We can’t let the dark web give online anonymity a bad name
wired.co.uk
wired.co.uk
Charlatans use the dark web to advance their goal of branding anonymity as bad.
Clickbait hot take bloggers, "journalists" who should know better, and other useful idiots are all more than willing to assassinate character and tear down something they don't care about if it confers a benefit to themselves (attention, status, ad impressions, etc...).
Those are the bigger problem. Not the "dark web."
It's nice that this author is making the principled case for anonymity. But that should be secondary to showing people the bigger picture, and how to "smell out" when they're being mislead for someone's myopic goals.
Your logic essentially is, "No one can learn anything; their opinions are fixed," but that's obviously false, as we have all learned or else we would be unable to read and write and do everything else we do.
In fact, your posting your own comment contradicts your logic, as according to it, there's no point to saying what you said, since it can't change anyone's mind.
Hackers and others within that category are great. Thanks to hackers you can get full access to devices that would otherwise be locked down. Thanks to hackers you can take full control of your media content, playing it without constraints and on any device.
Drugs are a huge market, let's tax it. Most people buying drugs are likely harmless members of society. We're wasting time and money chasing down buyers, sellers, and service managers. There's an absurd amount of people in jail for engaging in fully benign activities.
Porn is a huge industry which pretty much everyone likes. A few rotten apples don't mean you have a rotten tree. Oh, we also waste a lot of money chasing down prostitutes and the like. I'm sure many sex workers would love to continue what they're doing without having to worry about the risk of cops showing up.
+ (Assuming the rape and violence are real not just actors)
They can be that and still be porn to some people.
I doubt that anyone would make child pornography in order to satisfy someone else. I would be pretty sure that one would do it either for a huge financial gain, personal satisfaction, or both. The people who upload it for free would still rape children even if they were not able to upload it anywhere. Considering that I would say that this argument is even worse than saying that the media should stop reporting terrorist attacks to disencourage the terrorists from performing terrorist acts (assuming that they do it for personal fame or to scare people).
The first could be solved by catching people who are buying and selling. However none of these can be solved by catching people who simply watch or distribute but do not create nor buy child pornography - catching them would be arresting them for a thoughtcrime.
Does it count as being in the market if no exchange of money takes place? Is Github a market, for example? If not, this would seem to invalidate the idea at least when the material is found by chance or provided free.
>There are people who, knowing you are like them and enjoy that sort of thing, will make it for you.
That's true, but if you're using this as an argument against all the material then I think I should step in and say that it does not apply to all the material, or at least, you haven't provided evidence that it does. I don't doubt it happens, but to use this as a general argument seems to fall flat on its face.
The "good porn" analogues are people who record themselves because they like the attention. But I think this is a minority.
Plus there's the torment of the victim, knowing that there are people out there to this day jerking off to video of the worst experience of their lives.
I simply don't buy the idea that the majority of CP advertised on the dark web is only available for pay or exchange; I'm sure a lot of it is, but this "market effect" thing is unsubstantiated as far as I can tell, even though many would like to believe it's a good argument against something heinous, that doesn't mean we should just accept it.
>Plus there's the torment of the victim, knowing that there are people out there to this day jerking off to video of the worst experience of their lives.
This I can understand and actually I regard it as a bigger motivator to the illegalisation of possession. However often they don't know, and could you reassure them that it's not happening if you put an effort toward eradicating only their images? And if they don't know, doesn't that also eradicate this argument in those cases too? What if they don't have a problem with it, or rather, they are neutral about it? The harm would have to be found, and if there is no harm, the argument collapses in that case. Of course the argument also does not apply to pornography in which the victims are dead or unconscious etc. which would seem to, considering only this argument, make such material permissible.
Also consider the viewer of the child pornography. They have no way of knowing if the victim is aware of the video, or the victim's opinion about the video. So if they go forward and view it without caring if harm was caused, isn't that wrong?
Perhaps I was too hasty. Of course it's wrong, even if they didn't know. But in this case, the actual harm you're claiming exists (and I agree that it can exist) is knowledge itself. The knowledge is a side effect; if this side effect can be stopped from manifesting itself, then the harm is no longer done.
i.e rape involves harm not through knowledge but by matter of fact, by its very definition. This is not the case with the crime of possessing child pornography.
With regard to death, I'm not sure what your point is - your argument for harm caused by knowledge does not hold up when the victim of the harm is dead. Of course that dosen't mean that it's OK to kill the victim, but if that were to happen, it would eliminate the crime of harm by knowledge.
>So if they go forward and view it without caring if harm was caused, isn't that wrong?
Not if there was no harm caused.
I'm becoming more skeptical of this argument. If knowledge that something is happening constitutes sufficient harm, then would it follow that somebody laughing at you in another coutry, which you know to be happening somehow (such as being told by a friend), can be considered as harm?
I would claim that it is as long as it harms nobody and as long as it does not benefit the creator.
