The Darkside of the Internet: The Deepweb and Darknet

With the advent of computer mediated communication there have been people trying to exploit it. Illegal activities on the internet like child pornography, the selling of drugs, and other illicit activities. These things happen on the surface web from time to time on websites like mega upload and pirate bay, but there is a part of the internet that is harder to access, where most illicit things take place, the deep web and Darknet.

The deep web is the space on the internet that has not been indexed by a search engine. To put it simply you cannot find these websites through something like Google or bing. Some companies and people have tried to access them, and/or document all of these websites, but given the size of it (estimated to.be much bigger than the surface web) this has been a fruitless endeavor. Federal agencies see this as a safe haven for crime, which it can be given it's "off the grid" feeling. Some special web browsers have been developed to access the deep web (tor specifically), and I personally know a few people who purchase their drugs from deep web websites.

The Darknet is similar in the sense that it is impossible to monitor, but different in the ways operates fundamentally. The Darknet is a series of private peer to peer connections that make it so people can interact though the internet without ever being on the surface web and the deep web. These private connections are notorious for trading illegally obtained photos usually child pornography. A few years ago the sometimes hactivist group Anonymous, tried to root out as much child pornography as they could with some success. A month or so ago "the fappening" happened, and most of those pictures were likely obtained through the Darknet trading.

The internet has without a doubt revolutionized the way people communicate. The problem, as with any invention is that people will inevitably try to exploit for their own personal gain, illegal or otherwise. Spaces in the internet like the deep web and the Darknet make room for this exploitation. While it was never the intent of the internet to trade things like child pornography, the dark side of computer mediated communications as been shown through these gaps in monitoring.