The dark web | Hacker News Reader

The dark web

guardian.co.uk

56 pointsenvitar19 comments

Typical sensationalist journalism. This murky dark web, the only use of which is kiddie porn, is thousands of times bigger than the "good" Internet. The same journalists think "hacker" is a dirty word.

See Ian Clarke's response: http://blog.locut.us/main/2009/11/25/the-guardian-writes-abo...

Nevertheless he seems to think that - all things considered - it was a pretty good article.

I thought by the "dark web that is 500 times bigger than the internet" he was really referring to all the data the search engines can't get to. That would include most normal web sites with passwords. Just because he called it "dark" does not imply that all of it is supposed to be criminal stuff. I might have read it wrong, though.

It probably includes the petabytes of data CERN generates too. You can get them over JANET via FTP, does that count?

I had never heard of JANET: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET

The quote is "deep web" not "dark web".

The article is a confusing mish-mash of several completely different things.

The article doesn't take that tack; the subtitle does. I'd blame the sub-editor (probably also responsible for the [sic] next to the US spelling of pedophile) rather than the author.

That's true. The article is more of an overview of the stuff online most people aren't aware of.

It just seems unfair to dump private intranets along with projects like Freenet and Tor together with RBN botnets, under the "dark web" designation.

What's wrong with marking a mis-spelling?

It's not a misspelling in American English. It's like saying "No hablo[sic] espanol[sic]".

However, as its an UK English newspaper, it's likely appropraite. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic

No, because the source language isn't in UK English. If it was, then sure.

Except you would say "no hablo espanol" with italics to indicate use of a foreign language (and you'd use the correct accents!).

Also how do you know which English variant that copy of the work is in? Emphasising the apparent mis-spelling may also be a way of highlighting that the source material is North American.

"I know many of the best security people in the world, and none of them work for the British police." - Ian Clarke

Subtitle: In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography

Excerpt: You find the Freenet website, read a few terse instructions, and answer a few questions ("How much security do you need?" … "NORMAL: I live in a relatively free country" or "MAXIMUM: I intend to access information that could get me arrested, imprisoned, or worse"). Then you enter a previously hidden online world. In utilitarian type and bald capsule descriptions, an official Freenet index lists the hundreds of "freesites" available: "Iran News", ...

So, something they left-handedly acknowledge (by listing "Iran News" first): The fact that political activism can get you "arrested, imprisoned, or worse". And, in some places, being gay (for example) is about as forbidden as being a pedophile, though I don't think it should matter what consenting adults choose to do together in that regard.

As I understand it, the countries that are the biggest exporters of illegal drugs are countries that are typically very poor and have no legitimate means of making adequate money. As I understand it, during Victorian/prudish eras, prostitution thrives. Prostitution tends to do more poorly when men can get laid without paying cash for it because "normal" women will put out more readily. I think there is an abundance of evidence that being overly controlling, dictatorial and judgmental tends to have the opposite effect of what is theoretically desired and tends to promote "bad behavior" -- in part by categorizing so many things as "forbidden", thus causing some rather ordinary activities to be denounced as "bad".

There's a fair bit of confusion about the various forms of "darkness" in the article. It's very easy to get the impression that Freenet is many times bigger than the public web. Incidentally, I wonder if VPN connections to intranets are counted in the 500x figure.

What is Kosmix and why does this journalist keep mentioning it?

It appears to be another search engine. Watch the video here: http://www.kosmix.com/corp/about

What an awful piece of writing. And to think people actually read those like they have something to say. Pathetic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com