Dark web

What's Dark web?

Now the media coverage of deep web usually describes it as a vast hidden area five thousand times larger than the surface web and filled with criminals, but it is actually false. The deep web is not hidden and actually harbors zero criminal activity, it simply accounts for the unindexed content online the raw data that google doesn't know about and doesn't care about. For example your online banking data is not stored anywhere on google and your company may have an internal that you used to communicate this exist in a deep web.

But there is a hidden internet a tiny little area called the dark web. This small corner of the internet is comprised primarily of information that is actively hidden from public view and this is the area we are talking about.

How you can access it?

The dark net can only be accessed by specific tools like Tor. It is a special browser and service that master your browsing activity and get you into the dark net. Will you find crime?  Yes, but not to the degree that the media has claimed and crime is neither the primary use of dark net nor why it was built.

What dark net is use for?

Now the internet was originally funded by the department of defense and as it became publicly facing with a world wide web. New technologies were created to ensue its use for defense. So really dark is just another tool and it's used by government agencies all over the world along with journalists dissidents and countries with hostile governments.

Just regular folks who want to create and utilize anonymous online communities. There are black market selling drugs all of these represents a small fraction of the physical drug trade. Guns have been sold on the dark net but not effectively. Sadly, why would you want to hassle with a dark net when you can buy a semi automatic riffle anywhere from Walmart to Instagram.

There is child pornography on the dark net but significantly less than is available on the surface web. Contrary to popular mythology there was no tangible evidence that actual legitimate hitmen services have ever been offered on the dark net or that significant terrorist activity has either. Though there are hoax sites that claims these services. It will come as no surprise but hoax and scam sites proliferate on the dark net operated both by law enforcement to lower the incautious digital criminal and by internet trolls who want to profit on the deep web this deep web hysteria. 

Is dark web is full of criminals?

So there are dark things on the dark web though considerably less than it is been reported and law enforcement is all over it. The truth is the dark net is a terrible place to conduct crime. It's difficult to get into the dark net and it's cumbersome to navigate once you are in. By nature digital criminals  are amongst the most easily tracked and caught. It's very hard to remain anonymous on the internet where the slightest mistake can expose your entire history of activity.

Similarly digital currencies like Bitcoin are horrible tools for crime. While they are capable of being anonymized by nature they are the least anonymous form of currency that exist with every single transaction being permanently recorded in a digital ledger and the internet never forgets.

So, why the cyber spin and hysteria in the media? Well it's sells, it's good for clickbait it makes for T.V. shows and magazines but there is another agenda at work, to demonize the dark net and to scare people away from it now.

Reason why dark web is build.

I am sure many of you heard of hacks like Ashley Madison, Target, Anthem Blue cross and Snapchat. We have already been hacked this is truth all of us, our financial information, our medical records, our personal photographs, our browsing activity, our phone calls or text. All of these information is already out there in other people's hands. How did it get there? Through pervasive government surveillance and bulk collection by black hat hackers who are pulling down your online information and the information of your banks insurance companies and other institutions and by your internet service provider, your phone company and other tech companies, who routinely collect your information both with and without your permission and whose basic functions track your every move collect your data and store your speech. I am not talking about spyware but common apps like Siri and Google maps.

The hard question is the digital age is not what do we do if our  personal information gets out there because for most of us that's too late. The real question face today is why should we care. As we are constantly told that if we have nothing to fear. Our personal information is just sitting out there and waited to be exploited for what ever reason and those reason could be range from minor violation to destroyed lives.

I don't except the idea that if we have nothing to hide we have nothing to fear. Privacy serves a purpose it's why we have blinds on our windows and a door on our bathroom. Privacy is important to us is something we take for granted is being central to our lives. In other words we have plenty to hide and it's always been a right to hide it until now. But today there are people who don't want us to protect our privacy who want into a large degree already have free access to our personal information. Again I'm mostly talking about tech and phone companies, government and black hat hackers.

Now, how do they work to prevent us from our privacy. They propagate misinformation about privacy and they demonize those tools. Those who use them they weaken the security of the internet with backdoors to gain access to our information and they lie to the public about what information they are collecting and for what purpose, This behavior is radicalized a generation, a growing  movement of hackers, digital activists and cryptographers who are fighting back and some of these radical actors created and operated  The Dark web.

Now reading all this many of you would say, I'm willing to give up some of my freedom to have more security and of course we want law enforcement to catch the bad guys. But there's two problems with this idea less privacy makes for more security

1. There's no evidence, this is the case that the government surveillance and backdoors that weaken the security of the internet make for greater security it's a needle in a haystack approach and it's highly questionable that it works  better than a targeted approach. Law enforcement already has more than enough access for targeting and catching criminals in the digital space this is in many ways the golden age of surveillance for law enforcement.
2. Less privacy makes for more security is that weakening the security of the internet makes life easier for bad guys, it's easier for hackers to access your information if you are unable to protect that information and it's easier for digital criminals to breach government's banks and institutions. If their general security has been weakened with backdoors.

Law enforcement has to do their job in a digital world where citizens have privacy. Just as they have to do their job in a physical world where citizen had privacy. You wouldn't allow a cop to break into your house and rummage through your belongings but that's just what's happening to your computer and cell phone devices that now contain your entire life. By same token corporations need to be able to conduct business and crunch the data with less access. Black hat hackers have to be met with airtight security tools not weakened ones but how on earth do we go about achieving all this. It requires the very thing these people are most afraid of .

Conclusion

We need to go dark to go dark means that everyone would be utilizing privacy and anonymity tools at all times tools like Tor and Virtual Private Networks that protect your browsing activity just they protect dark net sites like Silk road. PGP is a encryption service that keep emails private and fully encrypted phone calls and text. Now this services used to be difficult for the average user but that's changing the desire for privacy and security in the digital space is becoming big business. 

You may not realize that apples AI messages are now encrypted. Where it used to be that anyone could access your text messages and now so websites are usually using secure connection by default. We need a hidden internet just as we need all the tools and services that protect our privacy and anonymity.