News: Anonymity, Darknets and Staying Out of Federal Custody, Part Four: The Invisible Internet

In the last article, we left off with the Tor network and its hidden services. As I mentioned, Tor is not the only option in the game, and I want to offer a general introduction to I2P.

For a web browsing proxy and hidden services host, Tor gets the job done well. But if you are looking to expand your options for secure communication, then enter I2P! This article will show you how to obtain and set up I2P, and in the process, we will also configure an IRC client to access the IRC2P network and get you up and running.

Invisible Internet and Onion Routing

I2P initially began in 2003 as a proposed modification to Freenet. To deal with a wide range of attacks, I2P is fully distributed with no centralized resources— hence there are no directory servers keeping statistics regarding the performance and reliability of routers within the network. I2P is not 100% secure, as nothing is 100% secure, but using it will provide you with meaningful security nonetheless.

Content sent over I2P is encrypted through three-layer garlic encryption, used to verify the delivery of the message to the recipient. All messages passing through a tunnel are encrypted by the tunnel gateway to the tunnel endpoint, and undergo inter-router transport layer encryption along the way. You also have the ability to tunnel TCP/IP based applications (IRC, Jabber, steaming music, etc.) through the network. In fact, you can even tunnel your torrent downloads!

Step 1 Download I2P

Let's start with a visit to the download page to grab the Windows binary or source code, if needed. If you are using Debian/Ubuntu or Mint, we can add the repositories by simply typing:

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:i2p-maintainers/i2p
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install i2p

This downloads and installs the I2P router on your computer.

Step 2 Start the I2P Router

Now that we have the packages downloaded and installed, we must start the service. We do this by simply typing:

$ i2prouter start

After we type that command, the I2P router will begin to bootstrap itself into the network. It is recommended to give this process some time as it seeks out and adds other nodes for you to route traffic through. After a few seconds, I2P will open a browser with the router console as seen below. You may close this.

Step 3 Invisible Internet Relay Chat

Some of you might have a preferred IRC client already. I use Irssi myself, but Xchat will work for most people. Normally, when you open the client you have the chance to connect to a server and port number. Because I2P runs as a service connected to your loopback address, we need to connect to it to access the IRC2P network by typing:

/server localhost 6668

That's it! You are now connected  to the IRC2P network. You can use normal IRC commands such as /list to locate channels. Also please feel free to /join #nullbyte and #i2p and say hello!

tl;dr

Just want the commands to get up and running? Look no further.

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:i2p-maintainers/i2p
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install i2p
$ i2prouter start

Then start your IRC client and type:

/server localhost 6668
/join #nullbyte

See you in the Deep Web!