E CONTRACTS INTRODUCTION

The Indian Contract Act, 1872 defines contract as an agreement between two or more
parties for the buying/selling of goods or services for a valid consideration
Section 10 of the IT Act, 2008 gives legislative authority to E contracts. It says
that, “Where in a contract formation, the communication of proposals, the acceptance of
proposals, the revocation of proposals and acceptances, as the case may be, are expressed
in electronic form or by means of an electronic record, such contract shall not be deemed
to be unenforceable solely on the ground that such electronic form or means was used for
that purpose.”
In recent times, the conventionally functioned models of business have become out-of-
date and in many cases are not execution enough income to the owners or shareholders of
the company. A usual example of such a situation in the business of newspaper in the
United State of America wherein many of the noticeable newspaper have shut down or
have lifted purely to the online medium.1New and inventive models and type of business
need to be invented and worked. Existence of e-contract in the market is accomplishing
the need for innovativeness in the traditional business segments. Businesses, both
existing and new are trying to create an online individuality and an e-contract stand
keeping in view the needs of the modern times.2
E-contract is one of the divisions of e-business.3 It holds a similar meaning of traditional
business wherein goods and services are switched for a particular amount of
consideration. The only extra element it has is that the contract here takes place through a
digital mode of communication like the internet. It provides an opportunity for the sellers
to reach the end of consumer directly without the involvement of the middlemen.4
Electronic contracts (contracts that are not paper based but relatively in (electronic form)
are born out of the need for speed, ease and efficiency. Imagine a contract that an Indian
manufacturer and an American exporter wish to enter into. One selection would be that
one party first draws up two copies of the contract, signs them and couriers them to the
further, who in turn signs both copies and guides one copy back. The other option is that
the two parties meet someplace and sign the contract. In the electronic age, the whole
contract can be accomplished in seconds, with both parties simply fixing their digital
signatures to an electronic copy of the contract. There is no need for behind couriers and
additional travelling costs in such a situation.
There was primarily a fear between the legislatures to identify this modern technology,
but now many countries have legislated laws to recognize electronic contracts. The
conventional law involving to contracts is not satisfactory to address all the issues that
arise in electronic contracts. The Information Technology Act describes some of the
irregular issues that arise in the formation and verification of electronic contracts.

1
Suzane M. Kirchhoff, The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition (Sept. 9,2009)
2
T.P. Rama Rao, E-commerce and digital divide: Impact on consumers
3
Rajiv Shah, E-commerce
4
RICHARD DUNCOMBE, RICHARD HEEKS et al., ECOMMERCE FOR SMALL ENTERPRISE
DEVELOPMENT 204 (2006)
Essentials of an electronic contract:
As in every other contract, an electronic contract also requires the following necessary
requirements:
1. An offer requirements to be made
In many contacts (whether online or conventional) the offer is not made directly one-on-
one. The consumer ‘browses’ the available goods and services showed on the seller’s
website and then chooses what he would like to purchase. The offer is not made by
website showing the items for sale at a particular price. This is essentially an invitation to
offer and hence is revocable at any time up to the time of acceptance. The offer is made
by the customer on introduction the products in the virtual ‘basket’ or ‘shopping cart’ for
payment.
2. The offer needs to be acknowledged
As stated earlier, the acceptance is usually assumed by the business after the offer has
been made by the consumer in relation with the invitation to offer. An offer is revocable
at any time until the acceptance is made.
Processes available for forming electronic contracts include:
I. E-mail: Offers and acceptances can be exchanged entirely by e-mail, or can be
collective with paper documents, faxes, telephonic discussions etc.
II. Web Site Forms: The seller can offer goods or services (e.g. air tickets, software etc.)
through his website. The customer places an order by completing and communicating the
order form provided on the website. The goods may be actually delivered later (e.g. in
case of clothes, music CDs etc.) or be directly delivered electronically (e.g. e-tickets,
software, mp3 etc.).
III. Online Agreements: Users may need to take an online agreement in order to be able
to avail of the services e.g. clicking on “I accept” while connecting software or clicking
on “I agree” while signing up for an email account.
3. There has to be legal consideration
Any contract to be enforceable by law must have legal consideration, i.e., when both
parties give and receive something in return. Therefore, if an auction site eases a contract
between two parties where one Ecommerce – Legal Issues such as a person provides a
pornographic movie as consideration for purchasing an mp3 player, then such a contract
is void.
4. There has to be an intention to create lawful relations
If there is no intention on the part of the parties to create lawful relationships, then no
contract is possible between them. Usually, agreements of a domestic or social nature are
not contracts and therefore are not enforceable, e.g., a website providing general health
related data and instructions.
5. The parties must be able to contract.
Contracts by minors, lunatics etc. are void. All the parties to the contract must be lawfully
competent to enter into the contract.
6. There must be free and unaffected consent
Consent is said to be free when there is absence of coercion, misrepresentation, undue
influence or fraud. In other words, there must not be any agitation of the will of any party
to the contract to enter such contract. Usually, in online contracts, especially when there
is no active real-time communication between the contracting parties, e.g., between a
website and the customer who buys through such a site, the click through process ensures
free and genuine consent.
7. The object of the contract need to be lawful
A valid contract presumes a lawful object. Thus a contract for selling narcotic drugs or
pornography online is void.
8. There must be conviction and possibility of performance
A contract, to be enforceable, must not be ambiguous or unclear and there must be
possibility of performance. A contract, which is impossible to perform, cannot be
enforced, e.g., where a website promises to sell land on the moon.

DARK WEB INTRODUCTION

The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets, overlay
networks which use the Internet but require specific software, configurations or
authorization to access.the dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the
Web not indexed by search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly
used to refer specifically to the dark web.

Directory, you can use The Hidden Wiki ("List of Tor hidden services", 2016). There are
tons of Hidden Services available, and the details of how they work are complex.

