The Dark Side of the Web

interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by OrangeCatholic · 2010-03-13 01:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

TFA:

>terrorist handbooks and child pornography are freely distributed. Interested? You're not alone.

No, actually, speak for yourself!

Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by celibate+for+life · 2010-03-13 01:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Good job! Now the FBI will know they don't need to monitor you, as you obviously abhor child porn and terrorism!
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:35 · Score: 0

Why not? As long as he doesn't have a Congressional IP.
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:35 · Score: 0

http://www.tvdizi.net
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by antifoidulus · 2010-03-13 02:48 · Score: 2, Funny

No, but I am interested in the "porn bomb", ie a device that releases a massive amount of porn when set off. Can you imagine how much less bullshit people in the hardcore religious societies would have to put up with if you set off one of these in their place of worship?

Holy shit, a vagina that I didn't have marry anyone in order to see, this is awesome!

--
Monstar L
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by bmecoli · 2010-03-13 02:57 · Score: 0

terrorist handbooks and child pornography are freely distributed. Interested? You're not alone.
Fuck yeah I am! *fap fap fap fap fap*
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by PietjeJantje · 2010-03-13 02:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why is this comment modded Insightful when the quote has been manipulated to give it another meaning?

It’s a world where academics and researchers might find the data required to solve some of mankind’s biggest problems, but also where criminal syndicates operate, and terrorist handbooks and child pornography are freely distributed.

At the same time, the underground web is the best hope for those who want to escape the bonds of totalitarian state censorship, and share their ideas or experiences with the outside world.

Interested? You’re not alone.
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:24 · Score: 0

Please!!!!
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:32 · Score: 0

As in... has not this been discussed to death?
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 04:42 · Score: 0

I heard anontalk.com was better to find the child porn.
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by OrangeCatholic · 2010-03-13 04:47 · Score: 1

It's not my fault the quote was manipulated. I was quoting the poorly-worded Slashdot article.
And it should have been modded "funny."
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2010-03-13 04:50 · Score: 1

But does he abhor them enough to support trampling all over the rights of everyone else? That's the true test of a patriot.

--
May the Maths Be with you!
Re:interested in teroirsm and cihld pron? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 07:57 · Score: 0

Are you sure? Because catholics usually are.

Been there, done that by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:18 · Score: 2, Funny

It's called the Metaverse, created by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash. We now know it as Second Life.

Terrorism by Taco+Cowboy · 2010-03-13 01:22 · Score: 1, Interesting

I find it ironic that in the online world there are places where the Terrorists and those who support them are calling us, the Freedom Loving People, terrorists !

By the original Terrorists I mean those who strap bombs to themselves and go KABOOM ! taking themselves with innocent people around them.

What I find ironic is THEY call us terrorists !!

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !

Re:Terrorism by BluenoseJake · 2010-03-13 03:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

I find it amazing that you don't understand why. The US and it's allies have been fucking around in Middle eastern affairs for decades. I mean really, what in god's name made the UN believe that it was ok to throw a few million Jews in the middle of several different groups of people that hate them? Then the US helps arm them to the teeth, and supports israeli incursions into Palestine. The US also supported Iraq during the 10 year long war with Iran, and then at the end, Iraq needs help to rebuild, and what does the US do? Go fuck yourself Iraq. They did the same thing in Afghanistan, supplied the rebels with arms and training against the USSR, then dropped them like a hot potato after the war. The US then unilaterally invades Iraq in 2003, lied about the reasons, and proceeded to try to force their beliefs on the Iraqis, with no problem using torture to achieve their goals. I'd hate "the Freedom Loving People" too, if I was them. You're like the ultimate douchebags, take what you want, do what you want in the name of "National Security" and then leave your targets hanging, just like the douche that drops roofies in a girls drink.
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:53 · Score: 0

Eye of the beholder eg. perspective
Re:Terrorism by crazycheetah · 2010-03-13 04:08 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Flamebait? Really? Damn mods. This is at least Interesting, if not somewhat Informative.
You* would do yourself a favor by putting yourself in the shoes of those who do see it this way. Open up a little bit to people who are different, and maybe more different people will actually get along with you instead of just learning to hate you.
Knowing that the US has done shit like this is somewhat angering to me, a US citizen. Sad that people see it that way, as well.
* the mods.
Re:Terrorism by couchslug · 2010-03-13 06:39 · Score: 1

Christianity says Jews are the Chosen People so we must support them at ALL costs and be horny for the Apocalypse.
That superstition just happens to conflict with Islam, an even more (and that's quite an accomplishment!) toxic supersition.
The only problem with such a religious war is that innocent atheists may be harmed in the process.

--
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 08:07 · Score: 0

Don't be a douche. There are plenty of religious people who have nothing to do with the stupid shit, and there is a lot of stupid shit, associated with religion.
Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want as long as they don't try to force it on anyone else. Also goes for the right to not believe. I'm an athiest and I wouldn't want a sane religious person to think all athiests are like the poster above
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 08:28 · Score: 0

By the original Terrorists I mean those who strap bombs to themselves and go KABOOM ! taking themselves with innocent people around them.
Well, there's a pretty original definition of the word terrorism. So in your eyes Al-Qaedas bombing of U.S.S. Cole in 2000 wasn't a terrorist action? I mean, they didn't blow themselves up and no civilians were killed.
On the other hand, terrorism has been defined as fighting a war without an army.
Seriously, how is killing civilians with phosphorus bombs or napalm better just because you're a part of an army? Especially when it is clear to all that you lie about your motives?
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 08:36 · Score: 0, Interesting

"I mean really, what in god's name made the UN believe that it was ok to throw a few million Jews in the middle of several different groups of people that hate them?"
The U.N. had nothing to do with it. Jews had lived there for three thousand years; it's where Jews come from. Jews lived throughout the Middle East for two thousand years, with a significant minority population in all of the Arab states until the pogroms following Israel's independence. The "few million" Jews moving to Israel were refugees fleeing persecution in Europe who bought the land they moved onto and had every right to move there. The Arabs at the time were not opposed to Zionism (the progressive idea of social equality between the Jews and everyone else) except for a few rogue right-wingers who started riots, gained control of the mosques through violence, and were continually appeased and promoted by the British occupation until they became the predominant force. The 1948 war came at the end of a thirty year pro-war propaganda campaign that included the executions of dozens of Arab leaders who supported peace with the Jews. The U.N. only signed off on the deal after Israel survived what the Arab League had promised would be the greatest massacre since the Mongol invasions.

"Then the US helps arm them to the teeth"
You misspelled Czechoslovakia. It's not hard to do but you're off by like thirteen letters.

"and supports israeli incursions into Palestine"
Given that "Palestine" is the old western imperialist name for what the natives call Eretz Yisrael, "israeli incursions into Palestine" is a contradiction in terms. That's like france invading Gaul or japan invading Nippon.
It amazes me how little understanding of the Middle East people tend to have and how much anti-Jewish propaganda has penetrated the mainstream. Complaining about the Israeli presence in "Palestine" is like complaining about the Negro presence in Rhodesia.

