Individual Report

The broad topic for my essay is that the Digital world except for the sake of
research i've got narrowed it right down to the impact of the Dark Web on the
society. Basically the dark web is that the a part of the globe Wide Web that's only
accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to
stay anonymous or untraceable. The dark web, sometimes spoken as Dark net, is
accessed by Tor (The Onion Router- the foremost widely used one) or I2P
(Invisible Internet Project), which use masked IP addresses to keep up anonymity
for users and site owners.[1] this manner, those who use the dark web for illegal
purposes cannot be traced. in keeping with Chaudhry Mansab Ali, a Cyber security
expert, “...illegal businesses who offer services for crime like murder, data
theft, traffic and ill-treatment sometimes sell a specially built browser to access
their site.” [2]
Dark web is sometimes employed by hackers and underground companies but
that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not employed by unaware normal people.
Immature people normally using the dark web because it's “fun” but is truly quite
dangerous and illegal, with the people being littered with the disturbing content
present within the dark web. supported research, the dark web doesn't only have
negative impacts concerning the crime scenes etc, but it's also affected people
mentally who had no intention of committing any crime but had witnessed very
disturbing content and had suffered harsh consequences. i'll discuss several
examples regarding this within the following essay.

While the dark web offers anonymity and the way to bypass internet
censorship, it's commonly related to illegal activities like the buying and selling of
medication and other contraband.[3] Bruce Schneier, computer security expert
says "Internet anonymity is important for people living in countries
where you'll be arrested, tortured, and killed for the items you are
doing online. this is often why the U.S. was instrumental in developing the
technology, and why the US State Department continued to fund Tor over the
years." Jake Applebaum speaks upon the Tor project “There is commonly asserted
certain narratives about anonymity and, of course, one in all the narratives is that
anonymity creates crime. So you hear about things just like the trade route [a
dark web marketplace that sold drugs and guns] and you hear, 'Oh, it's terrible,
someone can do something illegal on the internet'. Well, welcome to the
web. it's a mirrored image of human society, where there's sometimes illegal
behavior. it's true though that the dark web gives rise to many crimes. in line
with a report by metro.com in May 2019, a 23 year old raped a toddler and made
a livestream for it, which several people watched. [4]Apparently that person got
caught and was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment, but the most issue is that
the anonymity of the Dark web makes it incredibly hard for the police to trace
down these people and several other criminals are still lurking around.
In Pakistan, generally there are several crime cases regarding porno and action
has still not been taken. The cases are literally quite recent, as an example, this
one which was reported by Dawn News in late December 2018. The article says,
“The Federal Investigation Agency had arrested a suspect for his alleged
involvement in cyber stalking and spamming and registered a case under Sections
21 (cyber stalking) and 22 (spamming) of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act,
2016…. it had been further submitted during an inquiry that various pictures and
videos associated with porno were seized from the suspect, who may be a final
year BBA student.” [5] there have been several more cases kind of like this, as an
example another case updated by Dawn news in January 2018. The headline said,
“FIA arrests man in Jhang for sharing porno with international ring.”[6] There are
several other cases present kind of like this and also the criminals usually
involve youngsters, showing how this is often greatly affecting the minds of our
young generation.
In Lahore, in line with a case reported by ARY news in april 2019, the
private information of some girls within the well-known Punjab University was
found to be sold on the Dark web by some Anonymous people.[7] the
info included phone numbers, photos and videos, and was being traded to Dark
Web users. “The stolen data was transacted in renowned decentralized digital
currency, Bitcoin, while this heinous business remains occurring,” said sources.
They confirmed that hackers have used spy apps for thieving the students’
information. the $64000 culprit isn't known since the dark web is such an
area where obtaining the browser’s IP address and tracking him down are a few
things that needs lots of labor and skill. On an area scale the Dark web is
unquestionably not good for this community because basically to this
point there aren't any such strict laws that prohibit use of the web which the
citizens have to browse anonymously. However there could also be some
regions that will have this law being implemented except for a city like Lahore,
and considering this case, the utilization of the Dark web wasn't the least
bit beneficial in any way. Thus we will say that the dark web isn't something that
has bad cases in precisely some parts of the globe, it's everywhere. some one in
all my cousins had tried searching the dark web and he ended
up envisioning some disturbing videos including cannibalism, torturing others for
pleasure and videos about paranormal existence. Since then he has been
recommending others to not even consider browsing the dark web.

