The Challenge of Secrecy on the Internet

A website operated from 2006 to 2017 successfully facilitated illegal activities while remaining largely unnoticed by law enforcement. Despite its popularity, ranking among the top 6,000 websites globally, the community that formed around it thrived on a shared obsession with secrecy and the vile content they exchanged. Their commitment to protecting each other created a bond that made it difficult for outside forces to infiltrate the group. Ultimately, the fragile silence surrounding the website collapsed when a single user, motivated by greed, triggered an avalanche of events that exposed their illicit activities to the world.