Iraq needs help to rebuild, and what does the US do? Go fuck yourself Iraq
Did you miss the point where Iraq outright invaded and conquered another country and the Saudis called the U.S. for assistance, or did you intentionally leave that out because it ruins your point? And no, in case you have heard this misinformation, the U.S. never pledged neutrality on the invasion. April Glaspie said the U.S. had no position on the current border dispute which was Iraq's accusation of Kuwaiti slant drilling.
Re:Terrorism by BluenoseJake · 2010-03-13 08:59 · Score: 1, Interesting

I'm not advocating killing any Jews, I'm wondering the wisdom of putting several million of them in a place where everybody hates them, then arming them to the teeth, further antagonizing their neighbours. It would have been far more intelligent to give them say a piece of Canada (I live in Canada, so unlike the UN, I am not offering something I don't own). Oh, and right back at you.
Re:Terrorism by BluenoseJake · 2010-03-13 09:01 · Score: 1

The Israelis lost that country 3000 years ago, that would be like giving the US back to the Natives. Are you willing to give up your home for the same principles? Thought not.
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 09:26 · Score: 0

The only problem with such a religious war is that innocent atheists may be harmed in the process.
Thank you for this new entry in my quote list. You made my day. (I'm assuming you said this in a tongue-in-cheek voice.)
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 09:30 · Score: 1, Insightful

I mean really, what in god's name made the UN believe that it was ok to throw a few million Jews in the middle of several different groups of people that hate them?
Up until the 20th century, the Palestinians did not hate Jews. Zionist immigrants (trying to get backing from the British colonial power), however, managed to change that in the early 20th century. And most people really don't like having *their* country signed over to someone else. I find it surprising how anyone could miss that it would lead to a permanent state of war.
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 10:05 · Score: 0

Don't be a douche. There are plenty of religious people who have nothing to do with the stupid shit, and there is a lot of stupid shit, associated with religion.
Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want as long as they don't try to force it on anyone else. Also goes for the right to not believe. I'm an athiest and I wouldn't want a sane religious person to think all athiests are like the poster above
Unfortunately, there really are people looking forward to even a nuclear holocaust, because there is no doubt in their mind that Jesus will return and save them at the last minute. Some of these people appear to be trying to provoke something like this between Israel and its' neighboring countries, to ensure their prophecy is fulfilled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf5RSsvClQQ
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 10:39 · Score: 0

There is recent a documentary about this movement called Waiting for Armageddon: review
Re:Terrorism by cusco · 2010-03-13 11:35 · Score: 1

Wow. So much disinformation in a single post.

--
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Re:Terrorism by jonadab · 2010-03-13 12:36 · Score: 1

> It would have been far more intelligent to give them say a piece of Canada

But that isn't where they wanted to go.

Well, okay, sure, some of them probably would have taken you up on it, especially right after the holocaust. Goodness knows some of them have moved just about everywhere else in the world.

But that wouldn't have stopped Jews from moving to the middle east. They'd already been wanting to get back into "the land" for a while (roughly, since the first century), and increasing numbers of them had been moving there since the late nineteenth century. The war fallout sure did give the numbers a boost, but the Zionist movement was not new at the end of the war. It had already been underway for a full generation.

The real goof-up, arguably, was scattering them to the four winds in the first place. You can thank the good people of Rome (particularly Vespasian and Titus) for that move. Although, in fairness to them, it was not entirely unprovoked.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 13:09 · Score: 0

You're like the ultimate douchebags, take what you want, do what you want in the name of "National Security" and then leave your targets hanging, just like the douche that drops roofies in a girls drink.
I agree with you. There's no need for so-called Islamic allies. I think we should band with the Russians and co-design some very high performance neutron weapons (minimal fallout), and them use them to clear the middle-east of all potential hostiles while Russia does it to Chechnya. A good starter would be to wipe out the home town of every 9-11 terrorist. Maybe we can even bring China into the fray; I've heard they don't care for them either.
Fuck occupation, fuck foreign aid, fuck brining them up to 21st century standards and fuck being civilized. First up on the list should be Pakistan since they've got some caveman model nukes that they'd undoubtedly be willing to use to defend the mind virus that is Islam. Second series of nukes should be dropped on Detroit.
The bottom line is, affluent westerners are not reproducing, while the ragheads are procreating like rabbits. It's time to take the gloves off. They'd do it to us in a heartbeat, and in fact will when they have the chance.
And if you think there's any love lost between ANY of the superpowers and Islam, think again.
Re:Terrorism by Philip_the_physicist · 2010-03-13 17:21 · Score: 1

"I mean really, what in god's name made the UN believe that it was ok to throw a few million Jews in the middle of several different groups of people that hate them?"
The U.N. had nothing to do with it. Jews had lived there for three thousand years; it's where Jews come from. Jews lived throughout the Middle East for two thousand years, with a significant minority population in all of the Arab states until the pogroms following Israel's independence. The "few million" Jews moving to Israel were refugees fleeing persecution in Europe who bought the land they moved onto and had every right to move there. The Arabs at the time were not opposed to Zionism (the progressive idea of social equality between the Jews and everyone else) except for a few rogue right-wingers who started riots, gained control of the mosques through violence, and were continually appeased and promoted by the British occupation until they became the predominant force. The 1948 war came at the end of a thirty year pro-war propaganda campaign that included the executions of dozens of Arab leaders who supported peace with the Jews. The U.N. only signed off on the deal after Israel survived what the Arab League had promised would be the greatest massacre since the Mongol invasions.
Even if the creation of Israel was a morally good thing to do, it wasn't very good from a practical point of view. Supporting Zionism put the western powers at odds with the Arab states which control a significant part of the world's oil supplies and exacerbated the instability in the region. It would surely have been more cost-effective to have maintained a large Anglo-American base in Palestine (which could have been done legitimately, since Palestine was held by the British under a League of Nations Mandate since WWI).
One should remember that the justification for government is that the government will look after the interests of its citizens, and that, with the benefit of hindsight, creating Israel was probably not in the best interests of the citizens of the countries which agreed to it.
Anyway, the Canaanites were there there before the Israelites :) (More seriously, if you are following a literal-historical view of the description of the Israelites going down into Egypt, remember that Ishmael was Abraham's heir under Mesopotamian law, and that his family remained in the Holy Land. Then consider whom folklore considers to be his descendants. The Torah doesn't help if you want to consider who was there first, and if God/YHWH wants the Israelis to have the region, he can help them get it himself.)
I am not anti-Semitic in any sense of the word, nor do I care about anyone else's private religious practices. Nor do I have any connection with anti-Israeli organisations, or give a pair of foetid dingoes kidneys what someone's race is (especially given that many Israelites are ethnically European, not Semitic anyway)
Re:Terrorism by Taco+Cowboy · 2010-03-13 22:32 · Score: 1

Up until the 20th century, the Palestinians did not hate Jews.
Look buddy ! /. isn't the place for you to spread your lie.
Crawl back under that rock of yours and spread your lies there !
I have had enough of you terrorist vermins !

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-14 00:11 · Score: 0

Well said. I think it's about time we all woke up to what has really been happening all along under the guise of "anti-terrorism".
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-14 01:06 · Score: 0

No mate, the 'real goof-up' was arming them. You want to go there, fine - but we think its a bloody stupid idea and we're not going to support you in it.
You want to go live in a lions den then you're free to do so - but don't come crying to me when the lion decides he doesn't want you there.
Re:Terrorism by lsatenstein · 2010-03-14 04:44 · Score: 1

Regarding Israel. Look at the Old TESTIMENT for the old testiment of the Christian bible (King James version comes to mind). Jews have been in Jerusalem since the time of King David, well before Christianity was a religion. The Palistinians never had a country, nor a city, nor a government. They were the rejects from all the Arab countries and moved to Jordan. Were there Arabs living in what is now Israel? Yes, Were they numerous? No, When the 48 war came, did they flee? Yes, Did Israel want their return? No, for fear of disloyalty to a new country. Did the Arabs want their own people back? No, fxxk their own people. When the USA won Texas from Mexico, should Mexico get the territory back? Yes, because it belongs to Mexico. If it does not, then the spoils of the 6 days war (1967) belong to Israel. Israel still gave land back, but they will never give Jerusalem ever. King David more then 3000 years ago found this Jewish city. As for peace. The Palestinian people are held hostage by their own governments. They are just pawns in the power struggle.

--
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Re:Terrorism by BluenoseJake · 2010-03-14 04:56 · Score: 1

Uh, wtf are you going on about?
Re:Terrorism by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-15 16:33 · Score: 0

No mate, the 'real goof-up' was arming them. You want to go there, fine - but we think its a bloody stupid idea and we're not going to support you in it.
You want to go live in a lions den then you're free to do so - but don't come crying to me when the lion decides he doesn't want you there.
Hear!
Besides, GP's rationalization is flawed. If it was in any way valid, Comanches and Apaches and Aztecs and Mayas and Saxons and Highlanders and Australian Aboriginals and an endless string of war losers and displaced people would just as easily be able to kick the current occupants and reclaim their ancestral lands. Its too late to change some bits of history, all we can do is prevent it from happening again.

http://www.robotstxt.org/ by GuyFawkes · 2010-03-13 01:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

http://www.robotstxt.org/

Says it all really, no need for a melodramatic "article" trying to draw parallels between the non indexed and page ranked portion of the net, and kiddie porn.

