It’s 2013. The director of the FBI gives a speech titled The Going Dark Problem. Solemnly he warns of an emerging crisis within law enforcement. Since the Snowden disclosures, increasing public awareness of surveillance has encouraged the wide ranging use of encryption technologies – what he calls the tech tool of choice for criminals.

Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with technology, and this disconnect has created a significant public safety problem. We call it “Going Dark”

James Comey, FBI director

The speech highlighted a risk emerging online: mass popularization of encryption threatens to create a permanent online zone that is impenetrable to law enforcement. We maintain these dark zones remove the barriers for a truly democratic society to realize itself. Recent developments in DAOs and DeFi represent an exciting step towards this future.

Additional breakthroughs in cryptography such as zero-knowledge proofs are awakening a new era of challenge and upheaval. This document gives an overview of these advances and introduces our project: DarkFi.

DarkFi is not a corporate startup. It’s a democratic economic experiment, an operating system for society.