You haven't met a victim before. For them, the knowledge that their abuse is being watched by people for sexual pleasure all around the world years after it happened is a profound source of psychological trauma. It harms them.
I honestly doubt that but even then the money would go to the site owners, not to child rapists directly. Anyhow, as I said in another post we could simply also hold accountable these who pay for it - after all the act of paying for it would cause the harm, not the data by itself.
> one to provide some child porn of their own as a barrier to entry
Create their own or just post some of what they have collected? Only the first one causes harm.
> the knowledge that their abuse is being watched by people for sexual pleasure all around the world years after it happened is a profound source of psychological trauma
I fail to see how they would know that they are being watched or how watching it being illegal eases their thoughts.
> It harms them.
No, only physical actions like rape could harm them, distributing data on the dark web does not.
Untrue. We know from interviews of the children, now adults, featured in the images of child sexual abuse that the distribution of those images in itself causes harm.
> No, only physical actions like rape could harm them, distributing data on the dark web does not.
Clearly bollocks.
How do they know that the distribution of these images took place? How did that even affect them in their life?
I honestly doubt that this is the case - and even then it would be only an argument against distributing it, not watching it.
People who have been through such experiences typically have extensive and long-running contacts with the legal and law enforcement systems, and at the ry least tend to maintain an awareness of their original abuser's custodial situation.
Just as there are networks of people who like child porn, there are networks of people who monitor its production and distribution. A few unfortunate people go on to become consumers or perpetrators of abuse in turn because they are drawn seek out imagery of what happened to them.
Be aware too that in many cases access to child porn collections are not traded for money, but for the submission of new material, so the distribution of it directly incentivizes further abuse.
> No, only physical actions like rape could harm them, distributing data on the dark web does not.
Does that mean that mental / emotional trauma from being robbed at gunpoint is not harm if a physical assault does not occur?
I have been robbed at gunpoint. I was robbed by someone who I met through a third party (not randomly on the street, but at my home). Police arrested the robber after I called 911, but he was released for reasons not easily summarized.
One month later, I pulled into a gas station and saw the perpetrator in the parking lot. I immediately drove home and had a panic attack.
By your argument, no harm was caused. The psychological impact, however, was very real to me.
Edit: formatting.
At some point we draw the line, and in almost all other respects the line is drawn elsewhere - in that mere knowledge of an act occuring is not sufficient to make that act illegal.
The equivalent here would be the fact that the robber is in the gas station, I think? Should the robber not be allowed to be anywhere where he may even be seen by you? In the same way, even though the abuse of the child was problematic, should someone who views the abuse be disallowed from doing so? And further, there is even more disconnect here, making your analogy much weaker - what does the victim know of the instance in which someone views that recording?
Now, they may not know in real time, but yeah they can find out. The contents of child-porn collections are documented in the legal proceedings of court cases, for example. People who consume child porn have social networks of their own, and discuss and comment upon that material in the same way that enthusiasts do anything else on the internet. And as I've mentioned, access to child porn collections/communities is often purchased by the submission of new material, both to bind the would-be viewer with ties of shared criminal liability and to feed the demand for novelty. Thus, the commoditization of child porn incentivizes the production of more of it.
I didn't equate them - you created a discriminator which placed them in the same category. The reasonable interpretation is that your statement bites off too much, and is thus invalid.
But really? So do you personally reject the concept of the universal set, or do you just not take yourself seriously?
Do you deny that they're both in the category of "things that happen" ?
You're ignoring a lot of the other things hackers do. Like, you know, break into systems they don't own for profit. On the dark web, you've got DDoS as a service and botnet as a service sites.
What is wrong with that? The owners of these systems should have made sure that they don't run shitty and (vulnerable/old versions of their) programs.
> On the dark web, you've got DDoS as a service and botnet as a service sites.
These things exist on the normal web as well.
Yes
> What about in the physical world?
Actions in the physical world actually harm people, something which is not true for the virtual world and can be trivially be avoided.
I can drain your bank accounts by hacking you, how is that not actual harm?
> and can be trivially be avoided
Leaving aside the argument about whether securing yourself is "trivial", that doesn't make it OK! If you leave your door unlocked, that doesn't mean it's OK for me to come in and steal your TV.
One would need to be extremely irresponsible in order to let themselves be hacked. I would consider it as a punishment and a lesson more than anything.
In any case, this does not directly cause harm in the real world - you would not be able to make money disappear out of your home for example.
> If you leave your door unlocked, that doesn't mean it's OK for me to come in and steal your TV.
It's only the combination of the two (virtual world + can be trivially be avoided) that makes it OK.
It is not trivial to secure digital systems. If anything, it’s far harder to ensure digital systems are secure, because of the number of moving parts. I can be fairly confident that if I pack my physical money into a safe, a vulnerability is not going to be discovered that allows an arbitrary person thousands of miles away to empty it without my knowledge. Quite the opposite is true of digital systems!
Breaking into people's homes is trivially easy.
Computers are used by humans for a purpose. If you harm the computer there is a decent chance tncauses problems (inconvenience and up) to people.
