Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld – Netflix Review (3/5)

CYBERBUNKER: THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD on Netflix is a new documentary from Germany. The darknet is at the center of it, and we hear the story from multiple sides. Read our full Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld documentary review here!

CYBERBUNKER: THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD is a new Netflix documentary from Germany. It’s a fascinating story that I may have heard about briefly in the news, but never the full story. Admittedly, I’m not quite sure I have now either.

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This documentary feature could easily have been a docu-series with three episodes. Both to focus on different areas of the story as well as the many intriguing people in it. Hearing about the darknet and the crimes it helps facilitate is scary, but also informative. I have no doubt this documentary only scratches the surface.

Continue reading our Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld documentary review below. Find it on Netflix from November 8, 2023.

All about the data center

Officially, Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld is described as being about “a group of hackers”, but this really isn’t what the documentary shows. Instead, it shows a group of people creating a data center that honestly (defiantly even) states that they will allow almost anything to be hosted on their servers.

The name of the data center is Cyberbunker, which makes perfect sense when you see that the data center is physically located in a bunker. A Cold War-era bunker in a quaint German town popular among tourists.

It’s a wild contrast to see this small town and then hear about what happened in the bunker. In fact, it feels that the world above the ground and the one below, are happening in two different time periods. One is all about the beauty of the past while the other focuses on the possibilities of the future.

This might sound intriguing, but we are also talking about the darknet. In other words, it does get dark. Very dark. And illegal.

Getting the story from multiple sides

What works really well for Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld is the fact that we hear about this case from more than one side. There’s the side of the police and the prosecutor, of course, but we also hear from the people who created and/or worked in the actual Cyberbunker.

These are people who not only know the internet, but they built much of it and even live most of their lives there.

Hearing the story from both sides and how each is aware of how the other sees the world, is an intriguing and fascinating part of this Netflix documentary.

I cannot imagine the authorities can ever fully get as immersed in this world as the people they’re going after. They simply can’t understand this world in the same way. Having said that, I definitely do feel that they have to try when it comes to stopping the brutal crimes of human trafficking and abuse of children.

Watch Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld on Netflix now!

This new German documentary comes from Kilian Lieb and Max Rainer. The runtime of just 1 hour and 41 minutes is too short for me. There is so much left unsaid and elements of how the case evolved that I never quite caught. I realize it may be because this cannot be revealed, but then a note of that should have been made.

Simply stating “due to ongoing investigation…” and I could let it go. Now, I feel like something is missing.

Still, this is a documentary I would definitely recommend that you watch with an open mind. You’re going to have to form your own opinion and also decide who you believe in some cases when the stories differ a bit. The darknet is a scary place that enables criminals, but it’s also a part of the world that we have to deal with.

In fact, this is in part the conclusion of the Cyberbunker documentary as we know many of the people involved with this project want to continue. And they very clearly can!

Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld is out on Netflix from November 8, 2023.