Much like old age snuck up on me, the digital Internet has taken over the world before I knew what was happening. E-mail, entertainment in the form of videos and games, education through virtual universities, research through online reference works, music, news, and shopping for any thing you might want. Oh yeah, I almost forgot social networks. Web sites have all the existing information in the world! There is much good that has resulted from the Internet but there is also a dark side.
Fifteen years ago Ian Clarke, an Irish teenager with a flair for inventions, created a revolutionary new way for people to use the Internet with complete anonymity. By downloading Clarke’s software, anyone can use the Internet without detection. It is called Freenet and can be installed with minimal computer skills in a couple of minutes. Needless to say, it is used for all kinds of nefarious purposes such as bomb making instructions for terrorist and child pornography. “The Darkweb” is the fastest growing part of the Internet and is 400 times the size of the commonly defined www. Experts say that Google is bringing to the surface a very small fraction of “The deep web”. Law enforcement and government agencies have been trying to crack it and have had some success.
Professor Juliana Freire of the University of Utah, who is leading a deep web search project called Deep Peep, says, “It’s not feasible to index the whole deep web because of sheer scale. There is just too much data”. The Internet continues to expand in unpredictable and messy surges. I wonder where we go from here? And I wonder if we really want to go there.
Interesting, Sir Lance, but consider this: If over 2 million copies of Clarke's software have indeed been downloaded, then how secret can it be?
ReplyDeleteBe assured that our government watchdogs, NSA, CIA, FBI, are fully aware and working the Darknet. See http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_100809.html
for one way to do it.
While the criminal and revolutionary elements surely use the Internet, light or dark, my shirtsleeve estimate based upon having used internets since the early 80's (DARPANET), is that 99.9% of the sites and traffic are crap.
Flashlight Fero (aka TsarPat)
Yeah but what about that.1%? TsarPat is by far the most knowledgeable of all my followers concerning this topic. I appreciate his contribution but question his conclusion. My sense is that it is still very difficult to pierce the vale of the "Freenet". Only the shadow knows...
ReplyDeleteThe messages have to reside on computers; they have to travel via wire or the airwaves; they have to be relayed and parsed and noted unless they are using dedicated one-off links. Every one of these nodes or travels can be and probably is being monitored. Even the most clandestine network leaves a trail of orders, receipts, bills and registrations. With enough computer power, arrangements with nodal elements, and/or black bag ops, no one is safe from detection for long.
ReplyDeleteThe only real problem is the huge extent of the activity. Sometimes it takes a while to discover the communications hiding in the electronic thickets.
The Shadow
Ah, the Shadow reveals an inordinate amount of knowledge and experience that indicates he has been a "Spook" and knows many dark secrets. However, he proves my point by mentioning, one-off links, 'safe for long' (it does not take long) 'real problem is huge extent of activity'. The bad guys seem to always be one step ahead of the good guys in their technique. I stand with my sense that it is difficult to pierce the vale.
ReplyDelete