No, we were talking about hacking, not things like DDoSing.
I would support the stance that DDoSing should be illegal because it only causes harm and can't be defended against easily.
What exactly do you think they're talking about when they write "hackers"? They're talking about DDOSers and data ransomers. Criminals, not some romantic bringers of justice, or something.
Bullshit argument. It’s trivial to break into most houses, for example, but it’s hardly regarded as an acceptable practice.
My situation is that after blocking someone on Facebook I got recommended to follow them on Instagram (they were not in my address book on my phone and I haven't shared this with Instagram so the only way I can see Instagram having the info that we even knew each other is from it's parent company). I'm sure the other person probably got the reverse recommendation - something I obviously don't want.
I've also had family members of people that I blocked (along with blocking all mutual connections) recommended to me years later. It may not seem like a big deal but depending on your reasons for blocking people or avoiding them online it could be distressing for some. It did however make me seriously consider deleting my account once and for all (in the end I just locked all social media down even further).
My personal experience made me think a little about how things have changed. In the past if you ended any kind of relationship (even non-romantic) you could simply choose to not see that person anymore and possibly go the rest of your life without bumping into them or hearing about them. Now, it is a gargantuan and almost impossible task. Like in the case of your friend it can be potentially dangerous but even in more basic cases it can be a mental burden and impossible (or very difficult) to draw a line under someone and move on.
I'm rambling a little now but I'd be interested to know if anyone had research or articles they know of discussing this change in society and it's impact on people's wellbeing. I know it's been documented that social media can have a negative impact on mental health so I'd be curious to know if what I've discussed above is a significant factor in that.
The world's always been full of dirty things, but holding everyone's freedom random for "protection" was usually not the way we operated.
The way we operated was to issue warrants.
But now these dirty things operate in more and more virtual and less and less physical ways. So the old tools aren't working like they used to, and people are looking for ways that do work.
Are there any useful websites on the 'dark web'? I'm thinking of the kind of things we hundreds of millions use every day that are legal (social networks, email, youtube, etc.). If so why aren't more people using them? And if not that seems like the easiest way to change the image of the 'dark web' and bring more regular people on to it.
Silk Road ;-)
There's onionnail[0] whose author I can personally vouch for from the point of view of his intentions. About the security of it all, I have to admit I'm not qualified to judge.
The person found a handful of thins like Facebook were available and some big journalistic organizations can be contacted that way. There were a number of indexes of known .onion URLs.
Most of the rest was hacker services for sale, scam sites, child porn, etc.
Outside of passing info to journalists (not much traffic) or talking where state censors couldn't find you in a repressed regeime... what would make 'the dark web' useful enough to normal people that it would get used in any sort of scale? There's an obvious advantage for criminals to use it but I don't see something to compel non-criminals. Thus it seems to have sort of naturally segregated into a mostly criminal thing.
If governments or powerful corporations start to engage in more censorship in the future, then more people will have a motivation to protect themselves against censorship.
If you don't care about the feature of censorship resistence, perhaps because nothing that you do is controversial or interesting enough to be in danger of being censored, then you obviously wouldn't have much reason to use tor.
If, on the other hand, governments and/or powerful corporations engage in more censorship in the future, then more people will have a reason to use a censorship resistant service.
Let's call it the Debian "Words of Encouragement" messaging app. Its purpose is to allow Debian members to send short, pithy words of encouragement to each other to spread goodwill through the universe.
Here's how to build it:
1. Fork Bitmessage.
2. Have the client fetch the Debian strong set at startup. Only those keyholders may send and receive messages.
3. Limit it to one fixed-size message per day, to be sent at a pre-determined time.
4. If no message is in the queue, either send an acknowledgment of receipt for the last message or a randomly generated message.
5. Repeat forever.
Now you've got a private information retrieval system that has no scaling problems, no Sybil attacks, and essentially no bad actors. (Or if a bad actor happen to materialize, well, they just signed their bad act with a key that someone in the Debian ecosystem should be able to tie to a human identity if it came to that.)
And you don't have to worry about giving it an approachable UX because Debian devs don't care about that shit.
Boom-- state-of-the-art decentralized messaging service that whose anonymity and metadata-mining resistance scales with Debian's own interest in granting its developerbase anonymity.
a key that someone should in the Debian ecosystem should be able to tie to a human identity
anonymous
I just end up having to explain to my older relatives that it's nonsense when they ask me about it.
I just expressed my personal perception. I see politicians talking about, that the government should be able to decipher whatsapp etc.
They probably don't like tor either.
A New York lawmaker proposed mandating backdoors or face a $2,500 fine per device.[0 §1(C)]
Senators Burr (R-NC) and Feinstein (D-CA) tried to introduce the "Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016".[1 §3]
Thankfully, neither made it anywhere, but the fact that many politicians are so clueless about modern technology is scary.
[0]: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2015/a8093
[1]: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2797124/Burr-Fein...