In order to publish a Hidden Service, you need to make it available on the Tor network,
so that users can connect to it. For the first step, the owner of the service will need to pick
an introduction point and build Tor circuits to them. An introduction point is a Tor relay,
which is essentially a router. Your Hidden Service can choose up to 10 introduction
points. The more popular your Hidden Service is, the more introduction points it will
need ("Hidden Services need some love", 2013). After picking introduction points, you
will need to advertise your Hidden Service as “something.onion”. The Hidden Service
will create a descriptor, which will include its public key and a summary of the
introduction points used by it. The Hidden Service will sign this descriptor with its
private key. That descriptor gets sent to a distributed hash table, also known as the
database. Once this happens, the Hidden Service is officially setup and users can access it
by requesting it at “something.onion” ("Tor: Hidden Service Protocol”).

Now that the Hidden Service is setup, let’s take a look at how you can access it. First,
you need to know that the specific “.onion” address is in existence, similar to when you
need to know “google.com” exists before visiting it. Once you have a “.onion” address
that you want to access for its Hidden Service, you will attempt to connect to it via a
software client, such as Tor. The user will attempt to download the descriptor for the
Hidden Service from the distributed hash table. This descriptor will tell the user the
introduction points and public key that needs to be used. During this process, the user is
also creating a Tor circuit to a random Tor relay that will be used as a “rendezvous
point”. Once you have a descriptor and the “rendezvous point” has been established, the
user will send a message that is encrypted by the public key of the Hidden Service, via a
Tor circuit to one of the introduction points, that includes the “rendezvous point” location
and a one-‐-time secret. Once the Hidden Service has received the message, it will
decrypt it. Then it will create a Tor circuit to the “rendezvous point” and send the one--
‐-time secret. Lastly, the “rendezvous point” notifies the user of a successful connection.
Once this happens, the user can communicate with the Hidden Service via their Tor
circuits to the “rendezvous point” ("Tor: Hidden Service Protocol”). One of the most
popular services used is the Hidden Wiki.

The transmitted information can be decrypted only by a subsequent node in the scheme,
which leads to the exit node. The complicated system makes it almost impossible to
reproduce the node path and decrypt the information layer by layer.5 Due to the high level
of encryption, websites are not able to track geolocation and IP of their users, and users
are not able to get this information about the host. Thus, communication between darknet
users is highly encrypted allowing users to talk, blog, and share files confidentially.6
The darknet is also used for illegal activity such as illegal trade, forums, and media
exchange for pedophiles and terrorists.
They function primarily as black markets, selling or brokering transactions
involving drugs, cyber-arms7 weapons, counterfeit currency, stolen credit card
details, forged documents, unlicensed pharmaceuticals8 steroids,9 and other illicit goods
as well as the sale of legal products.10 In December 2014, a study by Gareth Owen from
the University of Portsmouth suggested the second most popular sites on Tor were
darknet markets.11

5
"Cryptopolitik and the Darknet". Survival (00396338). 58 (1): 7–38. 32p.
6
Darknet, Social Media, and Extremism: Addressing Indonesian Counterterrorism on the
Internet Archived 2017-06-04 at the Wayback Machine.
7
Winder, Davey (21 Apr 2015). "Is this new zero-day dark market the real deal?". Retrieved 17 May 2015.
8
Whitaker, Ross (14 July 2015). "Why I Had to Buy My Wife's Inhaler on the Dark Web". Retrieved 14
July 2015.
9
Plenke, Max (18 May 2015). "Inside the Underground Market Where Bodybuilders Find Dangerous,
Illegal Steroids". Retrieved 5 September 2015.
10
Bartlett, Jamie (5 October 2014). "Dark net markets: the eBay of drug dealing". Retrieved 17 May 2015.
11
Mark, Ward (30 December 2014). "Tor's most visited hidden sites host child abuse images". Retrieved 28
May 2015.
E CONTRACTS AND DARKNET
With the development and popularization of the World Wide Web and e-commerce in the
1990s, the tools to discuss or conduct illicit transactions became more widely available.
The Dark Web is mainly accessed via a software client called Tor, which will be
discussed in more detail later in this paper. Tor is a special browser that allows you to
navigate the Dark Web. One popular use of the Dark Web is in relation to malware.

TOR
Onion routing is implemented by encryption in the application layer of a communication
protocol stack, nested like the layers of an onion. Tor encrypts the data, including the
next node destination IP address, multiple times and sends it through a virtual
circuit comprising successive, randomly selected Tor relays. Each relay decrypts a layer
of encryption to reveal only the next relay in the circuit in order to pass the remaining
encrypted data on to it. The final relay decrypts the innermost layer of encryption and
sends the original data to its destination without revealing, or even knowing, the source
IP address. Because the routing of the communication is partly concealed at every hop in
the Tor circuit, this method eliminates any single point at which the communicating peers
can be determined through network surveillance that relies upon knowing its source and
destination.
Tor enables its users to surf the Internet, chat and send instant messages anonymously,
and is used by a wide variety of people for both licit and illicit purposes.12 Tor has, for
example, been used by criminal enterprises, hacktivism groups, and law enforcement
agencies at cross purposes, sometimes simultaneously;1314 likewise, agencies within the
U.S. government variously fund Tor
Tor is not meant to completely solve the issue of anonymity on the web. Tor is not
designed to completely erase tracks but instead to reduce the likelihood for sites to trace
actions and data back to the user.15

Tor has been described by The Economist, in relation to Bitcoin and Silk Road, as being
"a dark corner of the web".16 It has been targeted by the American National Security
Agency and the British GCHQ signals intelligenceagencies, albeit with marginal
success,17 and more successfully by the British National Crime Agency in its Operation
Notarise.18 At the same time, GCHQ has been using a tool named "Shadowcat" for "end-
to-end encrypted access to VPS over SSH using the TOR network".1920Tor can be used