Some of us just don't want google indexing out stuff on general principles.

FX, types "brain tumour" into google

up pops page full of links asking me if I want to buy a brain tumour on fleabay...

--
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal

Re:http://www.robotstxt.org/ by KamuZ · 2010-03-13 01:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

But not all robots honor the file you see...
Re:http://www.robotstxt.org/ by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:05 · Score: 0

Once I wanted to see if my DansGuardian installation was working properly, so I typed "sex" in to Google. One of the ads that came up was from eBay. It said, "Looking for sex? Find it on eBay!"
Re:http://www.robotstxt.org/ by Idbar · 2010-03-13 06:06 · Score: 1

Perhaps they don't index that data (although not necessarily true for some engines). That doesn't mean it's not crawled (and kept for another reasons).
Re:http://www.robotstxt.org/ by jesset77 · 2010-03-14 19:58 · Score: 1

Perhaps they don't index that data (although not necessarily true for some engines). That doesn't mean it's not crawled (and kept for another reasons).
That is exactly what it means. They can't crawl the data without exhaustively visiting the website. If a webmaster sees a bot hitting their restrictive robots.txt, and then continuing to hepelumph through the rest of the site grabbing crap, the webmaster can let his attorney decide which of a thousand roads to take next.
Google may be big, but they pay heed to the possibility of negative PR from spidering where they are not welcome.

--
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.

ObPinkFloyd by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:24 · Score: 0

There is no dark side of the web really
Matter of fact its all dark.

Re:ObPinkFloyd by peragrin · 2010-03-13 02:55 · Score: 1

no quite a bit of it is lit by fiber optics.

--
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Re:ObPinkFloyd by Moghedien · 2010-03-13 23:23 · Score: 1

... But beware the dark fiber! For it will gloom you!

--
I've come to... anesthetize you!

It's hidden on a purpose by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · 2010-03-13 01:30 · Score: 1, Interesting

From what I've seen and heard this 'hidden' information is hidden on a purpose - most such sites I've ever encountered are trafficking (child) porn, software, audio and video - there's next to zero informational value in this undernet. As someone once said "Information wants to be free" and if it isn't let it die.

The real problem which this article doesn't even touch is that sometimes it's getting very hard to find the information buried in millions of pages Google returns to your query.

Re:It's hidden on a purpose by celibate+for+life · 2010-03-13 01:37 · Score: 0

As someone once said "Information wants to be free"

This is getting old...
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by History's+Coming+To · 2010-03-13 01:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

Loads of stuff is hidden on purpose...config files, site member info, etc etc. I "accidentally hacked" a law company's MySQL DB once because their phpmyadmin wasn't hidden properly and showed up on a Google search for an obscure error message I searched for. Hidden-From-Google != Nasty-Child-Pornographers......

--
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by BiggerIsBetter · 2010-03-13 01:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

You must be new here. "Darknets" have been around since the start of the internet, and there's nothing necessarily illicit about it. Sure, some people take advantage of the privacy, just like some of our neighbours/colleagues/priests do, but that doesn't mean we put cameras in every house or monitor every phone call to catch the terrorists/kiddie-fiddlers/drug-users/speeding-drivers/child-punishers/blashphemers/etc. And if you're looking at websites rather than places or resources, you haven't even scratched the surface.
Basically, people like to communicate online, but that doesn't give you (or Google) the right to index it or even access it just 'cos it's on the internet - whether you like it or not, it's their communications not yours. Don't see value in it? Don't spend your time there. Think it's illegal? Call the cops with details. Just like IRL.

--
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by PopeRatzo · 2010-03-13 02:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

there's next to zero informational value in this undernet
Maybe you just didn't look in the right places.
It's possible.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:17 · Score: 0

Hidden properly??
Why in the world is it available on the INTERNET in the first place???
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 04:19 · Score: 0

If you mean legal rights, actually, Google does have that right. If you mean some other magical kind of moral rights (read nonexistent) then I apologize.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Will.Woodhull · 2010-03-13 04:33 · Score: 1

From what I've seen and heard this 'hidden' information is hidden on a purpose - most such sites I've ever encountered are trafficking (child) porn, software, audio and video
My first reaction was to respond "bullshit!", but on further reflection I realized that parent post is legitimate within the context of an extremely narrow point of view. It isn't so much an example of bullshit as an example of limited thinking of someone who knows very little about a subject, but thinks he knows it all.
As a writer of fiction, I use the darknet extensively: I've got hidden wikis and websites where I collect information I don't yet want to share publicly, and where I compose rough drafts that I want to share with only a selected few. I am sure that I am not alone in this approach. I can't imagine any new authors of the 21st century who are not doing the same kind of thing.
Most of the darknet is benign. Most of it is the aggregate of the huge number of private conversations that go on within the global crowd. There is nothing sinsiter about this, nor does it contradict the "information wants to be free" imperative. Since for the most part these conversations have to do with things that might eventually become information, but are in their nascent period, where they are confused, incomplete pieces that a private group is trying to make sense of.

--
Will
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 04:49 · Score: 0

Sure, some people take advantage of the privacy, just like some of our neighbours/colleagues/priests do, but that doesn't mean we put cameras in every house or monitor every phone call to catch the terrorists/kiddie-fiddlers/drug-users/speeding-drivers/child-punishers/blashphemers/etc.
It doesn't? What country do you live in?
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Patch86 · 2010-03-13 05:07 · Score: 1

While I agree with all you say in terms of privacy rights, I disagree with things being "off limits" just because it's implied.
If you put data on the internet which isn't access protected or encrypted, then like it or not it is accessible to the public. Putting a robots.txt on your site is like putting a "please don't read me" sticker on a book and then leaving it on the bus; sure it's a common courtesy to obey the label, but you can't really start citing invasion-of-privacy spiels if someone doesn't.
If you want data to be on the internet but private, protect it properly. If you leave it wide open with nothing but a robots.txt to it's defence then don't come complaining when it gets looked at.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Iyonesco · 2010-03-13 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Think it's illegal? Call the cops with details."
You: "Officer, I was interested in these so called 'dark nets' so looking around I happened to find a website with child porn on it. Clicking about the site I found there were literally hundreds of images so I thought I best report it to the police."
Police: "Please stay by your computer and we'll be around to arrest you shortly. Enjoy your 25 years in prison."
I think you need to review the "Don't talk to the police" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
If you see a house being burgled, ignore it and continue on. If you see somebody being raped keep walking. If you see a child in trouble, absolutely never go near them. The last one is particularly important since children are the greatest risk to your freedom in the current political climate and should never be approached under any circumstances.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 05:48 · Score: 0

Clearly not the UK, for starters...
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Omestes · 2010-03-13 06:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

Police: "Please stay by your computer and we'll be around to arrest you shortly. Enjoy your 25 years in prison."
That has never happened to me. I've called the police three times over finding child porn online. The first time was in the mid-90's when I found some on a local (popular) BBS, and the police were concerned but utterly clueless on what to do. This was before they had an actual "cybercrimes" division. I don't think anything ever happened with that one. The second time I called on another complaint, they referred it up to the FBI, I don't know if anything ever happened because I never went back to the site again for obvious reasons. The third time, the local police took all my information, said thank you, and I never heard about it again. I'm guessing they handled it so nonchalantly the third time because they finally got their act together, and knew what to do.
Never once did the FBI knock on my door, or the police harp at me or treat me like a criminal.
If you see a house being burgled, ignore it and continue on. If you see somebody being raped keep walking. If you see a child in trouble, absolutely never go near them. The last one is particularly important since children are the greatest risk to your freedom in the current political climate and should never be approached under any circumstances.
Are you a sociopath? If I saw any of the above I would try to help, especially in cases of direct harm, like rape and children in trouble. It is my civic, and human duty to step in. I couldn't sleep at night if I just walked away and tried to forget it. But then again I'm the type who stop and try to help injured animals, and swerve to avoid hitting squirrels.

