Dr Brenton Cooper (ILF2022)
The Australian
The dark web is often characterised as a mythical place, an out of reach portion of the internet where only the most elite criminals frequent to trade stolen credentials, sell illegal weapons and share fraud tactics. But the reality is far more unremarkable than that.
Cooper is the founder and chief executive of Fivecast, the marketplace for dark web marketplaces, which provides a window into the world of criminal activity. The company is one of several in Australia that operates in a portion of the internet inaccessible to most.
A former engineer, Cooper saw the opportunity to set up his platform in 2017, which could provide access to dark web files through a standard internet browser with no special software or hardware required. That’s quite the contrast to the dark web that sees many use former US military anonymity software TOR for access – originally developed to protect the identities of US Navy intelligence agents.