12
Zetter, Kim (17 May 2005). "Tor Torches Online Tracking". Wired. Retrieved 30 August2014.
13
Gregg, Brandon (30 April 2012). "How online black markets work". CSO Online. Retrieved 6
August 2012.
14
Morisy, Michael (8 June 2012). "Hunting for child porn, FBI stymied by Tor undernet". Muckrock.
Retrieved 6 August 2012.
15
"Tor: Overview". The Tor Project.
16
"Bitcoin: Monetarists Anonymous". The Economist. 29 September 2012. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
17
Ball, James; Schneier, Bruce; Greenwald, Glenn (4 October 2013). "NSA and GCHQ target Tor network
that protects anonymity of web users". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
18
Boiten, Eerke; Hernandez-Castro, Julio (28 July 2014). "Can you really be identified on Tor or is that
just what the cops want you to believe?". Phys.org.
19
"JTRIG Tools and Techniques". The Intercept. 14 July 2014.
for anonymous defamation, unauthorized news leaks of sensitive information, copyright
infringement, distribution of illegal sexual content,2122 23selling controlled
substances,24 weapons, and stolen credit card numbers,25 money laundering,26 bank
fraud,27 credit card fraud, identity theft and the exchange of counterfeit
currency;28 the black market utilizes the Tor infrastructure, at least in part, in conjunction
with Bitcoin.29 It has also been used to brick IoT devices.30

Dark Web Hidden Services

Hidden Services on the Dark Web are used to provide a variety of services to users of the
Dark Web, while the users identities remain anonymous. Some of the categories of
services that are offered are Financial, Communications, Commerce, News, Pornography,
Search Engines, File Storage, and Hidden Service Directories and Portals. There are
specific services associated with these categories. For example, if you wanted to use
some Financial Hidden Services, you could use Bitcoin Fog or BitBlender. The use of
Communications Hidden Services could be taken advantage of by using TorChat or
RiseUp. There are several Hidden Services for Commerce as well. This is usually
associated with the Darknet Market. An example of a couple of Commerce Hidden
Services are Assassination Market and AlphaBay Market. If you are using News Hidden
Services, you could use DeepDotWeb or Wikileaks. A couple of Search Engines Hidden
Services available are The Pirate Bay and Sci-‐-Hub. Free Haven is one of the most
popular Hidden Services for File Storage, and for the most popular Hidden Service .

Why does the Dark Web matter?

More about IT Security
Though the name sounds ominous, the Dark Web did not hatch from some evil hacker
lab. The Dark Web is simply a network of websites that require basic encryption
technologies to be enabled before users can load content. These are the same technologies
that protect passwords when users log on to bank portals and sites like Gmail and

20
"Document from an internal GCHQ wiki lists tools and techniques developed by the Joint Threat
Research Intelligence Group". documentcoud.org. 5 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July2014.
21
Bode, Karl (12 March 2007). "Cleaning up Tor". Broadband.com. Retrieved 28 April2014.
22
Jones, Robert (2005). Internet forensics. O'Reilly. p. 133. ISBN 0-596-10006-X.
23
Chen, Adrian (11 June 2012). "'Dark Net' Kiddie Porn Website Stymies FBI Investigation". Gawker.
Retrieved 6 August 2012.
24
Chen, Adrian (1 June 2011). "The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug
Imaginable". Gawker. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
25
Steinberg, Joseph (8 January 2015). "How Your Teenage Son or Daughter May Be Buying Heroin
Online". Forbes. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
26
Goodin, Dan (16 April 2012). "Feds shutter online narcotics store that used TOR to hide its tracks". Ars
Technica. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
27
"Treasury Dept: Tor a Big Source of Bank Fraud". Krebs on Security. 5 December 2014.
28
Farivar, Cyrus (3 April 2015). "How a $3.85 latte paid for with a fake $100 bill led to counterfeit
kingpin's downfall". Ars Technica. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
29
Gregg, Brandon (30 April 2012). "How online black markets work". CSO Online. Retrieved 6
August 2012.
30
Cimpanu, Catalin (2017-04-06). "New Malware Intentionall Bricks IoT Devices". BleepingComputer.
Facebook.For this reason, the Dark Web is used by proponents of privacy and encryption.
Organizations as diverse as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, the U.S. State
Department, and the United Nations all argue vociferously that encryption is
a fundamental human right.The Dark Web is practical. The anonymity and security
provided by the encrypted internet means the Dark Web is a haven for criminals, law
enforcement agencies, freedom fighters, journalists, neo-capitalists, and curiosity seekers.
The Dark Web is unlikely to vanish any time soon.

How is the Dark Web accessed?

The best way to access the Dark Web is with Tor. An acronym for the onion router, Tor
is an open source protocol and suite of plugins built on top of Mozilla's Firefox web
browser. Tor helps anonymize the source and destination of web traffic by passing the
machine's IP address through a network of similarly encrypted IP addresses. The result is
that web browsing slows down a bit as each request is bounced around the world,
obfuscating user traffic.

For additional security, power users and experts also use anonymity-protecting operating
systems like Tails. Tails is a Linux distribution that specializes in security and
convenience. The operating system takes about 20 minutes to install on a flash drive and
can be booted from the USB drive on nearly any machine in the world. Tails comes
preconfigured with Tor and offers dozens of other security features.

There is no guarantee of privacy on the Dark Web. Tor recently warned users not to
expect complete end-to-end privacy while using the network.

WEBSITES OF THE DARKWEB

Silk Road

Silk Road was an online black market and the first modern darknet market, best known as
a platform for selling illegal drugs. As part of the dark web,31 it was operated as a Tor
hidden service, such that online users were able to browse it anonymously and securely
without potential traffic monitoring. The website was launched in February 2011;
development had begun six months prior.3233 Initially there were a limited number of new
seller accounts available; new sellers had to purchase an account in an auction. Later, a
fixed fee was charged for each new seller account.3435

31
Lee, Nicole (8 February 2015). "Anonymity is dead and other lessons from the Silk Road
trial". engadget.com. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
32
Justin Norrie; Asher Moses (12 June 2011). "Drugs bought with virtual cash". The Sydney Morning
Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
33
Public statement from a Silk Road spokesperson 1 March 2011.
34
Dread Pirate Roberts (26 June 2011). "New seller accounts". Silk Road forums. Retrieved 5
August 2013. [...] we shut down new seller accounts briefly, but have now opened them up again. This time,
we are limiting the supply of new seller accounts and auctioning them off to the highest bidders. Our hope
is that by doing this, only the most professional and committed sellers will have access to seller accounts.
Silk Road was an thatonline marketplace on the Dark Web that was used to sell drugs,
guns, personal data, malware, and more. It was pretty much the Amazon of the black
market and was created by Ross William Ulbricht. Silk Road was active for around 2
years before it was taken down in 2013. The site had a similar feel to Amazon. You
could shop by categories, search for products, and communicate with sellers. Once you
found something you wanted to buy, you would add it to your cart and checkout. The
currency used to pay for the items was Bitcoin, which is a currency still in use today.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency used that is created and stored electronically with no paper
trail, and is essentially untraceable. Each Silk Road user was required to have a Bitcoin
address. These addresses were stored on Silk Road’s servers in a “wallet”. As far as
getting your suspicious purchases delivered, it was very inconsistent. Your packages may
or may not have gotten intercepted by law enforcement, but that was the risk that was
taken (Albanesius, 2013).

