Introduction and Background
One of the most important technological advances of the 20th century was the creation of the World Wide Web (WWW), a global network of servers that allow users to access information via the Internet. The Web started a revolution that led to the development of the Information Age and changed many aspects of our everyday lives for the better.
The internet made knowledge much more accessible, allowed for cheap real-time communication with any part of the globe, and made the world a much more personal, interconnected place. The rapid expansion of the Web resulted in the development of sophisticated cellular networks and the creation of smartphones and tablet computers, which are integral to our contemporary society. The incredible technologies people have today are the result of the fact that the Internet found its way into most homes.
“The beauty and challenge of the Internet lie in its enabling nature” (Marshall et al. 1). While the Internet has tremendous positive technological and socio-cultural ramifications, it also led to some negative outcomes. People use the Internet to perform malicious activities, and a new category of crimes has been created, called cyber-crimes. Terrorists used the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet to attract new members into their organizations and as a tool to coordinate their attacks (Amores and Paganini 16).
Privacy and security concerns have been raised by people all over the world in response to large corporations and governments using the Internet to spy on people. The unencrypted nature of the Internet means that no one is really anonymous on the Internet. In response to that fact, a sub-network of the Web called the Dark Web was created, with a promise of full anonymity and no governmental control. As a result of the anonymity of the Dark Web, it became the place where people could perform illegal activities, such as selling drugs and sharing child pornography, and stay out of government’s sight.
Although the Dark Web constitutes a small part of the Web, it should be considered as a real threat to public safety, and require special law enforcement action to protect people’s privacy and security. The dangers of the Dark Web are the focus of this paper. The objective of this paper is to provide the description of the Dark Web, its structure and functionality, review the content and services offered through this network, and evaluate the impact of illegal activities performed in the Dark Web. The research is informed by a comprehensive literature review. A separate section includes an annotated bibliography for scholarly sources on the topic of the paper.
The Definition of the Dark Web, its Structure and Functionality
The Dark Web is a network that constitutes a part of the global Internet platform not indexed by search engines, which requires some form of authentication to gain access (Miessler par. 4; Chen et al. 1347). Such authorization may require using specific software, such as proxy software, to gain access to the Dark Web websites.
The Dark Web uses traffic anonymization techniques to protect organizations and individuals running small and large communication networks that make up the Dark Web (Sharma par. 4). “Dark Web information can be scattered in many different sources and can be changed quickly over time”, and as such, makes it difficult to locate the source of information (Chen et al. 1351). While such techniques offer a high level of security and privacy for the Dark Web users, they also make the Dark Web URLs inaccessible by standard internet browsers. The Tor network, which comprises a large part of the Dark Web, can only be accessible by the Tor browser (Sharma par. 4; Bradbury 14).
The functionality of the Dark Web is largely similar to that of the Web in general, authorization, and encryption differences aside. As such, users can access various websites through encrypted URLs, participate in discussions on forums, and download content such as audio and video.
The Dark Web versus the Deep Web
The term “Dark Web” is not to be confused with the similar term “Deep Web”. Deep Web is an umbrella term that includes both the Dark Web and those parts of the Internet which are not indexed by search engines for a variety of reasons. Search engines do not index password-protected or encrypted content, such as financial records and other sensitive data, non-HTML content, such as those file types that cannot be processed by search engines, web archives, etc.
While both the Dark Web and the Deep Web are not indexed by search engines, the Deep Web webpages can be accessed through a standard internet browser if the user knows the URL. The Deep Web does not offer the same encryption techniques and is large as anonymous as the surface web, or the part of the Web indexed by search engines.
The Content of the Dark Web
The anonymous nature of the Dark Web means that it is a place where some very specific content can be found. Websites of the Dark Web typically offer illegal or malicious content, such as stolen account and credit card data, child pornography, and pornography with extreme forms of fetishism, fraud services, weaponry and explosives, drugs, and terrorist activity (Marshall et al. 2; Chen et al. 1347; Weimann 40; Bartlett 61). Recent studies show that illegal content constitutes more than half of the dark web content (Weimann 40).
The Guardian reports that the Dark Web offers stolen credit card data for sale (Hern par. 1). In exchange for crypto-currency, the reporters could buy stolen data for as low as £1 each. Such practice is a part of the larger carding and identity theft business. Fraudsters steal credit card data in the hopes of the card having a high credit limit. In addition to credit card data, the Dark Web offers stolen PayPal accounts for $1 each. Stolen account and credit card data are used by the buyers to shop online and convert digital money into cash via pre-paid debit cards (Hern par. 8).