--
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by catman · 2010-03-13 07:04 · Score: 1

If you see a child in trouble, absolutely never go near them. The last one is particularly important since children are the greatest risk to your freedom in the current political climate and should never be approached under any circumstances.
I've seen people act as if they really believed that. A small boy crying desperately, any parent would realize that he was distressed. Plenty of adults within hearing, nobody seemed to care. I talked to him, found out he was lost in his new neighborhood and helped him find his way. And yes, I did think about the possibility that I would be taken for a child molester, but - suppose he didn't find his way and was picked up by someone not out to help him?
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 07:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

[troll]
Until the law grants me preemptive indemnity if I pull out a pistol and double tap the perp, no questions asked I'd probably walk. I have no civic duty to my neighbors--over half are on welfare, don't work, and are living off of my taxes. I'm not exaggerating--I'm in the middle of an apartment complex, and of the 8 apartments around me, there's one employed middle-aged woman.
Hell, I nearly got in trouble once for giving directions to a kid that was clearly lost in the supermarket and telling him "we're going to get you to a store clerk, they're who you should go to when you're lost--somebody in a uniform"--fucking overzealous mother thought I was going to sodomize her crotchfruit because I talked to some teary eyed rugrat and pointed him to the clerk not 50 feet away. Until people go and punch out the bitch that gives me the evil eye and snatches her kid away after she comes running from three aisles away--I'm not taking the fucking chance. My freedom is worth more than their kid's life.
Human duty? They aren't humans. Call the police, let them deal with it. Their kids? They're being raised by animals too. See case above.
Don't get me wrong, there's two neighbors--I'd go out of the way for. But most of them...would be left to the same harm they'd leave me. Hell, one of the damned idiots had their retarded kid stomp a duckling to death last year. CYS/CPS/Police/SPCA did jack shit. If I see somebody throw that budding serial killer in a trunk it won't be soon enough.
So yes, to hell with "social responsibility"--YOUR society created this crap, I just live in it. The person above isn't a sociopath--they're a gainful member of the society you live in. You want to help--do violence to the paranoids that threaten people who assist. Maybe in 15 to 20 years I'll consider rejoining.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by jc42 · 2010-03-13 08:09 · Score: 1

As a writer of fiction, I use the darknet extensively: I've got hidden wikis and websites where I collect information I don't yet want to share publicly, and where I compose rough drafts that I want to share with only a selected few. I am sure that I am not alone in this approach. I can't imagine any new authors of the 21st century who are not doing the same kind of thing.
This approach goes back way before the Web. The mailing list systems that developed back in the late 1970s and 1980s had "moderated" and limited-distribution lists for similar purposes.
In some cases, privatizing a discussion can be a requirement of having the discussion. Thus, early on the biologists found that it was a good idea to limit the ability to post to their lists, because if they didn't do this, they would be flooded with zillions of pages of text from the religious folks who would respond to any message that matched patterns like "evol[uv]". Similarly, professional historians limited access to discussions of topics such as the Middle East, because they were being buried by messages from bots that automatically posted huge quantities of text in response to a number of strings like "Israel".
Of course, many of these lists were fairly open to readers; they usually only restricted posting to cut down on the "spam" from ideological believers. But now that the Net is a commercial success, there are many reasons to carry out discussions totally in secret. That way, you are protected from the commercial folks who will file patents on your ideas, or publish your words or code or music as their own and then sue you for infringement.

--
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 13:48 · Score: 1

So yes, to hell with "social responsibility"--YOUR society created this crap, I just live in it. The person above isn't a sociopath--they're a gainful member of the society you live in. You want to help--do violence to the paranoids that threaten people who assist. Maybe in 15 to 20 years I'll consider rejoining.
Right on the money! You should write a newsletter. I'm wondering how many of us there are.
Although I no longer live in an environment like the one you describe, I empathize with you completely, because I've been there.
Every time I read about a jerkoff wanting to pass "mandatory good Samaritan" laws I want to rip their head off. You will NOT mandate my assistance; it is a judgement call for me to make, and to be quite blunt I wouldn't piss on most of you to put you out if you were aflame. Once you prove to me that you're worth my while I'll help (as with your two neighbors).
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Mike610544 · 2010-03-13 15:08 · Score: 1

I think you need to review the "Don't talk to the police" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

This is among the dumbest things I've ever seen on the internet. Guilty or innocent, you're going to get more scrutiny from the cops if you don't cooperate. Once you're indicted everything the guy says is probably true, but when there's a bar fight and someone gets killed, do you really want to be the one person in the crowd who says, by omission "I will not deny that I killed that guy?"

--
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Philip_the_physicist · 2010-03-13 17:45 · Score: 1

I have always interpreted this asa meaning that information wants to be free just like apples want to fall: information has a tendency to get out, and you ahve to actually try to stop it.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-14 10:29 · Score: 0

If you see a house being burgled, ignore it and continue on. If you see somebody being raped keep walking. If you see a child in trouble, absolutely never go near them.
See someone being murdered? Keep walking! Great advice, asshole.
You don't need the police to be able to help out someone in obvious need. Grow a set of balls, psychopath.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-15 01:33 · Score: 0

"and swerve to avoid hitting squirrels."
Wait until the day you swerve to avoid hitting a squirrel and instead hit a person or (preferably for the safety of the rest of us) wrap your car around a tree. Then you'll feel great about swerving to avoid a squirrel.
Re:It's hidden on a purpose by infinitelink · 2010-03-18 23:11 · Score: 1

I think that you, sir, have just implicitly misrepresented what the video presents. One would not say "I will not deny that I killed that guy". The advice was (summarizing) "don't talk to the police" because "anything you say can be used against you, while anything you don't cannot be used against you". In this view, saying "I will not deny that I killed that guy" could be used against one--one said something--while saying nothing at all could not be. I think that the place to say something, if one should be found to be accused, would be in testimony in court, with the counsel of the lawyer, not to the police. In that video, regarding this advise being good, a lawyer, a Supreme Court Justice (his writing quoted), and a cop, are all in agreement.

But before you think I misread you, I didn't: I just presented the above just in case, because you wrote that one would say "I will not deny that I killed that guy", even if "by omission" (that is, by not saying anything). So with that considered, I'll say it again, that if I understand these matters correctly, what one does not say cannot be used against one, while what one does say can and will be used against you (even true statements that if they were accepted by themselves would prove innocence). There may be presumption theoretically in law, but perhaps there is no guarantee of this before either a jury of peers nor among the police whose job is to arrest and make cases to prosecute, according to the video. In relation to this, some whom I know that are on-track to go to law school have said that in any instance where an officer or authority/official ever claims that not saying anything can be used against you, implies guilt, etc., it means (if presented in court and accepted, or recorded, or officers admit, or witnesses confirm, etc. etc.) that you are off, period: even if they had you on tape, but you did not admit or say anything, and they said that not doing so would mean your guilt would be assumed. That wouldn't mean, however, that one should (if we're to take the message of that video seriously) say anything, boast, brag, whatever, whether innocent or guilty; rather one should (I think in keeping with the video's advice) still say nothing period, even with or without a lawyer's presence; I believe the reasoning behind this immediate "one is free, period, and cannot be found guilty, if an officer were to imply/say this", is because of a ruling of court: officers can deceive you, of course, but they can't say or imply presumption of guilt if one does not waive one's fifth amendment rights: the courts have taken such trickery very seriously and frowned on it gravely, whereas claims that waiving them will help, however, aren't taken to be so bad.

Disclaimer: the above is personal opinion, and is not binding, does not constitute legal advise or counsel, and in no way should be construed to be authoritative or suitable for any purpose, use, or capacity except exhibiting the qualities and functioning as expression of protected ideas and speech under Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States of America. Any factual, logical, argumentative, theoretical, or other errors, mis-statement/s, or controversial matter is unintended, demonstrates the author's imperfection and the unsuitability of taking the text for anything more than reading another's opinion, and show that the author is no authority nor to be taken as such in these matters as of this writing. The foregoing is meant only as discourse in the genre of critical commentary for continuing public discussion of ideas and is therefore presented with the intent that replies of any nature, positive, negative, or ambivalent, are welcome.

--
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.

I learned a lot from this article by macbuzz01 · 2010-03-13 01:34 · Score: 4, Funny

The author explains that there is a lot of content behind password protected sites. I had no idea that google didn't know your password!