Arrest and trial of Ross Ulbricht[edit]

]

Ulbricht was indicted on charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to

traffic narcotics, and attempting to have six people killed. Prosecutors alleged that
Ulbricht paid $730,000 to others to commit the murders, although none of the murders
actually occurred. Ulbricht ultimately was not prosecuted for any of the alleged murder
attempts.
The FBI initially seized 26,000 bitcoins from accounts on Silk Road, worth
approximately $3.6 million at the time. An FBI spokesperson said that the agency would
hold the bitcoins until Ulbricht's trial finished, after which the bitcoins would be
liquidated. In October 2013, the FBI reported that it had seized 144,000 bitcoins, worth
$28.5 million, and that the bitcoins belonged to Ulbricht. On 27 June 2014, the U.S.
Marshals Service sold 29,657 bitcoins in 10 blocks in an online auction, estimated to be
worth $18 million at current rates and only about a quarter of the seized bitcoins. Another
144,342 bitcoins were kept which had been found on Ulbricht's computer, roughly $87
million.Tim Draper bought the bitcoins at the auction with an estimated worth of $17
million, to lend them to a bitcoin start-up called Vaurum which is working in developing
economies of emerging markets.
Ulbricht's trial began on 13 January 2015 in Federal Court in Manhattan. At the start of
the trial, Ulbricht admitted to founding the Silk Road website, but claimed to have

For the time being, we will be releasing one new seller account every 48 hours, though this is subject to
change. If you want to become a seller on Silk Road, click "become a seller" at the bottom of the homepage,
read the seller contract and the Seller's Guide, click "I agree" at the bottom, and then you'll be taken to the
bidding page. Here, you should enter the maximum bid you are willing to make for your account upgrade.
The system will automatically outbid the next highest bidder up to this amount. [...]
35
Dread Pirate Roberts (1 July 2011). "New seller accounts". Silk Road forums. Retrieved 5
August 2013. [...] We received a threat from a very disturbed individual who said they would pose as a
legitimate vendor, but send carcinogenic and poisonous substances instead of real products and because
seller registration is open, they would just create a new account as soon as they got bad feedback. This was
shocking and horrifying to us and we immediately closed new seller registration. Of course we need new
sellers, though, so we figured that charging for new seller accounts would deter this kind of behavior. [...]
transferred control of the site to other people soon after he founded it. Ulbricht's lawyers
contended that Dread Pirate Roberts was really Mark Karpelès, and that Karpelès set up
Ulbricht as a fall guy. However, Judge Katherine B. Forrest ruled that any speculative
statements regarding whether Karpelès or anyone else ran Silk Road would not be
allowed, and statements already made would be stricken from the record.
In the second week of the trial, prosecutors presented documents and chat logs from
Ulbricht's computer that, they said, demonstrated how Ulbricht had administered the site
for many months, which contradicted the defense's claim that Ulbricht had relinquished
control of Silk Road. Ulbricht's attorney suggested that the documents and chat logs were
planted there by way of BitTorrent, which was running on Ulbricht's computer at the time
of his arrest.
On 4 February 2015, the jury convicted Ulbricht of seven charges,including charges of
engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and
computer hacking. He faced 30 years to life in prison.The government also accused
Ulbricht of paying for the murders of at least five people, but there is no evidence that the
murders were actually carried out, and the accusations never became formal charges
against Ulbricht.
During the trial, Judge Forrest received death threats. Users of an underground site called
The Hidden Wiki posted her personal information there, including her address and Social
Security number. Ulbricht's lawyer Joshua Dratel said that he and his client "obviously,
and as strongly as possible, condemn" the anonymous postings against the judge. "They
do not in any way have anything to do with Ross Ulbricht or anyone associated with him
or reflect his views or those of anyone associated with him", Dratel said.
In late March 2015, a criminal complaint issued by the United States District Court for
the Northern District of California led to the arrest of two former federal agents who had
worked undercover in the Baltimore Silk Road investigation of Ulbricht, former Drug
Enforcement Administration agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service agent Shaun
Bridges.The agents are alleged to have kept funds that Ulbricht transferred to them in
exchange for purported information about the investigation The agents were charged with
wire fraud and money laundering. In late November 2016, Ulbricht's lawyers brought
forward a case on a third DEA agent, who they claim was leaking information about the
investigation and tampered with evidence to omit chat logs showing conversations with
him.
On March 15, 2015, director/screenwriter Alex Winter debuted at the South by Southwest
Film Festival a movie based on Silk Road. Deep Web gives the inside story of the arrest
of Ross Ulbricht.

In a letter to Judge Forrest before his sentencing, Ulbricht stated that his actions through
Silk Road were committed through libertarian idealism and that "Silk Road was supposed
to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices" and admitted that he
made a "terrible mistake" that "ruined his life". On May 29, 2015, Ulbricht was given
five sentences to be served concurrently, including two for life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole. He was also ordered to forfeit $183 million. Ulbricht’s lawyer
Joshua Dratel said that he would appeal the sentencing and the original guilty verdict. On
May 31, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied
Ulbricht's appeal, and affirmed the judgment of conviction and life sentence, in a written
opinion authored by the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch, United States Circuit Judge.

