Three MuckRock users filed FOIA requests from 2013 to 2015 for FBI files on The Tor Project, Inc., the developer of Tor. The software enables (in theory) untraceable access to both the regular internet and a network of websites inaccessible through other browsers, commonly called the “dark web.” Each request returned radically different sets of records, most predating the first request, and all linked only by their lack of substantial information.

Back in 2012, MuckRock user Runa Sandvik requested FBI reports relating to Bitcoin and the anonymous online marketplace The Silk Road. Not quite three years later, heavily-redacted copies of those reports have been released, warning of “extremists” using the cryptocurrency “to conduct nefarious financial transactions.”

Runa A. Sandvik is a privacy and security researcher, working at the intersection of technology, law and policy. She is a Staff Technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., a Forbes contributor, and a technical advisor to both the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the TrueCrypt Audit project. Prior to joining CDT, she worked with The Tor Project for four years.