The dark web has traditionally been enchanting for the media. Various news
reports and documentaries have made ordinary citizens and computer
users curious about the network. To an outsized extent, because of a growth of
interest among all types of users, the dark web has both shifted and grown. Now
despite this, what shouldn’t be missed is that was dark web originally made for
this purpose? Is it getting used for the other activities apart from crime or
simply immature curious people? Let’s start at the foundation of it. Franklin
Veaux, knowledgeable writer and graduate from Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania writes, “ the aim of a dark web is anonymity. Dark
webs are designed to create it very hard, bordering on impossible, to trace people
or listen in on what they’re doing. Tor was created by the US government—
specifically DARPA, the Naval laboratory, and also the State Department, with
funding from the National Science Foundation—for two purposes: to enable
secure communication within the event of a disaster that cripples military
networks, and to urge news into and out of totalitarian countries that censor
Internet access. ProPublica, the Pulitzer-winning non-profit press
association, includes a dark internet site to urge news into repressive countries
that control and censor foreign news. Now but why would people be accessing
it? there's a UK dark internet site that enables people to create anonymous
reports of police corruption. Tor allows citizens of totalitarian countries that block
access to content the way to determine censored sites. A disproportionate
number of Tor users, as an example, come from Iran. Dark web email servers
allow corporate and government whistleblowers to speak with journalists without
being traced. The dark web offers the way to urge information into and out of
nations where official state-run propaganda mills try and limit or spin the flow of
data. SciHub includes a dark internet site that hosts quite 50,000,000 science
articles. Dark internet sites distribute cryptographic applications, tools, resources,
and knowledge for people whose governments try and ban citizens from using
cryptography. “ which clearly sums up all the causes on why dark web was utilized
in the primary place.
Now taking a glance in any respect these cases we all know that
basically the effect of the dark web isn't positive on our society although the
essential intention of its creators wasn't how it's used now a days. However, there
are solutions to most of the issues out there, and there may be actions taken
against this to save lots of our society. Basically now the sole solution seem to
be enforcement and increase fear of the implications into the minds of
individuals. in line with europol.europa.eu,” in recent years several successful
coordinated investigations were able to take down a number of the most
important dark web markets, undermining the assets exploited by
criminals. particularly, in summer 2017 joint operations led by the US FBI and also
the Dutch National Police, with the support of Europol and
other enforcement partners, clean up Alphabay and Hansa, two of the most
important marketplaces accountable for the trading of over 350 000 illicit goods
like drugs, firearms and cybercrime tools like malware. In these specific
marketplaces, where bitcoins were the dominant payment method, differing
kinds of illegal goods and criminal services were sold, although quite two thirds of
transactions were for illicit drugs and chemical substances. because of the
success of those operations, the amount of transactions has decreased and a
few traders have left the dark web platform because of anxiety, uncertainty and
also the risks regarding the amount of anonymity.” In Pakistan, the FIA cyber
crimes’ circle has also initiated a radical investigation into the matters regarding
crimes in Pakistan with the Dark web. other than this, initiatives for educating the
unaware people about preventing use of the dark web so also telling them
about the tough consequences they're going to should face if they somehow visit
some illegal website on the dark web whether or not they are doing not
intended a criminal offense. All this shall be done at a bigger scale to discourage
the increasing use of the Dark web for the betterment of the society and only
experienced computer users should browse the dark web, as
only they're sufficiently responsive to the hazards like viruses using the Javascript
(.JS) extension that lurk there.
References:
1: https://www.dictionary.com/e/dark-web/

2: https://arynews.tv/en/punjab-university-hacking-scandal-dark-web/

3: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/beyond-the-valley-understanding-the-mysteries-of-the-dark-web.html

4: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/beyond-the-valley-understanding-the-mysteries-of-the-dark-web.html

5: https://www.dawn.com/news/1449035

6: https://www.dawn.com/news/1448610

7: https://arynews.tv/en/punjab-university-hacking-scandal-dark-web/