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'Google Search On Steroids' Brings Dark Web To Light

Posted by timothy on from the but-your-search-history dept.

snydeq writes The government agency that brought us the Internet has now developed a powerful new search engine that is shedding light on the contents of the so-called deep Web. DARPA began work on the Memex Deep Web Search Engine a year ago, and this week unveiled its tools to Scientific American and 60 Minutes. "Memex, which is being developed by 17 different contractor teams, aims to build a better map of Internet content and uncover patterns in online data that could help law enforcement officers and others. While early trials have focused on mapping the movements of human traffickers, the technology could one day be applied to investigative efforts such as counterterrorism, missing persons, disease response, and disaster relief."

10 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. 17 different contractor teams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "... being developed by 17 different contractor teams..."
    There's a recipe for failure if even I saw one!

    1. Re:17 different contractor teams by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, looks like I'm ready to be promoted to manager.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:17 different contractor teams by kcitren · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's 17 teams working on 17 different things. The way these projects work is they've got a bunch of contractors that have ideas they want to pursue that are relevant to DARPAs interests and requirements. DARPA funds them and they all work on their own things and try to create some synergy. Over the life of the contract they continue funding those projects that are most successful.

  2. search on steroids by rossdee · · Score: 3, Funny

    Whike I am sure that steroid abuse is assisted by :the dark web' , there are more dangerous drugs for sale there, not to mention actual violent crime they should crack down on

    1. Re:search on steroids by complete+loony · · Score: 2

      I don't see how searching for steroids is going to reveal the deep web...

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  3. The upshot is by Cafe+Alpha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    before, criminals could keep from being caught by having a robots.txt file.

    The sad thing is this isn't a joke

  4. Exactly. That was my takeaway as well. by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

    Exactly. That was my take-away as well.

    (1) Get a huge government contract

    (2) Ignore robots.txt

    (3) Profit!

  5. Digital Scarecrow by Guy+From+V · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought that this sounded ominous for a minute. Then I remembered that government projects like this are designed to have a chilling effect on activity that they cannot monitor, understand or enforce by their very existence and not by being actual potent tools to combat it (i.e. paper tiger). More likely this thing will become a money pit that contractors can use as a sandbox project to allow their employees to play in for implementation of IP that may be works-in-progress for future projects that may be useful, but are just lofty concepts that have no basis in reality. 17 contracting teams is about 15-16 too many hands in the cookie jar for this to be anything more than a Men In Black-wannabe training camp or a glorified propaganda project, most likely both.

  6. "Deep" Web or "Dark" Web? by Rogue+Haggis+Landing · · Score: 3, Informative

    My understanding is that these are two different (though related) things. The Deep Web is simply the part of the Web that's not indexed by the major search engines. It might be purposefully hidden, or it might simply be a web page so out of the way that Google hasn't noticed it. The Dark Web is a subset of the Deep Web that is more purposefully hidden because people using it don't want The Man to know what's going on. Sometimes the Dark Web is defined as only places in which nefarious (or at least illegal) things go on, sometimes it's any place that's intentionally hidden, for whatever reason.

    Point is that the headline says "Dark Web" while the excerpt says "Deep Web", but then immediately starts talking about law enforcement, which means Dark Web.

    "Deep Web" and "Dark Web" are both useful concepts. We should avoid conflating them.

    1. Re:"Deep" Web or "Dark" Web? by jeffmeden · · Score: 2

      You are right, the "deep web" is not the same thing as the/a "darknet" or "dark web". They don't do a good job of keeping that clear in the headline. From TFA's own citation on wikipedia:

      "The deep web should not be confused with the dark Internet, computers that can no longer be reached via the Internet.

      However the article does assert that this Memex project is indexing both unpublicized content on the general internet (the deep part) plus anonymized content on Tor and other privacy services (the dark part).