This was mostly caused by the fact that the Onion Router (TOR), Invisible Internet Project (I2P), Freenet or-more recently-ZeroNet provide users with a set of tools enabling anonymous and safe communication. What was initially perceived as an experimental and legitimate response to the increased government control over the Internet in time has become a source of a broad spectrum of computer-related crimes. The emergence of the dark web at the beginning of the 21 st century is considered to be one of the most significant developments in the history of the digital revolution. Exploring the digital jihadist underground on the Onion Router (TOR)

Tor links that work 2016