Dark-Net: The Hidden Side of the Internet

This essay discusses the concept of dark-net and its association with cyber crime. It explores the positive and negative impacts of dark-net on society, including its privacy benefits and the risks it poses. Recommendations are provided to address the issue.

Cyber Crime

Introduction
Criminology can be defined as the study or scientific discussion of criminal activities.
Criminology aims to study and analyse the causes of crimes, criminals’ responses towards law
and law enforcement systems, and the possible methods of crime prevention. Criminology is
considered as a part of sociology which deals with scientific analysis of social behaviours. In
this paper criminal activities will be discussed in a modern context. The advent of internet
technology is considered as a recent phenomenon; the impacts of this technological invention are
visible in every aspect of modern life and criminal activities are no exception in this context. The
term cyber crime has gained immense popularity these days; it simply refers to those crimes in
which computers are used as the primary tools. The concept of dark net is closely associated with
the term cyber-crime. Dark net is defined as an umbrella that covers all those areas of internet
services that are purposefully closed to the general public (Seigfried-Spellar, Villacís-
Vukadinović and Lynam, 2017). Dark-net is also known as Tor Network that helps criminals
conduct illegal trading activities. In this essay the positive and negative sides of dark-net will be
discussed broadly and its impacts on the society will be evaluated critically. Finally a few
recommendations will be made to resolve the current problem as far as possible.
Main Body
The term dark-net came into existence in 1970, in that era many computer networks were
secluded from the ARPANET for certain security reasons. Even though Arpanet could not access
dark-net, it was the primary means of communication for the dark-net users. Dark-net functions
on the same principles even today. Dark-net is a hidden network that works on the principle of
network encryption. Popular Search engines such as Yahoo, Google or Bing do not index dark
websites as these areas of the internet are only available to certain group of individuals. General
public cannot access the dark-net as it requires authentication, special configuration and certain
software to be reached. Many non-standard protocols are generally used in dark-net in order to
deliberate make it inaccessible through Internet (Button and Cross, 2017). It has been observed
that popular culture treats dark-net and dark-web as synonyms. Dark-net offers anonymity to its
users, people can utilise this as a means of communications without having their identities been
revealed. This feature of dark-net attracts criminals; criminals can confidently conduct their
illicit businesses through dark-net as no fear of repercussion is there.

In this context the purpose of dark-net should be discussed elaborately. Today people use the
word internet as a short for the term internetwork. The primary objective of internet is to connect
numerous computer networks so that people all over the world can communicate with one other
with ease. Internet network allows all those devices to connect with one another that are parts of
its connection web. Therefore it can be said that internet is simply a means of communication in
the modern world. Internet in this modern world is being used for different purposes such as
academics, business, communication and so on (Demant, Munksgaard, Décary-Hétu and
Aldridge, 2018). It cannot be denied that internet has become an integral part of modern
economy. However most of the people have access to the ‘surface web’ only that covers only 4%
of the contents available on internet. Rest of the contents can be found on the ‘deep web’ that
requires credentials (log-in information, it is not anonymous) to be accessed. People generally
fail to differentiate dark and deep web. Deep web technology aims to prevent regular internet
crawlers to access confidential information. Some example of deep web contents would be
medical records of patients, library catalogues, tax data, government database etc (Maguire,
Uchida and Hassell, 2015). Therefore it can be said that the main purpose of deep web is to
protect confidential data from illegal and unauthorised access. Dark web is also not essentially
‘evil’, for example sharing anti-government opinions can definitely be illegal, but it shouldn’t be
considered as evil. Journalists, thinkers, and other people can use dark-net to share their
ideologies which are not accepted in the society. Government also uses dark-net to track illegal
activities. However, since the dark-net offers anonymity, it essentially benefits criminals. Dark-
net doesn’t require credentials; it uses certain software packages rather, such as Tor, I2P,
Freenet, ZeroNet and so on. In most of the cases it has been observed that dark-net is being used
by drug dealers, weapon dealers, hackers, gamblers, assassins, terrorists, vendors of illegal goods
and information (Kethineni, Cao and Dodge, 2018).
In order to understand the impacts of dark-net on the society, one needs to compare its positive
and negative influences properly. In this context it must be mentioned the term ‘dark’ doesn’t
essentially mean ‘bad’, it actually refers to the privacy that dark-net offers to its users. Dark-net
is a part of the deep web and it has strong access to some legal and popular websites such as
Facebook, New York Times, Proton Mail, and ProPublica. Thses sites allow dark-net to be
associated with them only because of the benefits privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of
information it provides. People in the modern era are constantly living under the surveillance of