I heard something about a robots.txt file somewhere before, but I thought that all robots where smarter than me anyway.

I also learned about something called freeweb that may or may not be used for good or bad things. I then learned about TOR which also may or may not be used for good or bad things.

This article really opened my eyes to the vastness of the Internets

I know a place by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:35 · Score: 0

[ominous music, thunder and lightning]
A dark and foreboding place with over 5000 pages of scientifically useful information with more than 60000 links between them, all craftily hidden ...

[suddenly the music stops] ... behind a robots.txt file. Hmm. Not so interesting.

Actually, it's not that dark or foreboding, it would just be a pain if Google tried to index it all because the algorithm they use would mean the key pages for a particular item (i.e. where items were actually defined) would end up down the ranking list because of the way that the links work in this particular dataset. The top pages of the site are indexed and people can use the specialized search tools there to find what they are looking for, or they can hop directly to an entry using a predictable URL if they know its name.

Oh, and if a bot wants to ignore the robots.txt file they can get away with it for a little while ... and then they get tossed into a tarpit. [Queue the ominous music again ... BWHAHAHAHA!]

Re:I know a place by jandoedel · 2010-03-13 06:10 · Score: 1

and what place would that be?

Time Travel? by scross · 2010-03-13 01:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

The article says it was "Posted on 3 Sep 2010 at 15:47". Unless I've missed something, we're still in March 2010...

Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 01:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Either the poster traveled back in time or the date and month are transposed. I'm betting on time travel.

The article says it was "Posted on 3 Sep 2010 at 15:47". Unless I've missed something, we're still in March 2010...
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 02:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

The american date format must die.
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 02:05 · Score: 0

He used a time machine to travel to the near-future where the even more scary laws coming up in the next few months get dropped because they got abused.
Hurray for non-retroactive laws... or some..thing.
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:48 · Score: 2, Funny

The american date format must die.
Quoted for truth.
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 04:01 · Score: 0

Oh this is such horseshit. It needs to die in comp-sci circles only. For proper sorting.
Outside of that it's fine. The format is written how it's spoken.
If someone asks you when you were born, you don't say:
"1964, 22nd, May", you say, "May 22nd, 1964" - which is the American format. Enough.
Re:Time Travel? by Zumbs · 2010-03-13 04:25 · Score: 1

Where I live, we would say 22nd May 1964 (it is not an English speaking country, so we did away with the commonly used "of"). Why is this format nice? Because it is consistent. Day is before month and month is before year.

--
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Re:Time Travel? by Low+Ranked+Craig · 2010-03-13 04:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

Personally I think written dates should take the form year month day, ex. 2010 March 13th. Like decimal numbers.

--
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Re:Time Travel? by dotancohen · 2010-03-13 04:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

If someone asks you when you were born, you don't say:
"1964, 22nd, May", you say, "May 22nd, 1964" - which is the American format. Enough.
I would say the 22nd of May, 1964.
When someone asks you for the time, do you tell him in HH:SS:MM format? The units must be ordered either from least to most significant (dd-mm-yyyy) or most to least significant (yyyy-mm-dd). I don't care which you chose. But don't put the least significant unit in _the_middle_!!!
See this horrible Open Office bug on the subject:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5556

--
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Re:Time Travel? by Smauler · 2010-03-13 05:01 · Score: 1

You have missed something. There's plenty of available information on time travel in the dark side of the web, or at least there will be in 6 months time.
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 05:24 · Score: 0

we should fix the basis as well. it is mind-boggling stupid to use base 10 for the year, base 12 for the month, and a mix of basis 28,29,30 and 31 for the days.
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 05:58 · Score: 0

Or the article is supposed to be dark for another six months.
Re:Time Travel? by uvajed_ekil · 2010-03-13 06:42 · Score: 1

> The article says it was "Posted on 3 Sep 2010 at 15:47". Unless I've missed something, we're still in March 2010...

You need to spend more time looking into the info available on the darknets then, clearly. You have missed something. The truth is out there.

--
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Re:Time Travel? by catman · 2010-03-13 07:08 · Score: 2

It is always September.
Re:Time Travel? by u38cg · 2010-03-13 08:05 · Score: 1

That is a very sensible way of doing it which no-one will take any notice of. Thanks, The Universe.

--
[FUCK BETA]
Re:Time Travel? by JD-1027 · 2010-03-13 11:54 · Score: 0

Reason: We write it like we normally say it.

I am going to the concert on October 3rd, 2010.
I am going to the concert on 10-3-2010.

We don't say:
I am going to the concert on the 3rd of October. (it's awkward)

How do countries speak it if they write 3-10-2010?
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 14:26 · Score: 0

YYYY-MM-DD 4 lyfe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
Re:Time Travel? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 14:42 · Score: 0

When someone asks you for the time, do you tell him in HH:SS:MM format?
10 1/2 minutes past 5.
Re:Time Travel? by cffrost · 2010-03-13 16:22 · Score: 1

The [A]merican date format must die.
Agreed.

--
Thank you, Edward Snowden.

"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Re:Time Travel? by Philip_the_physicist · 2010-03-13 18:22 · Score: 1

They say 3rd of October, and don't think its awkward. It's just a question of what you are used to hearing, like so many of the differences between en-US and en-GB.
Re:Time Travel? by sjames · 2010-03-14 05:11 · Score: 1

An advantage to most significant first, numeric, with leading zeros is that the dates will sort correctly.
Re:Time Travel? by unitron · 2010-03-14 14:20 · Score: 1

But don't put the least significant unit in _the_middle_!!!
Except that the date of the anniversary of my birth or of my next dental appointment are difficult to think of as the least significant. : - )

--
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

this article is a bad idea. by SinShiva · 2010-03-13 01:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

there is no mystery to this 'deep web'. massive data reserves? quite likely. personal, but unsecured servers hosting copyrighted content? even more likely.

This kind of article will only make things worse for a future defendant trying to explain he wasn't coordinating with 'the deep' in the distribution of his movies from his computer to his Mythbuntu box.

Adopt a long term perspective... by arcite · 2010-03-13 01:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just maybe not everyone in the world wants to be Google's bitch and allow them to mine their precious information for profit. Information may want to be free, but information is also power. Secrets are valuable to those who hold them, and in a near future world where information becomes increasingly more valuable, those who hold the secrets will be the most powerful.

Now just ask yourself, are you willing to submit to the likes of Google and give up the right and freedom to decide what to do with your information? Your secrets?

Do we continue to sell our individuality, our identity so cheaply?

Re:Adopt a long term perspective... by Yfrwlf · 2010-03-13 05:47 · Score: 1

Really? I thought openness and sharing information is what made the various open movements so great and powerful/valuable, like the open source software movement. Single individual collaboration between multiple individuals.

--
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Re:Adopt a long term perspective... by Yfrwlf · 2010-03-13 05:50 · Score: 1

Whoops, supposed to be arrows there, didn't notice the Extrans selection, nice feature. :D

--
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.

Why include Deep Web? by BarryNorton · 2010-03-13 01:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

Darknets are a concern. What is the link with the Deep Web? The only connection seems to be that they're both unindexed by search engines.

I thought the article might get to the point by the last page, but it was still talking about child protection and terrorism (in company databases???) I had wondered whether this confusion was down to an incautious academic, but the doesn't seem to suggest it: http://ai.arizona.edu/research/terror/

About Privacy by javilon · 2010-03-13 01:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

The deep web and its 'darknets' are a new battleground for those who want to uphold the right to privacy online, and those who feel that rights need to be sacrificed for the safety of society

Corporations, wealthy individuals and people in power keep their right to privacy. That's not good for the "safety of society". See the ACTA negotiation. Most of the calls about the future of society are made in a non transparent way, by corporations, the psychopaths that run them and corrupt politicians. If I don't keep my right to privacy ( and this looks like a lost cause) then I want them to lose it as well. I want a full public database with detailed information about every dollar owned and every move made by politicians and members of a corporation board. I want every government contract to be published on an easily searchable database. I want all meetings between corporation boards and/or government officials transcribed and published on another publicly search able database.

--

When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."

