Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>

For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been
private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and
often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of
people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and
communications typically for illegal activities.

Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information
sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All
of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of
covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to
pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need
for capacity.

According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term
Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which
were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists
and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term
has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file
sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.

The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments
around the globe.  Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff
judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of
botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has
abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move
beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project
power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct
such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no
longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than
hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb
in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."

I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more
then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited
to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental
organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are
quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly
pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
members are able to counter or block network threats in a private,
anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system.
An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through
a series of counter measures.

My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private
corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal
ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves
from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?

(Original Post: http://elasticvapor.com/2008/07/rise-of-dark-cloud.html)

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Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.

blog > www.elasticvapor.com
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