Due to the fact that the Dark Web offers a higher level of anonymity than the regular web, various dark websites distribute child pornography and other debatably illegal kinds of pornography. In 2015 FBI took down a site that hosted child pornography and had 45,000 registered members (Willacy par. 3). The youngest participants of the videos posted on the website were just 18 months old (Willacy par. 9).
Another site called Cruel Onion Wiki offers graphic pornography, which features nude women killing and torturing small animals in a sexualized manner (Cox par. 2). Such type of videos is called “crushed porn” and typically cannot be accessed from a normal browser. While such types of videos are indisputably the evidence of animal cruelty acts, due to the regulatory difficulties of the dark web, such videos are still being made and shared across the Dark Web.
A number of the Dark Web websites are marketplaces which sell illegal substances and weapons. Several marketplaces are currently operational which sell drugs in exchange for bitcoins, a type of cryptocurrency used on the Dark Web. While some large websites, such as Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0, have been seized by the FBI, other marketplaces are operational, and new ones are opening every year (Greenberg par. 1).
One such marketplace is called Agora, which offers over 16,000 illegal products for sale, which included both drugs and “several categories of weapons, including powerful semi-automatic firearms” and others are Pandora and Cannabis Road (Greenberg par. 6). Such websites not only sell drugs but also provide protection both for the sellers and the buyers, which make it difficult for the government agencies to deliver justice.
The impunity felt by the Dark Net website owners also means that they can offer any kind of services people are willing to pay for. The Dark Web websites include offers for hitman services, rare weapons military technology, etc. However, the anonymous nature of the Dark Web also means that there is no knowing whether such services are real or a fraud. Nevertheless, the existence of such offers implies that there is a demand for such services, and it is likely that at least some of them might be real.
In addition to marketplaces selling drugs and weaponry, the Dark Web has attracted the interest of various terrorist organizations and extremist groups, which used to facilitate their activities (Qin, Zhou, and Chen 75; Chen et. al. 1347). On the regular web, many websites “contain information about terrorism, but a relatively small proportion comes from terrorist groups themselves” (Chen et. al. 1348). This is due to the fact that the activity of terrorist organizations is restricted on the regular web: anyone on the regular web can be monitored.
Anti-terrorist government agencies regularly blacklist and take down extremist websites (Weimann 41). Various search engines, such as Google and Bing, blacklist websites with extremist content, which makes finding such websites much more difficult. In addition, due to the lack of total anonymity, the regular web poses a real danger for terrorist organizations as they are likely to be traced and eventually found.
However, on the Dark Web, none of the well-known search engines operate, and various encryption mechanisms make browsing much safer. As such, the latest trend is the migration of terrorist organizations and extremist groups to the much more secure Dark Web, which is now a place where the most extremist Islamic discourse resides (Weimann 41). Under the cover of the Dark Web, various terrorist organizations promote their ideology and attract new followers, using it as a means of encrypted communications to conduct terrorist attacks (Chen et. al. 1347).
In 2013, the Dark Web was discovered to be the main channel of encrypted communications used by al-Qaeda (Weimann 42). In 2015, ISIS shared the information about the Paris attacks and used propaganda to cover the identities of the members of their organizations (Weimann 41). Various marketplaces on the Dark Web are the places where terrorists buy explosives and weapons (Weimann 42).
The Franciscan Tradition
The foundation of the Franciscan Tradition is the message of peacemaking, love, and care for all God’s creations, which is contrary to the beliefs of the majority of the people involved in the malicious activities on the Dark Web. Put simply, the majority of the content of the Dark Web is drugs, explosives and weaponry, pornography with child abuse and animal cruelty, and various fraudulent services. None of these things can bring peace or happiness and add to the growing list of problems our society faces today.
Terrorism, in particular, is one of the most difficult issues people face today, and the Dark Web currently exists as a sole global network which allows extremists to spread messages of hate and coordinate their attacks. The evil nature of pornography which features child abuse and animal cruelty is beyond discussion. It is important to strengthen the control over the Dark Web to limit the amount of harm some individuals are looking to bring into this world.
Conclusion
In order to protect people’s privacy and security, it is necessary to take action and address the issue of the encrypted nature of the Dark Web. The anonymity provided by complex algorithms which protect users’ identities and delete traces of them being on websites leads to the most of the illegal and malicious activities being performed on the Dark Web. The sheer difficulty of the Dark Web regulation led to the establishment of weapons and drugs marketplaces, and whole networks of websites used by terrorists for communication and propaganda.
There is a fine line between anonymity for the sake of privacy and anonymity as a cover for illegal activities. The encrypted nature of the Dark Web is a major challenge for the governments, and establishing new measures for tracking and preventing illegal and malicious activities on the dark web should be any country’s priority.
Works Cited
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