ALPHABAY

AlphaBay Market was an online darknet market which operated on a onion service of
the Tor network. It was shut down after a law enforcement action as a part of Operation
Bayonet against it (and also the Hansa market) in the United States, Canada, and
Thailand, reported 13 July 2017.36 The alleged founder, AlexandreCazes, a Canadian
citizen born on 19 October 1991,3738 was found dead in his cell in Thailand several days
after his arrest; suicide is suspected.

AlphaBay was reportedly launched in September 2014,39 pre-launched in November

2014 and officially launched on December 22, 2014, it saw a steady growth, with 14,000
new users in the first 90 days of operation. The darknet informer website Gwern.net
placed AlphaBay Market in the top tier of markets regarding the 6-month survival
probability and it had proven to be successful.40 In October 2015, it was recognized as the
largest online darknet market according to Dan Palumbo, research director at Digital
Citizens Alliance.41
In May 2015, the site announced an integrated digital contracts and escrow system. 42 The
contract system allows users to make engagements and agree to provide services in the
future, according to the terms of the contract..By October 2015, AlphaBay had over
200,000 users.At the time of its demise in July 2017, AlphaBay had over 400,000 users.43

DREAM MARKET
Dream Market is an online darknet market founded in late 2013.44 Dream Market
operates on a hidden service of the Tor network, allowing online users to browse
anonymously and securely while avoiding potential monitoring of traffic. The
marketplace sells a variety of content, including drugs, stolen data, and counterfeit
consumer goods, all using the Bitcoincryptocurrency. Dream provides an escrow service,
with disputes handled by staff.

36
Statt, Nick (2017-07-14). "Dark Web drug marketplace AlphaBay was shut down by law
enforcement". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-07-16.
37
"Forfeiture Complaint". Justice.gov. 20 July 2017. p. 27
38
"Canadian allegedly behind shuttered Dark Web market AlphaBay". The Globe and Mail. 20 July 2017.
39
"Forfeiture Complaint". Justice.gov. 20 July 2017. p. 27.
40
"Black-market risks - Gwern.net". Gwern.
41
"Buying Drugs Online Remains Easy". Southwest Coalition.
42
Cox, Joseph (1 May 2015). "This Dark Web Market Just Started Offering Contracts for Anything".
Retrieved 3 August 2015.
43
"AlphaBay Dark Web Market Taken Down After Law Enforcement Raids". 14 July 2017.
44
"Dream Market". DeepDotWeb.
HANSA

Hansa was an online darknet market which operated on a hidden service of the Tor
network.
With the closure of AlphaBay in June 2017, it was predicted to become one of the
leading markets.45 However on July 20, 2017 it was revealed that it had been
compromised by law enforcement for several weeks before closing shortly after
AlphaBay as a culmination of multinational law enforcement operation Operation
Bayonet.4647
Dutch police impersonated the site's administrators, collecting usernames and passwords.
Local cybercrime prosecutor MartijnEgberts claimed to have obtained around 10,000
addresses of Hansa buyers outside of Holland.48During this time, the police allowed the
Hansauserbase (then growing from 1000 to 8000 vendors per day, due to
the AlphaBayshutdown49) to make illegal transactions in order to collect evidence for
future prosecution of users.

CRYPTO CURRENCY
A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of
exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of
additional units of the currency.[1][2] Cryptocurrencies are classified as a subset of digital
currencies and are also classified as a subset of alternative currencies and virtual
currencies.
Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Since then,
numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as
a blend of bitcoin alternative.Bitcoin and its derivatives use decentralized control[7] as
opposed to centralized electronic money/centralized banking systems
Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease production of currency, placing
an ultimate cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation,
mimicking precious metals. Compared with ordinary currencies held by financial
institutions or kept as cash on hand, cryptocurrencies can be more difficult for seizure by
law enforcement.50 This difficulty is derived from leveraging cryptographic technologies.
A primary example of this new challenge for law enforcement comes from the Silk Road
case, where Ulbricht's bitcoin stash "was held separately and ...

45
Buntinx, JP (16 July 2017). "Top 4 Darknet Marketplaces Poised to Take AlphaBay’s Place".
Retrieved 20 July 2017.
46
"Massive blow to criminal Dark Web activities after globally coordinated operation". 20 July 2017.
Retrieved 20 July 2017.
47
"Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down". Politie (Dutch Police). 20 July 2017.
48
Satter, Raphael; Bajak, Frank (2017-07-21). "Dutch 'darknet' drug marketplace shut down". Portland
Press Herald. Retrieved 2017-07-22.
49
Underground Hansa Market taken over and shut down". Politie (Dutch Police). 20 July 2017.
50
Andy Greenberg (20 April 2011). "Crypto Currency". Forbes.com. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
encrypted."51 Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are pseudonymous, though additions such
as Zerocoin have been suggested, which would allow for true anonymity
The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from country to country and is
still undefined or changing in many of them. While some countries have explicitly
allowed their use and trade, others have banned or restricted it. Likewise, various
government agencies, departments, and courts have classified bitcoins differently. China
Central Bank banned the handling of bitcoins by financial institutions in China during an
extremely fast adoption period in early 2014.[32] In Russia, though cryptocurrencies are
legal, it is illegal to actually purchase goods with any currency other than the Russian
ruble.[33]
On March 25, 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that
bitcoinwill be treated as property for tax purposes as opposed to currency. This means
bitcoin will be subject to capital gains tax. One benefit of this ruling is that it clarifies the
legality of bitcoin. No longer do investors need to worry that investments in or profit
made from bitcoins are illegal or how to report them to the IRS.52 In a paper published
by researchers from Oxford and Warwick, it was shown that bitcoin has some
characteristics more like the precious metals market than traditional currencies, hence in
agreement with the IRS decision even if based on different reasons.53
Legal issues not dealing with governments have also arisen for cryptocurrencies. Coinye,
for example, is an altcoin that used rapper Kanye West as its logo without permission.
Upon hearing of the release of Coinye, originally called Coinye West, attorneys for
Kanye West sent a cease and desist letter to the email operator of Coinye, David P.
McEnery Jr. The letter stated that Coinye was willful trademark infringement, unfair
competition, cyberpiracy, and dilution and instructed Coinye to stop using the likeness
and name of Kanye West.54
Cryptocurrency is also used in controversial settings in the form of online black markets,
such as Silk Road. The original Silk Road was shut down in October 2013 and there have
been two more versions in use since then; the current version being Silk Road 3.0. The
successful format of Silk Road has been widely used in online dark markets, which has
led to a subsequent decentralization of the online dark market. In the year following the
initial shutdown of Silk Road, the number of prominent dark markets increased from four
to twelve, while the amount of drug listings increased from 18,000 to 32,000.55
Darknet markets present growing challenges in regard to legality. Bitcoins and other
forms of cryptocurrency used in dark markets are not clearly or legally classified in
almost all parts of the world. In the U.S., bitcoins are labelled as "virtual assets". This