Re:About Privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 02:32 · Score: 0

The entire point of money and power is to buy privacy and fame on your own terms. You can want anything you like, but until you get money or power your preferences don't matter. Once you get one or the other you will, of course, be able to pry into the lives of people with less than you have.
Re:About Privacy by Datamonstar · 2010-03-13 02:32 · Score: 1

What you ask for is worthless without any way to reliably verify it. The real answer is true privacy for all.

--
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Re:About Privacy by javilon · 2010-03-13 03:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

I agree with that, but the message people in power is throwing around is that privacy is a lost cause... for us.
If they realized that in that case we are not willing to allow them to keep their own privacy and anonymity, they may change their minds.
In fact, it may be a good idea to keep individuals privacy, but making institutions and corporations transparent.

--

When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Re:About Privacy by Zumbs · 2010-03-13 04:29 · Score: 1

I actually could not help pondering that exact quote, particularly what it is missing. Those who wish to sacrifice the right to online privacy in order to make profits, such as the entertainment industry or advertisers; or to find and oppress dissidents for whatever reason.

--
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Re:About Privacy by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · 2010-03-13 04:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

I want a full public database with detailed information about every dollar owned and every move made by politicians and members of a corporation board. I want every government contract to be published on an easily searchable database. I want all meetings between corporation boards and/or government officials transcribed and published on another publicly search able database.
Before you ask for more intrusion of gov't into corporate affairs, step back and realize most corporations are small businesses owned by regular people.

--
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Re:About Privacy by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 08:23 · Score: 0

I think grandparent poster's point still stands. The context here is that if individuals are losing their rights, then ALL individuals and organizations should lose exactly the same rights. That has to scale all the way down to corporations that are just a front for a single person; otherwise only people who can afford the time and money to incorporate will get to keep their rights.

That's computer-science speak? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 02:04 · Score: 4, Funny

> In computer-science speak, it refers to those portions of the web that, for whatever reason, have been invisible to conventional search engines such as Google."

Spare me your mumbo jumbo, doctor!

This Article was Predicted by ZirconCode · 2010-03-13 02:09 · Score: 0, Redundant

What have you Done!

http://xkcd.com/591/

Now the darknetz are doomed !11!!!!1!

In other news... by srussia · 2010-03-13 02:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

Vast collections of literature (many, many LoCs worth) exist outside amazon.com containing esoteric theories, morbid historical narratives and subversive ideas.

--
Set your phasers on "funky"!

What is the problem? by Brian+Ribbon · 2010-03-13 02:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

If child pornography is being freely distributed amongst anonymous networks of paranoid people, what is the problem?

The vast majority of people who use onion routing are very cautious people, so very few will be stupid enough to leave a trail which could identify them (such as a payment) as doing anything which is seriously controversial or illegal. It would be absurd to suggest that anybody is going to profit from producing child pornography and distributing it through anonymous networks.

If somebody produced child pornography as a "hobby" (instead of for profit, which would result in a swift arrest anyway), it's pretty obvious that the producer would produce the pornography for themself regardless of whether they distributed it. So again, anonymous networks are not contributing to a problem, nor is the alleged availability of child pornography.

The majority of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are the parents of the child. If people genuinely wanted to stop child abuse, they would focus on protecting children from abusive parents. Instead, politicians and police chiefs tend to focus on matters which score politicial points and win votes; parents are not an acceptable target because they constitute a major component of the electorate. Claming to fight child pornography is much easier for politicians and police chiefs, as they will not lose significant support and they can easily claim a victory without any risk of being exposed as liars; after all, who is going to check the evidence?

--
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four

Re:What is the problem? by blahplusplus · 2010-03-13 03:23 · Score: 1

This is a brilliant post, wish I had the mod points.
Re:What is the problem? by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2010-03-13 04:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

If child pornography is being freely distributed amongst anonymous networks of paranoid people, what is the problem?
The problem is that it offends people who love reading about these stories. Those who are not offended enough to really care will still go along with those who do for fear of being targeted. We live in a democracy, ergo the will of the vocal minority will make it illegal. Moreover, this same will leads to draconian restrictions and state surveillance of the internet and indeed the general population.
The "problem" here is less the child pornographers than it is the people who go into irrational emotional meltdowns whenever someone mentions the password("pedophiles") and who then proceed in their hysteria to tear down the great society that has been built over the last 200 years. Child pornography is at worst an unpleasant nuisance. These crusaders on the other hand are a direct and immediate threat to our way of life--or at least what our way of life used to be.

--
May the Maths Be with you!
Re:What is the problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 05:22 · Score: 0

Now there is also the issue of teenagers producing what is considered child pornography. I think this will become the growing segment of 'child porn' for which people are convicted. People sexually abusing very young children happens, but I think it's rare in comparison.
When teenagers are abusing themselves we can't really convict the producers in a way that is proportionate to the crime. Instead we go after people in possession of the material. This does nothing more than grow an underground industry because we will only ever be able to find a very tiny percentage of possessors and not punish the producers.
If anyone wants a stable they should go into the law enforcement industry. Politicians will continue to sell us all on the idea that more cops lurking around will protect us, but all it really does is create something like the gestapo. An environment of fear, bureaucracy, wrongful convictions (to justify it's existence), ...
Re:What is the problem? by kz45 · 2010-03-13 05:53 · Score: 1, Insightful

"If child pornography is being freely distributed amongst anonymous networks of paranoid people, what is the problem?"
Because children are abused during the making of child pornography. You really don't understand this?
"It would be absurd to suggest that anybody is going to profit from producing child pornography and distributing it through anonymous networks."
I bet it still happens. Child porn is highly illegal and as a result, it probably has a high value on the black market. You could easily make payment arrangements outside the anonymous network (hell, some might even charge for access).
"If somebody produced child pornography as a "hobby" (instead of for profit, which would result in a swift arrest anyway), it's pretty obvious that the producer would produce the pornography for themself regardless of whether they distributed it. So again, anonymous networks are not contributing to a problem, nor is the alleged availability of child pornography."
If it allows anyone to pass around child pornography without getting caught, it does contribute to the problem. These people may have gotten caught if they weren't able to pass it around undetected.
"The majority of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are the parents of the child. If people genuinely wanted to stop child abuse, they would focus on protecting children from abusive parents."
We already do. Child protective services does a good job of investigating abusive parents. It's also not always the parent. Many times, it's a friend of the parents/family (or even siblings/cousins).
Re:What is the problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 11:23 · Score: 0

"If child pornography is being freely distributed amongst anonymous networks of paranoid people, what is the problem?"

If somebody produced child pornography as a "hobby" (instead of for profit, which would result in a swift arrest anyway), it's pretty obvious that the producer would produce the pornography for themself regardless of whether they distributed it. So again, anonymous networks are not contributing to a problem, nor is the alleged availability of child pornography.
Seriously? Think about this for a second. Child porn isn't a "hobby." Children are sexually and emotionally abused. Would you say that it's okay to molest children as long as its just a "hobby?" No, i think not. Nobody profits from being a pedophile, but they still hurt children in ways you obviously could never sympathize with. This isn't about the business, it's about sick people doing sick things to kids.
and @obsessivemathsfreak

Child pornography is at worst an unpleasant nuisance.
This is insane. You seriously don't understand the effects on the victims? Why don't you go ask a kid who's been involved in something like this if they think it was just unpleasant. Or better yet, how would you feel if your own children were "inconvenienced" by having something like this happening to them. Surely you wouldn't tell the cops or anything, because it's just and unpleasant nuisance, right? Nothing serious.
Those of you who are spouting this crap should be ashamed of yourself. It's disgusting to defend this crap.
Re:What is the problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 12:30 · Score: 0

> I bet it still happens. Child porn is highly illegal and as a result, it probably has a high value on the black market. You could easily make payment arrangements outside the anonymous network (hell, some might even charge for access).
Wouldn't charging for access leave a money trail to follow, thus destroying most of the advantages of using an anonymous network (since it wouldn't be 'truly' anonymous)? Wouldn't widespead availability of child porn lower its market value?
Re:What is the problem? by Brian+Ribbon · 2010-03-13 13:22 · Score: 1

"Children are sexually and emotionally abused. Would you say that it's okay to molest children as long as its just a "hobby?""
Neither I nor any of the respondents suggested that children being abused is "okay"; that would be a ridiculous assertion. My argument was that distribution and availability of child pornography on anonymous networks is extremely unlikely to encourage people to produce it.
I also question your assumption that "child pornography" is necessarily a depiction of children being molested. I don't know of any definition in any part of the word which dictates that an image must show children being molested in order for the image to be considered "child pornography". In the UK, for example, an image is illegal if, in the opinion of the jury, it "offends against the recognised standards of propriety"; the image does not need to meet any other criteria.
"Nobody profits from being a pedophile, but they still hurt children in ways you obviously could never sympathize with."
Paedophilia is a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. Most paedophiles don't hurt children for the same reasons that you wouldn't try (nor wish) to hurt adults who you're attracted to. Do you really think that most paedophiles fantasise about children suffering and don't know the difference between fantasy and reality? The alleged "threat" of "paedophiles" is as overblown as the threat of terrorism.

