In February, Motherboard reported on a tool that allows pretty much anyone to quickly make a dark web version of any website. Now, a hosting and infrastructure company is using that same tech to offer Tor hidden services to its own customers."People should be aware that tools like Tor exist and people shouldn't be scared of using technology such as Tor for good," Dan Benton, who runs Dogsbody Technology, told Motherboard in an email. UK-based Dogsbody announced its offering of turn-key hidden service generation in a blog post published on Tuesday.
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The move is based on independent researcher Alec Muffett's open source Enterprise Onion Toolkit (EOTK), which streamlines the Tor hidden service creation process."Dan's a fellow geek, is enthused by Tor, and he will be using EOTK to offer Onion Addresses as a Product with associated services (address-mining, etc) with my happy blessings," Muffett told Motherboard in an email.When someone uses EOTK to make a dark web version of a site they don't administer, the mirror will probably have encryption certificate errors. But since Dogsbody is only making dark web sites for their own customers, that may not be a problem here."We have relationships with two SSL providers that are happy to provide onion SSL certificates for us," Benton said, who added the company is talking to one supplier who may be able to offer a single certificate to cover both normal and dark web sites.Benton said Dogsbody is predominantly a B2B company, mostly serving private companies. But there is already interest for a Tor hidden service from another sector."We are in talks with one .gov site that definitely has this in mind," Benton said.Benton didn't say specifically how much it would cost for Dogsbody to setup a Tor hidden service for you but said it's not a "premium service." "The whole point of this is to reduce the barrier of entry," he added."One of the biggest advantages to having my own company is that I can align it with my own values. I want to make the world a better place and do so with the tools available to me," he said.