51
The FBI's Plan For The Millions Worth Of Bitcoins Seized From Silk Road, Forbes, 4 October 2013
52
3 Reasons The IRS Bitcoin Ruling Is Good For Bitcoin, Nasdaq, 24 March 2014
53
On the Complexity and Behaviour of Cryptocurrencies Compared to Other Markets, 7 November 2014
54
Infringement of Kayne West Mark and Other Violations, Pryor Cashman LLP, 6 January 2014
55
ALI, S, T; CLARKE, D; MCCORRY, P; Bitcoin: Perils of an Unregulated Global P2P Currency [By S. T
Ali, D. Clarke, P. McCorry Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle University: Computing Science, 2015.
(Newcastle University, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-1470)
type of ambiguous classification puts mounting pressure on law enforcement agencies
around the world to adapt to the shifting drug trade of dark markets.56
Since most darknet markets run through Tor, they can be found with relative ease on
public domains. This means that their addresses can be found, as well as customer
reviews and open forums pertaining to the drugs being sold on the market, all without
incriminating any form of user.57 This kind of anonymity enables users on both sides of
dark markets to escape the reaches of law enforcement. The result is that law
enforcement adheres to a campaign of singling out individual markets and drug dealers to
cut down supply. However, dealers and suppliers are able to stay one step ahead of law
enforcement, who cannot keep up with the rapidly expanding and anonymous
marketplaces of dark markets.58

SITES OF DARK WEB

What we call the dark web is tiny. The World Wide Web has swelled to over a billion
different sites, while current estimations put the number of Tor hidden sites at between
7000 and 30,000, depending on what methodology you follow. That's 0.03 percent of the
normal web. Barely a fraction of content available elsewhere. The collection of all these
hidden sites is not, as is commonly spouted by governments and many members of the
media, several orders of magnitude larger than the normal web.
It’s not clear how many people access the dark web on a daily basis, but there’s the
impression that it’s a small number of individuals. The Tor Project claims that only 1.5
percent of overall traffic on its anonymity network is to do with hidden sites, and that 2
million people per day use Tor in total. In short, the number of people visiting the dark
web is a fraction of overall Tor users, the majority of whom are likely just using it to
protect their regular browsing habits. Not only are dark web visitors a drop in the bucket
of Tor users, they are a spec of dust in the galaxy of total Internet users.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK RELATING TO E-CONTRACT

With the growing importance and value of e-contract in India and across the world, the
different stakeholders are continuously identifying and evaluating the nuances of legal
outline relating to it. The participation of different service providers in the transaction of
e-contract, which includes a payment gateway, the main website, the bank or card
verification website, the security authorisation website and the final service provider

56
Raeesi, Reza (2015-04-23). "The Silk Road, Bitcoins and the Global Prohibition Regime on the
International Trade in Illicit Drugs: Can this Storm Be Weathered?". Glendon Journal of International
Studies / Revue d'études internationales de Glendon. 8 (1–2). ISSN 2291-3920.
57
ALI, S, T; CLARKE, D; MCCORRY, P; Bitcoin: Perils of an Unregulated Global P2P Currency [By S. T
Ali, D. Clarke, P. McCorry Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle University: Computing Science, 2015.
(Newcastle University, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-1470)
58
Raeesi, Reza (2015-04-23). "The Silk Road, Bitcoins and the Global Prohibition Regime on the
International Trade in Illicit Drugs: Can this Storm Be Weathered?". Glendon Journal of International
Studies / Revue d'études internationales de Glendon. 8 (1–2). ISSN 2291-3920.
 which can also comprise the shipping agent has made the E-contract business more
complex. Therefore, the need for amendable it has augmented. In India, till date there are
no definite legislations or guidelines protecting the buyers and sellers of goods and
services over the electronic medium.[5]59 However, several laws acting in unification are
trying to regulate the business transactions of E-contract. They are as follows:
 Indian Contract Act,1872
 Consumer Protection Act,1986
 Information Technology Act,2000
 Indian Copyright Act,1957
Like any other types of business, E-contract business also works on the basis of contracts.
It is therefore, structured by the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Any valid and legal E-
contracts can be designed, completed, and enforced as parties replace paper documents
with electronic parallels.[6]60 The contracts are move in between the service providers or
sellers and buyers.
Earlier, there was no definite law to regulate the intermediaries such as verification
service providers and shipping service providers to safeguard that the product or service
is actually delivered. However, the government has recently acquainted the Information
Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011.[7] The actual scope of the security
provided under these regulations would only be known after judicial interpretation of the
provisions. However, now it has been explained that even foreign intermediaries
delivered to provide service can be sued in India.[8]61
The payment gateways which footing a very important position as the primary processor
of the payment for the merchants were brought into the legal framework after
proclamation of the Payment and settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act, 2007). The
PSS Act, 2007 as well as the Payment and Settlement System Regulations, 2008 made
under the Act came into effect from August 12, 2008.[9] Further, the Reserve Bank of
India, issued additional guidelines initiating all such gateways and payments processors
to register under the said act.
The authority of the transactions of E-contract is established under the Information
Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000). It explains the reasonable mode of acceptance of
the offer. IT Act, 2000 also rules the revocation of offer and acceptance. 62 However,
definite provisions that regulate E-contract transactions conducted over the internet,
mobile phones, etc. are vague. With numerous cross border transactions also being
conducted over the internet, specific law guarding the Indian customers and Indian
businesses are essential and Indian laws are gravely insufficient on this issue.
In a bid to safeguard security, the government has made digital signatures necessary in
several E-contract transactions mainly in the government to government (G2G) or
government to business (G2B) framework with a view to safeguarding the identity of the
transacting parties. E-contracts transactions on these modes require digital signatures as

