So, within Tor at the moment, you can measure the number of visitors going to particular sites. Back in 2014 we did a study, one of the first of its kind, to understand what Tor is used for by studying the different dark net websites and classifying them into the types of content which they offer and ranking them by the number of visits which they received to each website. Owenson: My work essentially is studying the dark net to understand what it’s used for and by whom. HSToday: Tell us about the work that you do.

Owenson spoke with Homeland Security Today after speaking on dark web and U.S. government to combat authoritarian regimes - were devoted to child pornography. In 2014, Owenson, a senior lecturer in the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth, released a study finding that 80 percent of sites on the Tor dark web - largely funded by the U.S. Child pornography, drugs and weapons sales and more - Gareth Owenson has spent the past five years of his life indexing and tracking the dark web, and over time his opinion of the Tor Project’s anonymous capabilities, while initially in line with the browser’s ability to facilitate freedom of expression, has soured.

Worst tor websites