The Swiss police have decided to return the "Random Darknet Shopper" robot they confiscated months ago for buying items on "dark web" marketplaces using bitcoin.
A group of contemporary Swiss artists known as !Mediengruppe Bitnik designed the Random Darknet Shopper to make online purchases from the hidden, un-indexed part of the internet. Allotting the bot with a weekly allowance of $100 in bitcoin – the digital, hard-to-trace currency – the group programmed it to randomly shop for items, which it would then mail directly to an art gallery for an installation.
"Each new object adds to a landscape of traded goods from the Darknet," !Mediengruppe Bitnik explained on its website.
The items were purchased from Agora, a dark or "deep web" marketplace only accessible through an anonymity network called Tor. The goods bought by the Random Darknet Shopper include fake Nike shoes, Ecstasy pills, Diesel jeans, a Louis Vuitton handbag and even a Hungarian passport.
The bot and all the items it purchased were on display at the Kunst Halle St. Gallen art gallery in an exhibition called "The Darknet — From Memes to Onionland. An Exploration." The public prosecutor's office in the city of St. Gallen, Switzerland confiscated the Random Darknet Shopper in January over its purchases of illegal items.
!Mediengruppe Bitnik called the confiscation "an unjustified intervention into freedom of art."
Upon the release of the Random Darknet Shopper, !Mediengruppe Bitnik has issued a statement saying it will no longer be prosecuted for the shopping bot's purchases on the dark web.
"At the same time we also received the order for withdrawal of prosecution. In the order for withdrawal of prosecution the public prosecutor states that the possession of Ecstasy was indeed a reasonable means for the purpose of sparking public debate about questions related to the exhibition," !Mediengruppe Bitnik said in a blog post.
"The public prosecution also asserts that the overweighing interest in the questions raised by the art work – Random Darknet Shopper – justify the exhibition of the drugs as artifacts, even if the exhibition does hold a small risk of endangerment of third parties through the drugs exhibited."
The Swiss authorities have returned all the items the Random Darknet Shopper bought, except for the Ecstasy pills, which have been reportedly destroyed. They had initially considered charging the !Mediengruppe Bitnik for the illegal drugs.
"We decided the Ecstasy that is in this presentation was safe and nobody could take it away. Bitnik never intended to sell it or consume it so we didn't punish them," said St. Gallen police spokesperson Thomas Hansjakob in an interview.
Hansjakob said that the art group failed to inform the police before starting their project and learned of it only through the media.
