The Alter Ego of Internet

The devilish twin of the internet is named as ‘Darknet’. It is a hellish platform where all the illicit activities are conducted. Drug sales, child abuse videos and pictures, assassin hiring, stolen merchandise, hacking services etc.. Think about any illegitimate activity that comes to mind, Darknet would render that service.

Parvathy Prasad

Sometimes exaggerations will turn out to be true. The postulates of the social scientists that the world would shrink into the fingertips is not anymore a jaw-dropping idea. Exactly 30 years ago, the genius of Tim Berners  Lee unravelled the World Wide Web towards the world which reconfigured the possibilities of connecting. However, the two more developments which came later made it an inexplicable factor in human life. The first was the graphical browsers which could be navigated through using a mouse and second was the meticulously arranged search engines. Now colossal of the internet is the invisible hand that interconnects the world. It is ubiquitous, used for agriculture to aerospace, communication in cancer treatment. Industries from salt to software exploits the possibilities of cyberspace. The contribution of the internet for the leapfrog advancements in governance and economy in the 21st century is incomparable. Notably, people across the globe irrespective of age, gender, geography and ethnicity surf in information highway. If any community or person is not using the possibilities of this service then indeed the light of modern civilization is yet to fall on them.

However, like the London city of the Victorian era, the internet has also a filthy, dark and a notorious rear end, which is proliferating at an exorbitant pace while the opulent, convenient and ravishing frontage is shown to the public. The devilish twin of the internet is named as ‘Darknet’. It is a hellish platform where all the illicit activities are conducted. Drug sales, child abuse videos and pictures, assassin hiring, stolen merchandise, hacking services etc.. Think about any illegitimate activity that comes to mind, Darknet would render that service. This is the virtual underworld where AlCapones and Corleones sit to talk business. The book titled ‘The Darkest Web’ written by Eileen Ormsby has thrown some light upon the shadowy corners of the cyberspace.

The predecessor of Darknet was the Silk Road, an illicit digital marketplace for the sale of drugs. Through Operation Onymous, FBI nabbed Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road and tore down the first dark web. But the successor of the Silk Road is more malicious and resilient.

Particularly, the introduction and wide acceptance of the Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum has corroborated the proliferation of Darknet. The transactions which are beyond the surveillance of the authorities had provided a carte blanche for the users of the dark web. Interestingly, the Darknet is not an open courtyard where anyone with internet connectivity could access. The users have to pass through a series of virtual checkpoints to reach this deep trench. To reach beyond this layer of the internet, users need to use Tor or similar technology. Tor, which stands for “The Onion Router”, is how the majority of people anonymously access the Dark Web. Tor directs internet traffic through complex layers of relays to conceal a user’s location and identity. More importantly, now terrorist organisations are using Darknet as a safe haven to hunt new recruits, raising funds and planning the future attacks. Researchers for the Henry Jackson Society a Foreign policy think tank of UK claims that Darknet has become the reservoir of extremist propaganda.

Even after furious investigations and surveillance, the dark Amazons and Alibaba's are continuously expanding their businesses with more offerings in a sophisticated manner, while their black coffers are getting piled up. According to the London School of Economics, $1.5 million worth drug sales are conducted in Darknet and the overall turnover in this space is almost $1.4 trillion.

Much of the information regarding the Darknet is horrendous and worrying. The children who have unbridled access to the internet through their cell phones and laptops are easy prey to this digital cobwebs. A better understanding of what they surf through could rescue them from falling into such dangerous mesh.

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