Dérive on the Shadownet
Guy Debord and the Situationists pioneered a radical way of interacting with the urban environment, a method for revealing, and later mapping, the subtle psychic flows of the city. They called it the dérive and these psychically attuned walks became an integral part of the situationist political strategy.
"In a dérive one or more persons ... let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there..." Guy Debord wrote in 1958. "From a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones."
Half a century after situationists mapped the arrondissements of Paris, it is time for a next generation of rebels to explore the dark, subterranean cities that Debord could not have accessed: the hidden shadownets that flow below the surface of today's global internet. Let this be a first attempt at a psychogeographic exploration of the illicit darkwebs, the anonymous networks and clandestine sub-cultures of today's cryptoanarchic shadownet.
Just as the situationist of yesterday would begin their dérive with a choice of cities, our journey begins with a decision between the three main anonymous networks: Tor, I2P and Freenet. Each holds unique challenges and has a particular culture but today we shall make our decision based upon the chance flip of a coin and begin in Tor's onionland.
Although many people are aware that Tor allows for anonymous browsing of the mainstream, corporate internet, fewer realize that Tor also includes a so-called "hidden onionland" where both users and the servers they are accessing are anonymous. These hidden websites are distinguished by their .onion URLs, hence the name onionland, and our interest will be in staying entirely within the network of these sites that are inaccessible outside of Tor.
Every journey begins with preparatory steps. For us that involves anonymizing ourselves so that we may pass into the shadownet. But aside from the technical steps necessary to gain access to the darkweb, we must also be attuned to the very real dangers that we face. Debord was careful to explain that all dérives come with risk, and the stroll through onionland is no exception. We are entering an network where anonymity allows for the open exchange of illicit information along with, as we shall see, virtual and real goods. The danger for us is that we shall bring back traces of the shadownet and that these illegal residues will linger on our computer.
To protect myself on this particular journey, I have constructed a special Tor-only laptop that is incapable of long-term memory. The hard-drive has been physically removed and the entire operating system is run off of a read-only Linux livecd specially designed for exploring Tor. All of my traffic data will be encrypted and anonymous. When the system is powered down, it will be incapable of remembering what occurred. As I shall save no mementos of our walk except my memories, there will be a physical, and virtual, separation between these two worlds.
I insert the cd, turn on my amnesiac computer and begin my stroll. As the first .onion page slowly loads, it feels as if the empty room in which I sit is invaded by the specter of the law. Faced with complete freedom, the invisible police inside my head makes its presence felt. Prohibition shakes its stick. I note this sensation of risk as a part of the psychogeography of onionland and continue strolling. From a general directory site listing, I make my way towards community. I want to know who else is in this world and find that there are plenty of message boards where active discussion is being held.
One site in particular, The Opensource Vendor Database, grabs my attention. Here I stumble across my first taste of the illicit: an anonymous website where all manner of drugs is for sale including marijuana by the pound, LSD from Europe, and synthetic designer drugs discreetly shipped from special laboratories. The site includes a reputation system to protect buyers from the feds and scammers while sellers hide behind complicated payment systems that involve a gold-backed digital currency called the Pecunix. From the comments left by satisfied users, the site is clearly a hub of international drug trafficking but the friendly tone of the sellers and the simplicity of dealing via postal mail has the strange effect of making one feel as if they have entered an alternate reality where buying drugs is a no big deal.
We leave behind this underworld and follow links until we come to the Hidden Wiki, the definitive guide to the darkest recesses of onionland. A war is raging here between those who want the hidden darkweb to include everything and those who want to exclude at least one thing: child pornography. This debate plagues all anonymity networks because of the crypto-anarchist position that any ability to filter content on the hidden web would represent a flaw in the anonymity system. After all, their argument goes, if we can block abhorrent pornography than tyrannies could block politically dangerous content. Freenet is notorious for building "censorship resistance" into its anonymity system: no one, not even the creator, can remove content from Freenet because it is an entirely p2p, distributed datastore without servers that can be knocked offline. Content drifts in Freenet like flotsam in the ocean. Tor, on the other hand, relies on currently operating servers which results in a profound psychogeographic disparity that is akin to knowing one is reading a book versus talking to a real person. Tor feels alive whereas Freenet often feels dead or ghost-like.
Walking away from the Hidden Wiki war against child exploitation, we find ourselves at talk.Masked, an anonymous discussion forum that will be the final destination of today's dérive. Here we discern a strong anti-corporate bent and experience shivers as we overhear participants discuss the possibility of provoking an armed insurrection or civil war in America. It is just talk for now, but it is clear that there is a seriousness that suggests it might not be talk forever. Will onionland be the place where an anti-corporate revolution is planned?
