Switching to the Dark Net
In our growing digital world, privacy is becoming our largest concern. Our search engines, social media networks, and other applications we use from day to day are stealing our data and information. With security concerns as large as these, many people are becoming wary.
Jamie Bartlett, an English author, journalist, and social media analyst dives into why the dark net will become the new engine to switch to in our effort to secure anonymity online in a 2015 TedTalk in London.
Firstly, Bartlett shares to the audience what the Tor browser and the dark net do differently than the internet we know. “[The Tor browser] allows anybody to browse the net without giving away their location and it does this by encrypting your IP address and then routing it via several other computers” which provides a “censorship free world visited by anonymous users.”
Gabby Gadiano, a sophomore at UIUC expressed the same concerns about privacy as Bartlett spoke on. “I’ve watched a few documentaries lately on data sourcing and it is scary to think that my information can be accessed. I’ve never considered switching to Tor but maybe I will in coming years.”
The dark net is often associated with illegal activity, yet it started as a “U.S. Naval Intelligence project and then became open-source”. Although the number of pages operating through the dark net is unknown, it hosts tens of thousands of links from content like political blogs to the electronic drug market.
The dark net provides many illicit services and products, but it works much like our normal search engines and while scrolling through even looks very similar. “Every single product, thousands of products, have a glossy high-res image, a detailed product description, a price, there’s a proceed to checkout icon, there is even most beautifully of all, report this item button.” Because the dark net is an anonymous encrypted platform, users must trust customer feedback when making their purchases, just like buying products from Amazon or Etsy.
Just like the digital world that most people participate in, the dark net is constantly changing and evolving. Not is the dark net changing to protect from being taken down, but to create a more user-friendly environment for its users.
Nick Catanese, a sophomore at UIUC expressed his value for the changes the platform has made, “I’ve always thought it was some dark scary place, not a platform created to be a user-friendly option.”
Bartlett shares that purchasing products through the dark net is changing to better protect and secure the identities of those purchasing from it. Bitcoin, multi-signature escrow payments, and tumbling services have been put into place to assure that identities are protected through bitcoin, and customers can ensure that they will receive their purchases.
“It’s easy to forget that because of its short life the internet has actually changed many times over the last 30 years or so. It started in the 70s as a military project, morphed in the 1980s to an academic network, co-opted by commercial companies in the 90s, and then invaded by all of us by social media.” With this trend in mind, it is very possible the internet will change again allowing for the dark net to become the next big thing.
COVID-19 Updates
On February 5th, 2021, I tuned in to the NBC nightly news report for the first time since the election. Lester Holt reported on the nightly news covering topics of whether the Super Bowl LVI could lead to a super spreader event, vaccinations information and testing, COVID relief without the support of the GOP, winter weather advisories, frustration with mail delivery delays, and finally a segment on dogs titled “Super Pup”. The wide array of stories and reporting covered values in class like, conflict, impact, and human interest.
News itself is created for the purposes of the distribution of information and knowledge along with having its function of entertaining viewers also. The selections of stories and reporting may not all have directly tied into one another, but the presentation of information remained clear and concise. Most of the reports reflected COVID-19’s impact on society in all aspects from new virus waves, to the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine being tested. Later the newsreel connects into findings on COVID to the political economy.
At the end of the nightly report, NBC aired a two very different stories than the rest of their broadcast with feel-good human-interest pieces. Connected to Captain Tom Moore’s passing, NBC reported a narrative of a young girl who was missing both of her legs who pushed herself courageously to complete a marathon from home in ten days to raise money for healthcare workers. The final section of the broadcast I found extremely relatable. The segment “Super Pups” outlined how much we have needy our furry friends over quarantine, and how you can adopt animals in need.
NBC’s reporting on February 5th spoke on many issues that are prevalent and relevant during COVID and a new political administration. The nightly news tackled stories of conflict, while also using its power in near the end to reunite people after divulging the breaking stories.