 a darknet is a private network where connections are made only between trusted peers&nbsp;â sometimes called "friends" (f2f)&nbsp;â using non-standard protocols and ports. darknets are distinct from other distributed peer-to-peer networks as sharing is anonymous (that is, ip addresses are not publicly shared), and therefore users can communicate with little fear of governmental or corporate interference. for this reason, darknets are often associated with dissident political communications and illegal activities. more generally, the term "darknet" can be used to describe all non-commercial sites on the internet, or to refer to all "underground" web communications and technologies, most commonly those associated with illegal activity or dissent. ==history== originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from arpanet (which evolved into the internet) for security purposes, 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. the term gained public acceptance following publication of "the darknet and the future of content distribution", a 2002 paper by peter biddle, paul england, marcus peinado, and bryan willman, four employees of microsoft who described the concept as follows: the idea of the darknet is based upon three assumptions: # any widely distributed object will be available to a f
File_sharing Virtual_private_networks