Archives for the Dark Web: A Field Guide for Study by Robert A. Gehl.
Abstract:
This chapter provides a field guide for other digital humanists who want to study the Dark Web. In order to focus the chapter, I emphasize my belief that, in order to study the cultures of Dark Web sites and users, the digital humanist must engage with these systems’ technical infrastructures. I will provide specific reasons why I believe that understanding the technical details of Freenet, Tor, and I2P will benefit any researchers who study these systems, even if they focus on end users, aesthetics, or Dark Web cultures. To this end, I offer a catalog of archives and resources researchers could draw on and a discussion of why researchers should build their own archives. I conclude with some remarks about ethics of Dark Web research.
Highly recommended read but it falls short on practical archiving advice for starting researchers and journalists.
Digital resources, Dark Web or no, can be emphemeral. Archiving produces the only reliable and persistent record of resources as you encountered them.
I am untroubled by Gehl’s concern for research ethics. Research ethics can disarm and distract scholars in the face of amoral enemies. Governments and their contractors, to name only two such enemies, exhibit no ethical code other than self-advantage.
Those who harm innocents, rely on my non-contractual ethics at their own peril.