Filesharing indexing sites that operate like search engines for piracy links, are taking to the dark web to escape the clutches of copyright owners.

A new piracy indexing site funded solely by Bitcoins, NewsNab+, has set up shop within the Tor network – commonly referred to as the dark web due to the fact that it is not indexed by search engines and cannot be accessed via the open internet or Google – using its anonymity to protect the piracy site’s location and identity from litigation from copyright owners and their representatives like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

"By using Tor as the base of operations, we have reduced the risk of our users being discovered, as well as the risk of the site being discovered, therefore providing a more reliable, long-term solution for indexing,” the administrator of NewsNab+ known only as Tyrion told filesharing news site TorrentFreak.

NewzNab+ offers links via Tor to download copyrighted media using the usenet filesharing service. Photograph: Screengrab

The Tor project is a non-profit organisation that conducts research and development into online privacy and anonymity. It is designed to stop people – including government agencies and corporations – learning your location or tracking your browsing habits.

It offers a browser that bounces internet users' and websites' traffic through "relays" run by thousands of volunteers around the world, making it extremely hard for anyone to identify the source of the information or the location of the user.

Anonymity protection for both administrators and users

Hiding within Tor affords both the administrators of the site some anonymity protection as well as its users. However, it isn’t entirely foolproof, as action taking down the online drugs marketplace Silk Road in October, which also operated solely within the Tor network, proved.

Tyrion describes the use of Tor as like having a heavy bouncer on the door of a club – he only lets in clientele that NewsNab+ wants through the door, but given enough resources and manpower, he could be overwhelmed. The amount of effort required to overwhelm the Tor protection would be prohibitively expensive, at least that’s what Tyrion hopes.

Recent action by media groups, putting pressure on payment providers like Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, resulted in several high-profile usernet indexing pirate sites like NZBMatrix folding due to lack of funding. NewsNab+ hopes to avoid that kind of situation by adopting bitcoin as its primary funding strategy, accepting donations in the digital peer-to-peer currency and not relying on ads or other funding sources.

Forced underground

The move further underground has been fuelled by increasing pressure from media groups like the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, the BPI and the Federation Against Copyright Theft. It is unknown whether other sites like the notorious Pirate Bay would follow suit, or whether NewsNab+ is likely to be popular.

Tor was relatively unknown until high-profile sites like Silk Road and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s use of the anonymity network hit the mainstream media, but now it is slowly becoming more well known as more and more allegedly illegal sites move into the dark web to escape monitoring and prosecution by the authorities.

• Tor is a privacy tool that hides your location and internet address from surveillance by bouncing your internet requests through multiple computers