"Child pornography is at worst an unpleasant nuisance."
"This is insane. You seriously don't understand the effects on the victims?"
I think ObsessiveMathsFreak was accounting for context, which is a key issue here.
If you think that child pornography is a depiction of children being molested, do you not feel that those producing the images would molest the children anyway? In cases where children are actually molested and filmed, it is the molestation that is the problem, not the camera.
While everybody is panicking about child pornography, children are being abused by their parents and being killed by armies around the world, while the inherent rights of all people are being systematically stolen by governments in the name of protecting those children.
In the context of all that is done to children and also to adults, ObsessiveMathsFreak's statement is understandable.

--
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Re:What is the problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 17:41 · Score: 0

Brian, I don't think you're laying out your argument easily enough for everyone to understand it. Here, let me:
Facts:
1. Parents and others molest children.
2. Sometimes they take pictures of it.
3. Maybe they share those pictures with others.
4. Maybe others share those pictures with others.
5. Sometimes people sell these pictures.
Theory 1: the market for pictures of children being molested encourages the further molestation of children. This is reasoned to be true because profit is a very strong motivator.. if you see that people are willing to pay for pictures of children being molested then it's perfectly reasonable to imagine that you may decide to enter that market as a producer if you are so inclined. So a solution to profit motivated molestation of children presents itself: crack down on the market.
Theory 2: anonymous networks prohibit the exchange of money for pictures of children being molested. In effect, they remove the profit motive as a possible reason for why the pictures on that network were created. So cracking down on anonymous networks cannot be justified by the logic in theory 1. In fact, the existence of anonymous networks where pictures of children being molested can be obtained without charge weakens the profit motive *everywhere*, not just inside the network.
Which suggests:
Solution: encourage the development of anonymous networks. Ensure profit cannot be a motivator for pictures to be exchanged via the network. Redirect police efforts to finding and preventing the creation of the pictures. Continue to monitor the network to ensure that no new pictures are being circulated.
This seems like a sensible, scientific approach to eliminating child molestation, at least so far as it relates to the production of pictures.
Re:What is the problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-14 06:37 · Score: 0

I was molested, I do understand the effects and I completely agree with what ObsessiveMathsFreak is saying. It is, as you say, about sick people doing sick things to kids but mass hysterical about child pornography on the net only leads to politicians pandering to people's fears and bringing in ridiculous laws that encroach on everyone's freedom in order to get themselves re-elected. It's so easy to pass laws that tear down all the rights that civilisation has built up over the centuries and then claim that something is being done; it's so much harder to actually put money into proper policing and proper solutions that will target the creators of child porn as well as molesters and rapists themselves. While I agree with Brian Ribbon that child porn is not always strictly speaking molestation, that is the context in which most people understand it. In this sense child pornography is a symptom of the real problem - child abuse and molestation. Even if all online images were removed that would not end the problem. Becoming irrational and hysterical about the symptom does not help those being abused; it only damages us all.
Re:What is the problem? by unitron · 2010-03-14 14:47 · Score: 1

Theory 2 overlooks the possiblility that the "profit" comes not in the form of money, but that if two child molesters exchange materials, each gets "exciting, new" child pornography in exchange for easy and cheap to make copies of stuff they already have on hand that may have, from their point of view, have lost some of its "inspirational power".

--
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

Some years ago... by bagsta · 2010-03-13 03:08 · Score: 4, Informative

... I came across to this nice article regarding deep web. It has some techniques on how to search, access and exploit deep web. It is worth to look also the other articles of this site...

--
Until the skies turn blue...
Until the air of freedom strikes us...

Pretty much ruined it for me by Travoltus · 2010-03-13 03:10 · Score: 1

I was thinking about exploring those 'darknets' but child porn? I don't even want my browser pre-caching its way into those websites much less directly stumble onto one. At least I was warned. Anyone foolish enough to go there can't expect to feel like a victim if they get caught in a dragnet for showing up on a bad site's web access log.

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--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!

Re:Pretty much ruined it for me by ResidntGeek · 2010-03-13 09:04 · Score: 2

Jesus Christ. You are the weakest person I've heard of in months. Grow a spine.

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ResidntGeek
Re:Pretty much ruined it for me by Thiez · 2010-03-13 10:23 · Score: 2, Funny

You could stumble on that stuff on the 'regular' intertubes too. Although in some places it is more likely than others (e.g. 4chan).

here is an analogy of the danger to consider by 3seas · 2010-03-13 03:25 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Remember, this is an analogy using an unrelated but example with hindsight already established, unlike what this article is about.

The idea of the stock market was to allow people in invest in companies they believed in, sort of a put your money where you mouth is vote.
But due to the higher and higher levels of abstraction and manipulation at these higher levels of abstraction, putting your money in companies you believed in, is no longer what moves the market. Instead there have been some very bad things resulting in the manipulations of the markets at these higher abstract levels.
You might not even know where your investment is being put, had you handed it over to someone else to do for you, financial institutes and packages. Examples of very bad results include The Trillion Dollar Bet that drained Southeast Asia, including Indonesia (cia reported 88% Muslim) and gave rise to the repercussions of 911 (don't argue - follow the money instead, Worldcom, Enron, etc. some of the losers in the gamble) and Bernard Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme.

So this deep dark net.... it may not be so bottom line (money) connected, or maybe some of it is with insider trading info, but the results eventually show in the open.
And clearly the saying, "what we make we can break" applies here regarding anonymity, a lock that can be broken, as locks are for honest people.

Its not like governments don't have their own means of inside communications, of which if the public knew what all was communicated, there would be opposition as well.
It comes down to what humans will do, good or bad, where the only difference is in what tools they use to do so.

And the higher the level of abstraction being used ... the more damage it can result in. Good things generally don't require such sneaking around, spy vs. spy... And in the virtual world, what does it matter really matter, unless it has real world results?

At what point in technology advancement will thought police enter the picture? Or perhaps that question should be in the past tense.

What does the article really accomplish? More players in the spy vs. spy game. Absolutely nothing more! Advertising the dark web.
Why increase the number of players?

The solution to the trillion dollar bet was to release the formula used into the public hands, effectively nullifying its ability to be used in such a damaging manner.

Re:here is an analogy of the danger to consider by 3seas · 2010-03-13 03:29 · Score: 1

missing link in above: The Trillion Dollar Bet

NOYBnets by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:31 · Score: 1

It is like going to garage sales. You can expect to see a ton of the same old garbage, but usually someone has 'stored' something they don't care about but you really want. Occassionally there are priceless buried treasures that should be shared with the whole world. If marketers could regularly go through them all, it would provide unparalled insight into what we buy and store. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your point of view) everyone doesn't get to ramble through our garage unless we give them access or they break-in.

They are not really "darknets", a more accurate name is NOYBnets. (None Of Your Business)

BBS, IRC by roman_mir · 2010-03-13 03:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

If you still remember how to use those BBSs, the IRCs, then you can get back into the 'darknet' world I guess, though today it is also about appearing/disappering websites and botnets. Botnets like Zeus got that whole 'FreeNet' idea and have their own implementation, only it's not exactly free.

--
You can't handle the truth.

13% of the web explored by search engines? by heidaro · 2010-03-13 03:47 · Score: 1

I was recently told by an academic in computer security that only about 13% of the web are indexed by search engines such as Google. Does anyone know anything about this?