After several hours in the underground, I turn off my computer and fall back into the "real world". In onionland, I observed the international drug trade, assiduously avoided the child exploiters, and listened with keen interest to emerging revolutionaries. As I blink my eyes and come back to the ordered world of domineering law, I sense that my relation to this world has profoundly shifted.
Later, as I walk the real streets of my neighborhood, a residue of the dérive sticks to my consciousness. That the shadownet exists, that there is a hidden, anonymous world easily accessible, works to re-enchant the tired commercialized reality that I had until now occupied. Psychically liberated for a moment, I taste the revolutionary potential of the digital dérive.
38 comments on the article “Dérive on the Shadownet”
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Dorje
You are actually unaware of your own brain chemistry and the movements that go beyond the spawns of the 20th century. Im coming from a lineage 10,000 years old and your living in a bubble of ideologies. Psychedelic tryptamin indoles were a catalyst for language acquisition in middle paleolithic man and our separation from the earth is the endemic source of ignorance. The viral thought patterns that have made taboo the very tools that were used to birth our consciousness in the first place. Now we just have binary linear thinkers telling us how to run a revolution, but they dont know what comes before or after, they arent even here now. You don't know anything about whats actually going on, In a few years things will be apparent. The kraken lives, and when its moves the earth shakes. Stay sharp in the abyss. A schizophrenic is characterized by fantasies discordant from actual life, paranoia, and random thought patterns which are disorganized and erratic. a clouded mind enslaved to stimuli responses. I am not like this. Ignorant people need the spectacle, so get that for yourself, but liberation is the right of birth, of all sentience and you dont know because its beyond your identification with your ego self as a 'revolutionary' really your just a name and some font on the internet. Thats why the internet will fail us, the real internet is the psychic spiritual network across our collective consciousness which awakes when we dream. Share the dream to access the next levels of awareness or congeal around your limited knowledge within a small sphere, shrink around your fears, what is beyond your impermanent life? You don't go that far. Your movement lacks spirit, thats why it will get crushed under the weight of surveillance spy culture and the implements of state control. You wont survive, you will be broken and conform, because you seek liberation of material control and not the realization of your true nature. Dharma will conquer, one way or another, Im sowing the umbrella for the future, its made from the spark between our neurons kept in synchonous flux with the magnetic pull of the earth and the polarities of the 13 lunations. Or maybe Im just talking a bunch of shit. Probably. Its not for sharing anymore, its just for the lonely schizoid to keep to himself until the time is right, maybe 15 years. maybe 2 months. Who knows? You think you do, I know I only experience and behold, create models to understand after the fact, without being to heavily attached to my dogmatic ideologies. But emptiness isnt really an ideology, its the state of things when things cease to be. Why is this mind feared? Hide from your true selves. Sowing the seeds, the umbrella shelters the movements from the rain. Watch it go, you can't change the course without unity and realization. Spectacles are one offs. Awareness permeates time itself and brings it into accordance with the way of things unseen by those who have forgotten for thousands of years. Liberation comes to those who weight, Liquid iron ore in the core of the earth. Heavy electromagnetic effects just on the periphery of perception. No one on this side of the 'movement' of the 'revolution' is ready for it. It happens anyways. Stay sharp. No belief is necessary, stay aware. Beware the Kraken lives.