59
Akshat Razdan, The Future of E-Commerce in India, LAW WIRE
60
Aashit Shah & Praveen Nagre, Legal Issues in E-commerce
61
PTLB, Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 of Indi
62
Vikas Asawat, Information Technology (Amnedment) Act, 2008 : A New Vision through a New Change
essential parts. They are used for the verification of the electronic contracts. These are
controlled by the IT Act, 2000 which provides the outline for digital signatures, their
issues and verification. The Act thus tries to safeguard that trust between both the parties
is maintained through verification of identities and help prevent cybercrimes and ensure
cyber security practices.63
In the light of the above discussion, it is to be said that the present laws in respect of the
guidelines of E-contract and its related operations are not suitable serving the purpose.
Propagation of laws is creating a confusion in the smooth procedures of the E-contract
accomplishments. Further, the present laws are salient on features of e-contract such as
payment instrument and delivery instrument and present standard practises which have
been settled by the industry. The Reserve Bank of India, however, has tried to support the
electronic payment mechanism through various orders, but such orders can only act as a
stop-gap procedure.64 The most important order in this regard was the application of
second factor verification in all Indian Payment Gateways. Commonly recognised as
Verified by Visa or MasterCard Secure Code, this had made card transactions on the
internet moderately more secure.

Activities on Tor can be punished under the Information Technology Act, 2000. The
moment people clinch deals for illegal goods and services on Deep Web they are liable
for legal consequences, both civil and criminal
Indian cases
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) busted a group that smuggled
Alprazolam from Mumbai to the United States. Customers reportedly ordered via darknet
marketplaces. Additionally, call centers were used fronts for the smuggling ring. DRI
officers arrested group members after raiding two properties in Mira Road. They found
15,000 assorted drugs and arrested eight suspects.
Officers arrested Air Express owner Manjeet Singh. Police called Singh the mastermind
of the operation. Incidentally, the project was his idea. Customers bought drugs from the
darknet and call centers but the airport was the shipping hub.
The airport received drugs from dealers and manufacturers in Sangli, Ludhiana and Agra.
Case investigators reported the group sold Alprazolam, Diazepam, Nitrazepam,
Zolpidem, and Amphetamine. Manufacturers in India produced counterfeit versions of
the pharmaceuticals to cut costs. Consequently, DRI officials said buyers in the US and
UK turn to India for pharmaceutical needs because of the low prices. Additionally, they
said, some drugs the Indian groups sold were not available in the US. For example,
Nitrazepam has not passed FDA approval.
Officials spoke to the media:
The drugs would be packed in courier covers, sent to Delhi and then exported as health
samples by Speed Post. There is no stringent checking of export consignments, making it
easier for consignments to pass without hurdles. So, customers began procuring them
from India. Here, it is easy to manipulate and drugs are cheaper.

63
Dr. Shuchi Singhal, Digital Signatures: Bringing a Paradigm Shift in E-Banking,5(1) PACIFIC
BUSINESS REVIEW INTERNATIONAL 61,62 (2012)
64
Bienu Vaghela, RBI Secures online credit and transaction, BUSINESS STANDARD
In another case Three young people have been arrested for possession and selling drugs
to reputed engineering colleges in Kumaraswamy. The members of the gang are J
Manikantan (24), Debyendu Roy (26) and Jag Saipravesh (23). Law enforcement
authorities have seized drugs, including LSD, Ecstasy, weed and charas, two laptops and
mobile phones. These all belong to the members of the gang.
The drug dealers claimed that they have purchased the Ecstasy on the darkweb, more
specifically, on the Agora Marketplace.

In a different case On July 2,2017 Hyderabad police arrested three men for LSD and
MDMA importation and distribution. The men ordered the drugs from a darknet supplier
in Chicago and then distributed them amongst dozens of dealers. The dealers, in turn,
spread the drugs throughout Hyderabad and Secunderabad where college students and
members of the film industry.
Police arrested Calvin Mascarenhas, Abdul Wahed, and Mohammed Abdul Quddus for
their roles in a drug distribution network. After the arrests, police discovered that the
three men—once considered the leaders of local drug ring—had actually been involved in
a much larger “international drug cartel.” The men dealt with a darknet supplier in
Chicago who shipped the group drugs through a middleman.
Mascarenhas landed in police custody once before for marijuana possession and
distribution. He denied the trafficking charge and acted “bitter” towards police for, as he
explained, framing him for marijuana distribution. The July 2017 arrest went differently;
when officers of the Telangana Excise Department arrested him, they noted that he had
dosed LSD before the arrest. After an extensive interrogation, Mascarenhas told police
“everything.”
Police then busted seven of Mascarenhas’s associates throughout the region. The police
director explained that with information from Mascarenhas and evidence from the men’s
phones, they saw how large the trafficking network had become. The men frequently
interacted with a middleman known as “Bob” or “Mountain,” Mascarenhas told the
officers. Bob served as a middleman for many darknet purchases.
After ordering their drugs—either directly from the darknet vendor or through Bob, a
“kingpin” who sourced drugs from the darknet—the leaders of the ring sold to the
“peddlers.” The peddlers created their own drug network.
According to Sabharwal, the peddlers used social media to contact buyers:
“[A customer] would introduce the peddler to others. This way they created large groups
of consumers who kept in touch through social media groups. We knew they had a lot of
minor customers but based on the messages we found in the mobile phones seized from
the 10 persons arrested so far, we have concluded that students from at least 25 premier
schools and another 20 top colleges were customers of this gang that was selling LSD
and MDMA. It is shocking.”