national governments. Dark-web is much more resistant to such surveillances than its
equivalents, journalists and whistleblowers can use it efficiently in a positive manner. Not only
the government, but also the business firms and large scale companies are always violating
security and privacy regulations and using people’s personal information for their financial
benefits. Dark-web protects its users against such security concerns.
However it must be mentioned that the positive use of dark-web solely depends on people’s
goodwill; since there is no control on the users of dark-net, people are free to do whatever they
want. Importance of law is immense in the society; it works as a guideline for people and
restrains them from committing crime. It is essential to criminalise certain activities which are
not acceptable to the greater society in order to maintain peace and order. According to the
classical theory of criminology the punishment for crime must generate a sense of fear in
criminal’s mind. However on dark-net people are allowed to conduct any activity as all these
restraining factors are missing there. Therefore it has been observed that the cons of dark-net are
much impactful for the society in comparison to its pros. Today dark-web is being used for all
those purposes (mentioned earlier) that can severely harm the society and the humankind (Açar,
2017).
Dark web is negatively affecting modern society in various ways. People are trading illegal
pharmaceuticals and drugs through dark-net which must have a long-term negative impact of the
young generation. Silk Road was a famous online market for illegal drugs. Important documents
are being forged and replicas of foreign currencies are being created with the help of
counterfeiter technology. Most of the people in the world are unaware of the fact that their
confidential financial data (PII, credit card details) are being stolen and traded by a group of
individuals through dark-net. Gun crime has become a serious issue in many countries all over
the world; the US is one of those countries that are suffering immensely due to this problem.
Weapon dealers are trading weapons through the dark-web in a fearless manner (Mann and
Warren, 2018). Both individuals and large-scale organisations these days are struggling to
manage their online data due to the increasing hacking activities. Hackers use dark-net to
collaborate and communicate with other people associated with similar illegal conducts. Dark-
net also helps gamblers to carry on their activities as no legal restriction is there to prevent them.
People use dark-web to hire professional assassins; murders and their services are clearly listed

on dark-net. Cross-border terrorism uses it as an efficient tool for communication. Illegal goods
are also being traded through dark-net as it is difficult for the law enforcement department to
detect the traders due to dark-net’s privacy benefits (Pyrooz, Decker, and Moule Jr, 2015). Dark-
web is also used for spreading harmful and violent contents such child pornography, child
murder, and extreme sexual abuse which are completely illegal and harmful for the society as a
whole.
According to a report published by the Independent on 8th of May, 2018, UK has become the
largest drug buyer on the dark-web and the average age of the buyers are just 21. These people
are also dragging their kith and kin to such practices which are a major source of concern for the
UK government. A report published by the Mirrors (may. 2016) says that hit-mans are being
hired against huge amount of money in the UK which is raising questions against the
effectiveness of the public security services in this country. A report published by the Guardian
(july 4, 2017) said that after the 5 consecutive terrorist attacks in 2017 it was found by the
investigators that terrorists groups are raising money and gaining new followers in Britain
though dark web. Crypto currencies like bit-coins are being used for fund generation. According
to a BBC report huge numbers of fire arms are being sold through dark-net all over the worlds
and the amount of revenue it generating is also very high. A report published by the independent
on December 25, 2018 states that complete packages of identity of the UK citizens are being
traded on internet which is a major threat to people’s personal and financial lives. Hackers are
attacking the databases of large scale companies such as Marriott hotels, British Airways and
Facebook. Therefore it can easily be stated that dark-web has become a major source of concern
in terms of social security (Whitty and Buchanan, 2016).
Conclusion
Depending on the entire discussion it can be concluded that Dark-net is a hard reality of the
modern era. It is a small part of the deep web that covers 96% of the contents available on
internet. Due to various privacy benefits dark-web is immensely popular among cyber criminals,
they are using it as a means of illegal trading. Even though it offers various benefits to people,
the negative side of dark-net is way too stronger than the positive sides. It is difficult to prevent
people from using it; however awareness regarding its negative impacts can be raised. Especially

parents of young adults must have necessary information about this aspect of the internet
services as their children are the prime targets of cyber criminals.

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