Re:13% of the web explored by search engines? by Rhaban · 2010-03-13 05:08 · Score: 1

and how exactly do they know the number of non-indexed pages? it's not as if google could do a "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sites WHERE indexed=FALSE" on their database, because the basic idea is that these sites are not in any extern databases.
Re:13% of the web explored by search engines? by jandoedel · 2010-03-13 06:23 · Score: 1

easy, just do a SELECT COUNT(*) WHERE not in (SELECT * from indexed);

alt roots by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:54 · Score: 0

the search engines don't crawl the alt roots either! that means that there are AT LEAST FIVE WHOLE PAGES they've missed there!

Deep/dark web has been done, many times by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 03:55 · Score: 0

Holy cow, people have been 'mining' the 'deep' 'dark' web for years. It's been the 'next frontier' for a decade. 'Darknet' has been a mysterious and edgy term for a private network for a long time. The VPN I setup last week is a darknet, I suppose ...

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q='deep+web'+site%3Aslashdot.org

not really by ILuvRamen · 2010-03-13 04:01 · Score: 1

I made my forum/website invisible to search engines because I only want members coming from one single place which I have a link on. Then only certain members join and it's actually quite nice and peaceful. That's really all there is to it. No terrorists or anything.

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Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'

Bottom line by nurb432 · 2010-03-13 04:51 · Score: 1

So the bottom line is there is more private data then public data floating around.

Go figure. *snooze*

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

Slow news day? by Don+Faulkner · 2010-03-13 05:24 · Score: 1

It must be a slow news day for something so technical to show up as a news article. But then again, the article has all of the necessary alarmist features, so I guess they had to let it through.

Must be that time of year again by MattGWU · 2010-03-13 05:49 · Score: 1

Every 12, 16 months or so I go "Oh yeah, Freenet exists...I should check it out again." But every time, I can't answer the question: Is there anything actually HERE?

Freenet: Is there actually anything worthwhile on it?

--
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:

eh by kadnan · 2010-03-13 06:15 · Score: 1

Darknets are not new for me. Every porn site I visited had a dark background thus helped me to "penetrate" into it further.

Darkweb by LlamaZorz · 2010-03-13 06:18 · Score: 1

I thought Darknets were private and encrypted vpn based file sharing systems. They work based on invites and trust.

I think the author meant Darkweb

Re:porn bomb by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 06:27 · Score: 0

Not always a good thing, as http://www.goatse.fr/ proves quite plainly.

June 5, 1967, Israel launched a preemptive attack by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 06:35 · Score: 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

Undernet by Nethead · 2010-03-13 06:50 · Score: 1

So this is the new term for IPv6?

--
-- I have a private email server in my basement.

Yes, believe it or not Google cannot do everything by BC_Man · 2010-03-13 07:03 · Score: 1

Google has built quite an empire on making people believe that they are the defacto standard for search. They should be commended for the quality of their applications but sadly the marketing has led people astray. I actually took a trip to my local University to do some research. A day login gave me access to thousands of Scientific papers that I would otherwise have to pay hundreds of pounds for. Doing real research takes footwork and hardwork. The web can do a lot but you have to know where to look. See http://narconews.com/Issue64/article4073.html , http://deepwebresearch.blogspot.com/ , http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,13927,1195901,00.html

Hiding is not always sinister or suspicious by jc42 · 2010-03-13 07:09 · Score: 0

"The deep web isn't half as strange or sinister as it sounds. In computer-science speak, it refers to those portions of the web that, for whatever reason, have been invisible to conventional search engines such as Google."

In reality, we might be better off if more of the Web were "dark" in this sense. Google (and the other major search sites) are fairly good at indexing text in English (and other human languages). But there's a lot of data online in those "sprawling databases" that are not encoded in human language, and are much better indexed by separate software that is designed to do that job right. One of the very real problems with google is that it so often returns sites that seem to contain strings of "words", but in fact aren't human language. I'm sure most people here are quite familiar with the results of "matches" on such data.

This isn't any sort of new observation. There are by now several thousand projects around the Net that deal with distributed databases of information encoded in various ways that are relevant and important to the people who use that data. One very well-known example is the GIS data that's used by the mapping software in your GPS gadget. This is very useful information, but for google to index it and return it when you google for "Brittney Spears" is not really a good idea. Similarly, there are large online databases of such stuff as astronomy and DNA data, and the person looking for the info on Madonna or Shakespeare is not happy with getting strings of parsed DNA.

I've been involved in building a search facility for several kinds of technical data, whose nature is uninteresting to nearly everyone here, but would server as one of many such examples. There are a thousand or so sites that use these formats. The data is "encoded" in plain-text form, mostly for ease of sending via any available method such as email. But most of the sites use robots.txt to tell the search bots to ignore the directories that contain this data, because the people using it are themselves annoyed by getting their own data back in google searches. The data contains shorts bursts of letters, so search bots treat it as text and index all the "words". The result is worthless to nearly anyone, including those who are familiar with and using this data encoding.

As an example, I found a file in my site that contains the string "red haired girl", did a google search, and it found a match on the file. People who click on that match, perhaps due to a redhead fetish, might be disappointed to find that it contains lines of text like "E3 ECE | FAB Ace | fec ecA | B2 e efg | age f2 a |fec ecA |BAB cAE |1 FAF FAF :|2 FAF". That's probably not what most people would expect for such a search. (Of course, if you follow irtrad-l, you'll probably recognize that notation and start humming along. ;-)

A much more rational approach would be to develop separate search sites for each such kind of specialized data. The google gang does sorta understand this, of course. Thus, Google Maps uses the GIS data, but Google Search doesn't return GIS data (very often ;-). They have software for searching GIS data, as do all the mapmakers, but they understand that there's little benefit in trying to merge GIS and human-language searches. Share some of the software, yes, since net navigation is a common task in all of them. Present the GIS addressing info in text form, too, since it's useful for humans to search that. But the text analysis and indexing schemes for the basic data have little in common, and need mostly separate software to do a good job of searching the data.

Anyway, it's no doubt true that there is a lot of "suspicious" information (semi-)hidden online. But it's also true that a lot of data is hidden from the major searchers simply because they don't do much that's useful with the data, and there's no reason to waste a server's CPU time servicing requests from googlebot or the other human-language search bots.

--
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.

"Dark Side of the Web" moniker already taken... by Godskitchen · 2010-03-13 08:52 · Score: 1

It's more commonly known as 4chan... or, "the bottom of the internet."

I know a place by MaskedSlacker · 2010-03-13 09:12 · Score: 1

where all the junkies go.
Where everything is fast
And everyone gets slow.

options by Spaham · 2010-03-13 09:30 · Score: 1

I see you never tried the -robot-follow option in google...

'Dark' web not always a bad thing by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 11:05 · Score: 0

The dark web also refers to items hidden behind password controls, like your bank account details, which google/bing cannot index. More than often, they are 'dark' for a very good reason.

It doesn't always have to mean nefarious purposes. Do you want Google indexing your bank account, or your online xtube accounts?

Re:porn bomb by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 11:18 · Score: 0

That only applies for gay marriage.

"swerve to avoid hitting squirrels" by Quietlife2k · 2010-03-13 11:35 · Score: 1

Oh so you're the lunatic that acts first thinks later - the next time you swerve watch out for the kid on a bike you did not see the first time you looked.

Re:Yes, believe it or not Google cannot do everyth by repapetilto · 2010-03-13 12:53 · Score: 1

Google is actually a good way to find scientific papers, their search engine gives better results than the academic databases offer most of the time... the problem is you usually have to pay. The best thing to do alot of the time is google what you want then log in through your schools VPN or go their library to get the paper without paying.

Fravia's Research by not_hylas(+) · 2010-03-13 13:59 · Score: 1

Fravia's Research:

http://www.searchlores.org/

http://www.searchlores.org/indexo.htm

He was a great guy - it's his "fan club" I couldn't stand.
Watch yourself on the links to some of the "discussion boards".

There's some really good knowledge in what he left us.

--
~hylas

One print page... by antdude · 2010-03-13 14:16 · Score: 1

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/356254/the-dark-side-of-the-web/print

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

156 comments