There's A Secret Internet For Drug Dealers, Assassins, And Pedophiles

TBI ^ | 3-6-2013 | Dylan Love

[blam]

There's A Secret Internet For Drug Dealers, Assassins, And Pedophiles

Dylan Love
March 6, 2013, 7:00 AM

The average person is only aware of a fraction of the Internet.

There is more content out there than any conventional browser can access. These sites are termed "Deep Web" or "Undernet." They exist outside the scope of Google, Facebook, and your RSS reader. It's the digital equivalent of a thriving city that's been domed over and cordoned off.

These sites are locked down so tightly that you need a special browser to access them. It's called the Tor browser, and it offers you an entirely new way of connecting to the Internet.

Where conventional web browsers like Chrome and Firefox make no effort to conceal your location or identity, Tor is built upon the idea of preserving anonymity as aggressively as possible.

What is Tor?

Tor, originally an acronym for "The Onion Router," is an anonymity network designed to keep your identity and location completely secure as you browse the web. When you use the Tor browser (a free download), volunteer servers around the world route your internet traffic from server to server before finally delivering you your content. On top of this evasive routing, data is encrypted a number of times as it travels to you.

Exploring the Deep Web

Michael Bergman of BrightPlanet puts it succinctly: "Searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean. While a great deal may be caught in the net, there is still a wealth of information that is deep, and therefore, missed."

Using the Tor browser unlocks the door to a whole weird and wild world you never would have guessed existed online. Where Google helps you find the needle,

(snip)

[phockthis]

interesting

[Sirius Lee]

SEC.gov ?

[Pan_Yan]

So the question then becomes do you automatically get put on a government watch list just because you downloaded Tor?

[newfreep]

Any freepers use this?

[perfect_rovian_storm]

I do. I use it when I want to search something that the government might flag for investigation.

[dynoman]

TOR was invented by the US Navy!

“As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project’s $2M annual budget comes from the United States government.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)

[longfellowsmuse]

I have heard that yes, you are monitored once you have been detected in the deep web. From what I understand it can be a very bad place ( child porn etc.) I have also heard that the FBI has an entire unit devoted to rooting out criminals who frequent it.

[Gadsden1st]

So you use it for almost everything?

[dynoman]

http://www.onion-router.net/History.html

The government was heavily involved in TOR, it seems to be a spy network within the internet which is itself a giant spy network. As if the people with the most to hide are deliberately manipulated to use TOR where their activities can be monitored.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

So it's come to this...

...anybody who objects to total surveillance by the US feral government and attempts to circumvent it must be a "drug dealer, assassin, or pedophile."

When do we get to have total surveillance of our feral government overlords?

It's only fair. Who could be against fairness?

[N-R-T]

“So it’s come to this.”

Mr. Unum, we at the NSA would greatly appreciate it if you would close your robe before posting online. We’re trying to eat donuts here.

[dynoman]

No Conspiracy Theory Needed: Tor Created for U.S. Gov’t Spying

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/no-conspiracy-theory-needed-tor-created-us-go

“The TorFAQ clearly states that exit nodes can eavesdrop. “Yes, the guy running the exit node can read the bytes that come in and out there. Tor anonymizes the origin of your traffic, and it makes sure to encrypt everything inside the Tor network, but it does not magically encrypt all traffic throughout the internet.”

[Starwolf]

The article is more hyperbole than fact

Media gets so little right about things like that

[RoosterRedux]

So the question then becomes do you automatically get put on a government watch list just because you downloaded Tor?

It's worse than that.

You're put on a government watch list just for posting on this thread.;-)

[indthkr]

Undernet bump for later.......

[Pan_Yan]

You're put on a government watch list just for posting on this thread.;-)

I'm pretty sure there's a big algorythm in some government computer that calculates threats based on how many times a given name appears on various watch lists for such things as web browsing behavior, buying habits, associations and public statements. Then it generates a "cull from the herd" master list for that glorious day when workers unite to nationalize all criminal capitalist enterprises. I'm pretty sure I'm on that list.

[Pan_Yan]

algorythm?

Algorithm.

[rpierce]

From the article (thanks for posting the link):

When Michael Reed, one of the original developers of the onion routing program, responded to the thread, he wrote:

BINGO, we have a winner! The original *QUESTION* posed that led to the invention of Onion Routing was, "Can we build a system that allows for bi-directional communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot be determined by a mid-point?" The *PURPOSE* was for DoD / Intelligence usage (open source intelligence gathering, covering of forward deployed assets, whatever). Not helping dissidents in repressive countries. Not assisting criminals in covering their electronic tracks. Not helping bit-torrent users avoid MPAA/RIAA prosecution. Not giving a 10 year old a way to bypass an anti-porn filter. Of course, we knew those would be other unavoidable uses for the technology, but that was immaterial to the problem at hand we were trying to solve (and if those uses were going to give us more cover traffic to better hide what we wanted to use the network for, all the better...I once told a flag officer that much to his chagrin).

So, TOR use by civilians = useful cover traffic

[discostu]

That’s not what it’s come to at all. People who want to keep their activity secret have always “shared” tools with drug dealers, assassins and pedophiles; because they too want to keep their activity secret. The only thing that’s changed now is that the name of the web browser secret keepers use is becoming more well known. It’s kind of like sat-phones, there’s a lot of good solid reasons for legitimate people to use them, and terrorists like them too.