Rays of the Dark

by Zulaikha

The whole internet visualised

      Imagine the internet as a huge iceberg floating on the ocean.The iceberg seen on the surface is called the Surface Web where you can have access to Yahoo, Google, Facebook, CNN and more. As you dive in deeper you will see the sunken side of the iceberg and it is called the Dark Web. Here, you can browse through TOR and have access to academic databases, government reports, political protest, financial or even medical reports. As this platform makes you stay anonymous, it is often proned to be used for illegal activities such as weapon sale, child pornography or plotting terrorist attack. But that is not always the case. There is always an untold side of every dark story. Despite being used to do evil, Dark Web could also be your medium to do good.Protecting whistle blowers and sources, circumventing government restrictions and providing vast information are among those rays in the dark.

    

Edward Snowden, Whistleblower

 As we all know, Dark Web allows users to stay anonymous on the net, it is easier and safer for them especially the whistle blowers to convey their informations or discoveries while keeping their identities hidden. For example, revealing the corruption of your government to save your country would make you the 'masked hero' for the citizens whereas the authority would consider you as a betrayer and keep you behind bars for leaking the ‘ top secret ‘ information. Fortunately, by using Dark Web, all these risks could be minimised. Glance (2015), a director for Software Practice stated that, the Dark Web has been used as a medium of communication between whistle blowers and jounalists while keeping their dealings a secret. Have you ever heard of Snowden Revelation? Well, Snowden is one of the whistle blowers that gives the world’s citizens a wake up call. In 2013, he used Dark Web to anonymously leaked the information of National Security Agency (NSA) secretly intercepting users data by tapping through their communications. The revelation of Surface Web on the Dark Web has given huge impact when most of all the IT programmers took a step forward to upgrade their safety and privacy level to gain the users trust again. Though Snowden later revealed himself, the impact of the news spreading worldwide proved that Dark Web could also do good despite the bad reputation.

     There are more than what reaches the eyes. But why? Because before anything could reach you, the authority has already filtered everything rated ‘dangerous’ leaving only ‘safe’ informations to be publicized. Petronzio (2014), explained that the internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth year in a row as more countries introduced aggressive online censorship measures. Anything rated not suitable and could jeopardize the country wuld be banned from from the citizens’ view. This would benefit the country and citizens that in but in a different perspective, filtered informations could also mean that the authority is trying to their reign safe by hiding the ‘ ugly truth’ from public. And since curiosity kills the cat, users from midst-of-war country or ‘strict’ country would love to use Dark Web as a platform to obtain filtered information. Users from countries like Iran and China for example could use this platform to catch up with the rest of the world without being charged by their government’s law. This has clearly proved that Dark Web could benefit those users that want to circumvent their government’s restrictions.

                        

      

Last but not least, Dark Web could also be used as your medium to gain vast information. Imagine you are walking in the thick green forest and you reached a restricted  area where you can can only enter with permission and rangers accompanying you as you might lose your way. Well, the same implies to the Dark Web. The permission are your VPN links while the rangers are your browsers like TOR, I2P, Whonix, Subgraph OS and TAIL which keeps you on track. Here, you can have access to knowledge without any restrictions. This is because even doctors, scientists, researchersnand teachers have been using thi platform to convey their findings and opinions. Data or informations to most discoveries have been concealed by the Government in the Surface Web, thus Dark Web is where you can find data or writings in their purest form. As knowledge is best delivered when it is not filtered, Dark Web functions as the harbor for mos academic databases, literature, social beliefs writing featuring different perspective and opinions. The Dark network provides secured line, thus surfing all these filtered informations would not give harm to users. Users could also obtain informations in business like cryptocurrency to market stock price with ease. Hence, learning how stuffs actually work behind the scene can always give us new angle in viewing stuff giving Dark Web good reputation.

      The Dark Web could be the knife that you or the knife that kills you. Sidek Baba (2009) stated that technology is just a tool. It is us who designed it to be used for good or bad. There is nothing wrong with Surface Web neither the Dark Web. At the end of the day, it is the keyboard that is responsible for good or evil. Dark Web could be the platform to spread child pornography butb it could also be the platform to stop this issue once and for all. Again, it all goes back to the users. To circumvent government restriction also comes with great responsibilities, whether you will be using information gained for your own greed or for the sake of others. Knowing something beyond known comes with huge conscience whether it should be publicized or to be kept in order to maintain the peace and balance of the world. All this questions should into minds of every user as he surfs through the Dark Web.

Reference:

1. https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070

2.https://www.thedarkweblinks.com/dark-web-browsers/

3. https://mashable.com/2014/12/17/internet-freedom-countries/#2hBasPdTWmq0

4. https://nulltx.com/top-5-legal-reasons-to-use-the-darknet/

5.  Sidek Baba (2009), Buku Fikir dan Zikir, Published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka

6.  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/06/18/issues/chatting-about-japan-with-snowden-the-nsa-whistle-blower/#.XDquPh4RWDY

7.https://scottschober.com/deep-dark-web-of-the-internet-iceberg/

8. http://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/infographics/by-the-numbers-deep-web.jpg