I’ve noticed on trend on various websites lately. When people use the words “deep web” or “dark web,” they tend to be thinking of Tor – which is why I thought I should talk about Freenet more often!

I’ve mentioned it on several previous posts (for those of you who are new to the blog…welcome!).

Interview: Arne Babenhauserheide of pyFreenet and Infocalypse

Alternatives to Tor: Freenet

This time around, let’s explore some actual Freenet sites (or freesites, as they’re called). While the interface may not look that exciting, that seems to be a common factor across networks like Tor, I2P, and Freenet.

The above screenshot is of Linkageddon, the “uncensored” link list on Freenet. It lists every freesite, legal or not. So I figured I’d start with Nerdageddon, which is similar, but removes most of the “offensive” content (though I’m not one to be easily offended).

Nerds We Are…Cool As Us You Wish You Were

At the time of this writing, that’s the latest iteration of Nerdageddon. Some of it, as you may or may not be able to see, consists of FMS Sites, which are generated via the Freenet Messaging System (FMS) and are merely chat logs. I skipped over those for the most part.

One of the first sites I checked out was called The Frugal Dungeon Master (remember, you need to be connected to Freenet to access it). If the title hasn’t clued you in already, it’s meant for players of Dungeons and Dragons (a.k.a. D&D).

The text (which I’m sure looks infinitesimally small on your monitor) reads: “Tired of paging through PDFs? Here is a convenient reference for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. It supports searching, sorting, and filtering. This version includes the monsters, spells and magic items from the basic rules, the player’s handbook, and the dungeon master’s guide. I’ll add content as time and scan quality permit.

The reference is a Ruby on Rails web application. You can install it on one computer and then access it from any device on your network.”

Ooh, Ruby on Rails! Now you’ve sparked my interest! As a burgeoning coder, I plan to eventually learn it, but I’m still working on several other languages at the moment. As they say:

This is probably less exciting to those of you who aren’t into RPGs, or don’t code – but there’s more to Freenet, I promise.

P.S. If you don’t code, you may want to get into it – you may like it, you never know!!

Scammers Getting Scammed?

I also came across a suspicious looking freesite called Bitcoin Doubler Scripts (pictured above), which made this claim:

“Hi all. he [sic] last year I was trying to find a good bitcoin doubler but it is not easy because most of the available software is not working.

I found several different versions and remade them to operate [sic] , fully functional software that you can use at any time on Your webpages..

I will soon expand this page which forum board [sic] ,will be good to exchange information about the operation of scripts.

On this moment I have ready four versions.”

He (or she?) then features four download links to the scripts, which I won’t include, because I suspect this is either a scam, or something with malware embedded. Why do I suspect this?

Well, I’ve seen hundreds of these types of sites on Tor, and I don’t have reason to believe this one’s any different. Hell, it could be one of the same people who’s offering it on Tor, trying to branch out!

I’ll give you a few examples I’ve seen (I DO NOT SUGGEST USING THESE! YOU WILL GET SCAMMED!!):

100x Your Bitcoins in 24 Hours!

Profit with your coins – and get rich!

20% profit, payed from newer transfers

the hottest dark web ponzi

get 5% intrest with your money [sic]

Just the fact that each site looks almost identical (as well as the BTC addresses looking similar) makes me think that it’s the same scammer running all of them. Plus, the fact that they used the word “ponzi” to describe one of them is very telling. So I repeat: do not give them your money!

As for the Freenet one, I haven’t tried it so I can’t guarantee anything, but it’s likely just as fake. Interesting what we discover sometimes, huh? I hope I was able to prevent a few people from losing their hard-earned bitcoins today.

If you did, then don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As Eddard Stark Would Say…

For those of you who love Game of Thrones but don’t have HBO or HBO GO, there’s a freesite called TV.Game.of.Thrones that features all of the episodes.

I’m quite certain you can download them from torrent sites as well, but this was so easy to find, that I just had to throw it out there. I must confess that I’m way behind in watching this show, but it was a cool find on here.

They also have I2P links in case the Freenet site goes down.

Come on, Where’s the Disturbing Stuff?

*Sigh* – I figured this question would come up eventually. Well, trust me – there are plenty of disturbing and creepy things on Freenet as well.

If you browse through Linkageddon, you may see some sites with the text “Contains underage material.” If you’re into CP or that sort of thing, that’s probably where you should go.

Now, if it’s something like lolicon, where it’s animated, I find that slightly less disturbing, but I still have to question the motives of someone who finds it sexually arousing.

Well, as you probably know if you visited any of the dark web for some time, there’s child pornography if you’re looking for it. In my earlier post Dark Web: What Are Candydolls?, I described the phenomenon of “candydolls,” which are essentially underage girls dressed up in adult clothing in a sexual manner.

I have, unfortunately, come across a few sites like that on Freenet – but it’s to be expected if you’re using any kind of anonymity software, so I really wasn’t that surprised by it.

So again – if you really want to see the disturbing shit, just take a look through Linkageddon, and I’m sure you’ll come across it.

Is it For Me?

That being said, I really like Freenet overall, disturbing or not, and I think it has great potential to be a network for all kinds of purposes. As I have the chance to explore it more, I’ll definitely write some more posts about it.

And yes, I still recommend that you go there – there’s no requirement that you visit the disturbing sites if you don’t want to.

If you see that shit…it’s because you were looking for it!