A robot has been 'arrested' by Swiss police after it bought a supply of illegal drugs on a hidden region of the internet known as the 'dark net'. The automated computer program was designed as an online shopping system that would spend up to $100 each week by randomly purchasing an item offered for sale on the deep web. The robot would then have its purchase mailed to a group of artists who then put the items in an exhibition in the town of St Gallen, in north east Switzerland. The Random Darknet Shopper purchased a number of items for sale on the deep web (pictured) including trainers, jeans, cigarettes, a set of masterkeys and a DVD case (far left) containing 10 ecstasy tablets . The items it bought included a pair of Nike trainers, counterfeit designer jeans, the scan of a Hungarian passport and a set of UK Fire Brigade masterkeys. However, it seems the Random Darknet Shopper crossed the line when it purchased 10 Ecstasy tablets, which arrived in a vacuum packed bag hidden in a DVD case. The dark net is a subsection of the deep web - the part of the internet that does not show up in searches or on social media. Most of the information on the web is far down on dynamically generated sites, unable to be found or seen by traditional search engines, which are rather like dragging a net across the surface of the sea, missing much of the information in the depths. The dark net is used as a way of sharing information and trading goods, but the anonymous and encrypted nature of it has attracted large amounts of illegal activity. The Silk Road website and its successor that were recently shut down was used to sell drugs in exchange for bitcoins, the electronic currency. Other dark net sites allow users to share pornographic photographs, hacked information, credit card numbers and other illegal goods. The Silk Road used an underground computer network known as the The Onion Router (TOR), which is a matrix of encrypted websites and servers that disguise the identity of users. It uses numerous layers of security and encryption, hiding the IP address and the activity of the user. Just 0.26 per cent of the daily internet traffic from the UK accesses this hidden part of the internet. Police seized the drugs, the computer and the rest of the items it had purchased. Tests on the tablets later revealed they contained 90mg of the class-A drug MDMA, which the police then destroyed. The computer and the empty bag the ecstasy came in have now been returned to the group behind the bot, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, along with the other items it bought. They described the police's actions as an 'unjustified intervention into the freedom of art'. Writing on their blog, London based artists Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo, who were behind the project, said: 'Random Darknet Shopper has finally been released and is now back in our possession. '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. '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 artefacts, even if the exhibition does hold a small risk of endangerment of third parties through the drugs exhibited. 'We as well as the Random Darknet Shopper have been cleared of all charges. This is a great day for the bot, for us and for freedom of art!' The Random Darknet Shopper project was set up as an attempt to highlight some of the dilemmas that can be thrown up by dark net markets and anonymous internet use. It used Bitcoin to randomly purchase items that were offered for sail in the darknet. The tablets, pictured above, were sent from Germany inside a DVD case and a vacuum sealed foil bag . They were delivered to the artists by mail and then put on display in an exhibition at the Kunst Halle in St Gallen. During the weeks it had been running it also purchased a fake Louis Vuitton handbag, a baseball cap with a hidden camera and 200 Chesterfield cigarettes. The darknet market features more than 16,000 items that are sold in a way that allows the seller to remain anonymous. The ecstasy tablets were found to contain 90mg of MDMA and were destroyed by the Swiss authorities . It has become notorious as a place to buy illegal pornography, drugs and weapons. The robot software bought the ecstasy in October. It was sent from Germany to Switzerland and apparently crossed the border hidden in a DVD case without being intercepted by the authorities. The drugs were allowed to remain on show in the exhibition until it ended in January. However, the police raided the exhibition when it came to an end and seized the computer and its purchases on the grounds the drugs were an endangerment of third parties. Speaking to the Guardian, Mr Smoljo said that they had been told although the computer had purchased the drugs itself, they were the legal owners of the drugs as they had executed the code behind the software. The case has raised important questions about the use of automatic shopping bots and the use of the darknet. In the past the artists have used technology to intercept CCTV images and sent a package to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Mr Smoljo and Miss Weisskopf said: 'The Random Darknet Shopper is a live Mail Art piece, an exploration of the deep web via the goods traded there.'
Random Darknet Shopper is a computer bot that randomly purchases an item every week from a hidden part of the internet called the dark net . Swiss police seized bot after it purchased 10 ecstasy tablets from Germany . It was later released 'without charge' according to the artists behind the bot . They designed it as part of an art exhibition to display items bought by the robot over the dark net including trainers, a passport scan and cigarettes .