Dorje
You are actually unaware of your own brain chemistry and the movements that go beyond the spawns of the 20th century. Im coming from a lineage 10,000 years old and your living in a bubble of ideologies. Psychedelic tryptamin indoles were a catalyst for language acquisition in middle paleolithic man and our separation from the earth is the endemic source of ignorance. The viral thought patterns that have made taboo the very tools that were used to birth our consciousness in the first place. Now we just have binary linear thinkers telling us how to run a revolution, but they dont know what comes before or after, they arent even here now. You don't know anything about whats actually going on, In a few years things will be apparent. The kraken lives, and when its moves the earth shakes. Stay sharp in the abyss. A schizophrenic is characterized by fantasies discordant from actual life, paranoia, and random thought patterns which are disorganized and erratic. a clouded mind enslaved to stimuli responses. I am not like this. Ignorant people need the spectacle, so get that for yourself, but liberation is the right of birth, of all sentience and you dont know because its beyond your identification with your ego self as a 'revolutionary' really your just a name and some font on the internet. Thats why the internet will fail us, the real internet is the psychic spiritual network across our collective consciousness which awakes when we dream. Share the dream to access the next levels of awareness or congeal around your limited knowledge within a small sphere, shrink around your fears, what is beyond your impermanent life? You don't go that far. Your movement lacks spirit, thats why it will get crushed under the weight of surveillance spy culture and the implements of state control. You wont survive, you will be broken and conform, because you seek liberation of material control and not the realization of your true nature. Dharma will conquer, one way or another, Im sowing the umbrella for the future, its made from the spark between our neurons kept in synchonous flux with the magnetic pull of the earth and the polarities of the 13 lunations. Or maybe Im just talking a bunch of shit. Probably. Its not for sharing anymore, its just for the lonely schizoid to keep to himself until the time is right, maybe 15 years. maybe 2 months. Who knows? You think you do, I know I only experience and behold, create models to understand after the fact, without being to heavily attached to my dogmatic ideologies. But emptiness isnt really an ideology, its the state of things when things cease to be. Why is this mind feared? Hide from your true selves. Sowing the seeds, the umbrella shelters the movements from the rain. Watch it go, you can't change the course without unity and realization. Spectacles are one offs. Awareness permeates time itself and brings it into accordance with the way of things unseen by those who have forgotten for thousands of years. Liberation comes to those who weight, Liquid iron ore in the core of the earth. Heavy electromagnetic effects just on the periphery of perception. No one on this side of the 'movement' of the 'revolution' is ready for it. It happens anyways. Stay sharp. No belief is necessary, stay aware. Beware the Kraken lives.
Dorje
Attack of the radicals...
Dorje
Attack of the radicals...
Broski
Yeah yeah, the whole terrence mckenna trip about psychedelics being the catalyst for language, human culture, et al. I've read it, its fascinating, entertaining, and questionable. But if these psychedelics were in fact the source of language, conceptual thought, symbolic thinking, tool creation, horticulture, agriculture, and civilization, then couldn't it be said that psychedelics were also the catalyst for the human separation from nature? The forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? I dont believe this, but Im just playing devil's advocate.
And yes, i realize that im about to make some huge assumptions about you, but unless you are a part of these non-technological societies that use psychedelics for religious purposes, you cannot say that you are a part of a 10,000 year old lineage. Listening to the blues and eating soul food will not make me black, nor will I understand what it is like to be a contemporary black person, much less a sharecropper in the 1920's. Watching fiddler on the roof, or visiting a synagogue will not make me jewish. And yes, taking psychedelics will not make me a person in a prehistoric society. I can do (and have done) all of these things, but when you get down to it, every day I wake up the same ohio honkey that I was the day before (and I'm guessing that you do too?).
These are surely difficult and confusing times. Having lost faith in every institution that our culture once looked to as pillars of stability is a huge shock. Some become paraniod conspiracy buffs who believe in nothing. Some (like myself) critique capitalism and try and formulate an action plan. And some (maybe like yourself, I dunno, as this is another assumption of mine that could very well be totally off base) lose faith in civilization and reality itself. And I (respectfully, honest!) disagree.
Broski
Yeah yeah, the whole terrence mckenna trip about psychedelics being the catalyst for language, human culture, et al. I've read it, its fascinating, entertaining, and questionable. But if these psychedelics were in fact the source of language, conceptual thought, symbolic thinking, tool creation, horticulture, agriculture, and civilization, then couldn't it be said that psychedelics were also the catalyst for the human separation from nature? The forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? I dont believe this, but Im just playing devil's advocate.
And yes, i realize that im about to make some huge assumptions about you, but unless you are a part of these non-technological societies that use psychedelics for religious purposes, you cannot say that you are a part of a 10,000 year old lineage. Listening to the blues and eating soul food will not make me black, nor will I understand what it is like to be a contemporary black person, much less a sharecropper in the 1920's. Watching fiddler on the roof, or visiting a synagogue will not make me jewish. And yes, taking psychedelics will not make me a person in a prehistoric society. I can do (and have done) all of these things, but when you get down to it, every day I wake up the same ohio honkey that I was the day before (and I'm guessing that you do too?).
These are surely difficult and confusing times. Having lost faith in every institution that our culture once looked to as pillars of stability is a huge shock. Some become paraniod conspiracy buffs who believe in nothing. Some (like myself) critique capitalism and try and formulate an action plan. And some (maybe like yourself, I dunno, as this is another assumption of mine that could very well be totally off base) lose faith in civilization and reality itself. And I (respectfully, honest!) disagree.
