Editing Anonymous P2P (section)

===Spam and DoS attacks in anonymous networks===
Originally, anonymous networks were operated by small and friendly communities of developers. As interest in anonymous P2P increased and the user base grew, malicious users inevitably appeared and tried different attacks. This is similar to the Internet, where widespread use has been followed by waves of [[Spam (electronic)|spam]] and distributed DoS ([[denial-of-service attack|Denial of Service]]) attacks. Such attacks may require different solutions in anonymous networks. For example, blacklisting of originator network addresses does not work because anonymous networks conceal this information. These networks are more vulnerable to DoS attacks as well due to the smaller bandwidth, as has been shown in examples on the Tor network.

A conspiracy to attack an anonymous network could be considered criminal computer hacking, though the nature of the network makes this impossible to prosecute without compromising the anonymity of data in the network.