An essential of a contract is that it shouldn’t be forbidden by law and there should be a

lawful object and certain activities that go on the dark web are unlawful.
Keeping all the illegal activities that go on dark web in mind there are so many ways by
how the criminals get caught
Some examples of how criminals get caught and global cases are
Going undercover:-
Just like in analog investigations, going undercover on the dark web can be a highly
effective tactic. For six months, investigators posed as a weapons seller. Naturally,
anyone wanting to purchase guns had to provide a postal address, making it fairly trivial
for the police to then link real identities to potential customers. In all, law enforcement
busted over a dozen people. Similar operations have been carried out against those trying
to buy poisons.

Undercover agents have also penetrated wider dark web organisations. On the original
Silk Road, authorities took over the account of a staff member. The imposter gained so
much trust that they were quickly invited straight into the site's replacement, launched in
late 2014. From the very start of the second Silk Road, investigators already had a man
on the inside, able to contact directly with the marketplace's owners, and feed information
to other agents. In Australia, Queensland Police's Task Force Argos assumed the role of
a notorious child abuse site administrator for months, leading to the arrest of pedophiles
all over the world.

In a way, law enforcement have taken advantage of the protections offered by Tor to
blend in with everyone else—on the dark web, you never really know who is on the other
end of a conversation.

Hacking

Hacking could quite possibly be the most effective way of identifying people on the dark
web, at least judging by the number of computers unmasked. As part of the operation, the
FBI harvested over 1000 US based IP addresses, and Europol generated 3,229 of its own
cases. Those leads won't all necessarily lead to convictions, but over 135 people have
been charged in the US so far, and new cases keep on rolling in. The FBI has used this
mass-hacking approach several times, and could very well have hit innocent users of a
privacy focused email service.

At least one foreign law enforcement agency has hacked dark web suspects too. In
December 2014, the unnamed agency sent a child pornography site moderator a link to a
video, which was configured to route their traffic outside of the Tor network.

Another hack didn't attack endpoints, but abused a vulnerability in Tor itself, allowing
researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
to learn the IP addresses of dark web marketplaces as well as users. Even though this
attack wasn't carried out by the FBI itself, the feds just subpoenaed SEI for the
identifying information. SEI's research was carried out back in the first half of 2014, but
likely related convictions are still coming through: a man recently pleaded guilty to
running a dark web marketplace after the FBI fed UK police with a slew of IP addresses.
In general, armed with an IP cops just need to then subpoena the respective internet
service provider or datacenter for the customer's details, get a warrant, and then raid their
house
Open source information
Even if a criminal's business exists primarily on the dark web, they might have left digital
breadcrumbs—in forum posts or public documents, for example—that lead investigators
to the suspect's identity. Famously, a real breakthrough in the Silk Road case was down
to some creative Googling by Gary Alford, a tax investigator. He found that Ross
Ulbricht, the creator of the site, had advertised Silk Road on a popular bitcoin forum, and
in another post included his personally identifiableemail address.

Something similar happened with the man alleged to be Variety Jones, an enigmatic
figure who pulled many of the strings behind Silk Road. Through online sleuthing of old
cannabis enthusiast forums and business documentation, independent researcher La
Moustache managed to name Variety Jones as Thomas Clark. Olford cited much of the
same evidence in his criminal complaint against Clark, filed two months later.

In another case, suspected cannabis dealer David Ryan Burchard tried to trademark his
dark web brand "caliconnect" in his own name. Naturally, this publicly available nugget
of info helped investigators link Burchard to the caliconnect moniker

DIGGING THROUGH SEIZED DATA

An arrest of a vendor or the seizure of a marketplace can generate a mountain of new

leads for investigators to follow. Prominent German vendor 'Shiny Flakes' was busted last
year with a staggering 320 kilos of drugs. Fortunately for investigators, Shiny Flakes had
kept a tidy spreadsheet of all orders which is being used to track down buyers, according
to local and state police.

And buying drugs on the dark web can even come back to bite people years later. After
arresting another vendor who stored details on his customers, German authorities recently
fined someone over €3,000 for purchasing small quantities off the original Silk Road.

THE POSTAL SYSTEM

For all its technological sophistication, the dark web drug trade relies on postal systems
or ordinary couriers. Dealers have to properly package their product and make sure its
"stealth" is up to scratch, otherwise customs officials may seize the package. But the feds
might also investigate who the package was being sent to, or where it was coming from.

Post boxes or offices also provide a perfect surveillance opportunity for law enforcement.
Authorities intercepted multiple packages of heroin from notorious Silk Road drug dealer
Steven "Nod" Sadler in September 2012. Post office employees were then able to
identify Jenna White, Sadler's girlfriend, as the person regularly depositing the parcels
across the Seattle area. Her hand-writing was the same as that on the packages, and post
office cameras picked up her license plate number.

Although the drugs weren't sourced from the dark web, in 2013 the US Postal Service
(USPS) opened a package that contained 500 grams of what would turn out to be
synthetic stimulant methylone. Investigators would eventually make a controlled
delivery, and arrest their suspect.

Criminals have always tried to be one step ahead, and technology often revolutionizes
how illegal goods are traded or sourced. But when drugs, guns and pedophilia moved
onto the dark web, the cops came too.

Conclusion
E-contract in India has definitely came a long way from the days of bazee.com which
underway as the first large online retail website. At present, with the increase in number
of internet user, e-contract is organised to grow further. The growing trend of internet
banking and credit or debit cards along with the rise in the number of educated and
computer literate persons will further support this growth. The need of the hour is law
which covers all the aspects of e-contract extending from payment mechanism and
maintaining minimum standards in the delivery of services. Such a legislation will help to
restraint the growth of websites which rise within a few days and then stop functioning in
the absence of suitable funds for sustenance. As all business through e-contract sites is
ended through the internet without any direct physical interfaces, the main basis
connections is the trust of the customers which should be engaged at any cost. A law in
this field will detect the criminals who have used the internet as a source for making
quick money. This will also act a defence for the genuine e-contract websites and help in
further growing of business. There is also a need for the creation of an authority in the
consumer court to look into the grievances arising out of e-contract transactions. Such an
authority should have experts in area such as payment security. This will embolden
speedy redressal of disputes and promote e-contract transactions. E-contract which is a
developing segment in the commercial arenas scheduled to grow and it is the
accountability of the prevailing players to ensure that growth is not hindered by their acts
and policies.