Dorje
The plants are the teacher, the wisdom of the earth. This isn't a belief or ideology its the experience of realization. Some practice this way, others don't know. When the rains come, we will share the umbrella; Unless your going to bash my head in? Good thing I know esoteric tryptamine qigong practice. Doesn't matter what you think or say, or write or believe. What is experienced in the body is tangible and real, beyond what we can currently conceive. For some reason I am convinced we need to bridge the worlds of the alternative movements into a cohesive process of revolution, working in many ways, across many platforms and media. In the flesh, with word, and through action. The common enemies will butcher the earth just the same, regardless of our petty squabbling about whats what. Unity doesn't mean agreeance necessarily, but it means seeing the puzzle for the whole and not just picking apart the pieces. The bastards of voltaire would have us playing the game of dualistic notions and dichotomies of thought stuffing our intuitions into boxes, and telling us to follow the programming. Their are many ways to liberation, and different people have varying ideas of what liberation means. But we can all agree: fuck our enemies. Those who would greed fuck our earth into hundreds of years of darkness, those who would cause suffering to profit their fear mongering lives to boost their egos above the next guy to feel slightly elated at the price of virtue. Harmonize with the earth, were going back, were going deep, its not an ideology, its the earth speaking to us. Thats debatable for some, because they are enslaved by 'reason' and rationalization, false logic scientific dogmatic structural thought patterns that create monsanto GMO poison hate foods for our cousins and brothers. Reclaim the earth. Harmony can exist between the factions of the alternative movements. We are the earth, our enemies are the machines without face. Their logic is linear and that is their downfall, innovation comes from the chaos. The uncontrollable impulse to liberation and freedom, the realization that the earth is threatened, that we are made slaves to be complicit in the ecocide. Complicit in the genocide, complicit in oil wars and chinese respritory disease exchanged for plastic crap we are convinced we need by boxes of light and sound. They wont survive our wrath, they will succumb under the pressure of mass realization. Many wars on many fronts. The mycellium pushes through the concrete and puts cracks in the walls. When its time the mushrooms will fruit on the corpse of wallstreet.
Dorje
The plants are the teacher, the wisdom of the earth. This isn't a belief or ideology its the experience of realization. Some practice this way, others don't know. When the rains come, we will share the umbrella; Unless your going to bash my head in? Good thing I know esoteric tryptamine qigong practice. Doesn't matter what you think or say, or write or believe. What is experienced in the body is tangible and real, beyond what we can currently conceive. For some reason I am convinced we need to bridge the worlds of the alternative movements into a cohesive process of revolution, working in many ways, across many platforms and media. In the flesh, with word, and through action. The common enemies will butcher the earth just the same, regardless of our petty squabbling about whats what. Unity doesn't mean agreeance necessarily, but it means seeing the puzzle for the whole and not just picking apart the pieces. The bastards of voltaire would have us playing the game of dualistic notions and dichotomies of thought stuffing our intuitions into boxes, and telling us to follow the programming. Their are many ways to liberation, and different people have varying ideas of what liberation means. But we can all agree: fuck our enemies. Those who would greed fuck our earth into hundreds of years of darkness, those who would cause suffering to profit their fear mongering lives to boost their egos above the next guy to feel slightly elated at the price of virtue. Harmonize with the earth, were going back, were going deep, its not an ideology, its the earth speaking to us. Thats debatable for some, because they are enslaved by 'reason' and rationalization, false logic scientific dogmatic structural thought patterns that create monsanto GMO poison hate foods for our cousins and brothers. Reclaim the earth. Harmony can exist between the factions of the alternative movements. We are the earth, our enemies are the machines without face. Their logic is linear and that is their downfall, innovation comes from the chaos. The uncontrollable impulse to liberation and freedom, the realization that the earth is threatened, that we are made slaves to be complicit in the ecocide. Complicit in the genocide, complicit in oil wars and chinese respritory disease exchanged for plastic crap we are convinced we need by boxes of light and sound. They wont survive our wrath, they will succumb under the pressure of mass realization. Many wars on many fronts. The mycellium pushes through the concrete and puts cracks in the walls. When its time the mushrooms will fruit on the corpse of wallstreet.
Anonymous
So you're the one who's been leaving verbose anarchist replies on talk.masked. talk.
un
masked!
Anonymous
So you're the one who's been leaving verbose anarchist replies on talk.masked. talk.
un
masked!
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