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Global Majority Backs a Ban On 'Dark Net,' Poll Says (reuters.com)
Alastair Sharp reports for Reuters: Seven in 10 people say the 'dark net' -- an anonymous online home to both criminals and activists fearful of government surveillance -- should be shut down, according to a global Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. The findings, from a poll of at least 1,000 people in each of 24 countries, come as policymakers and technology companies argue over whether digital privacy should be curbed to help regulators and law enforcement more easily thwart hackers and other digital threats.
good luck with that
...have some fucking clue about how the internet works.
..I..
This reminds me of the Penn and Teller BS episode where people sign petitions to "End Womens' Suffrage". They need to know what it is before they vote on it. This is the problem on getting your computer education from CSI Cyber.. .like getting your cooking education from the Chef on the Muppets
7 out of 10 declared fatally, incurable stupid.
a poll can be bend to agree with anything the sponsor wants.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
This was probably a bullshit fucking push poll worded to elicit a certain response. But whether it was or it wasn't, here's a hearty disdainful BAAA BAAA BAAA to the fucking sheep who made up the 71%.
The findings, from a poll of at least 1,000 people hand-picked by the respective governments in each of 24 countries, come as policymakers and technology companies argue over whether digital privacy should be curbed to help regulators and law enforcement more easily thwart hackers, identify malcontents, whistle-blowers, criticizers of governments and government leaders/officials, 'undesirables', and other digital threats.
Emphasis mine, of course
The U.S. is far from being the only country in the world that has a problem with nosy government and 'law enforcement' (more like 'will enforcement' in some cases, to be honest). We're just (still, for the moment) allowed to actually talk about it (without [much] fear of being made to disappear).
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Perhaps we should also ban all of the books in dark libraries? - that would be any book not found in a public library. After all there could be dangerous information in books that haven't been screened and approved for general public consumption by your local library staff.
not really, there is side-channel metadata leak that could be used to identify endpoints, SSL certificate CN, endpoint IP addresses, etc.
Poll indicates that 9/10 people have no idea how technology works.
Am I getting this wrong ? This implies that there is a one dark net thing, but the DarkNet is a generic term describing any anonymous / encrypted network.
There are many Dark Nets and precisely because of their secretive nature its very difficult to shut them down. Try shutting down Free-net / Tor! - good luck.
I think the author is misunderstanding / giving the false impression that there is a "DarkNet" and that it is controlled by someone/goverment and that that someone can turn it off.
Else whats the point of this poll about shutting down the dark net when it can not be shut down and no one is responsible for all of it-
I feel the intention of this is to blame it on some one and then start conspiracy theories on why was he/it invented it -
...7 in 10 people don't understand the Internet
With a concerted effort, it could be considerably hampered. There are patterns of behavior which are currently allowed which the so-called Dark Net takes advantage of to make that environment convenient enough for a relatively wide user base. If you shut down some of those allowed capabilities, or severely restrict them, the Dark Net would be considerably reduced.
There's nothing that could stop some form of underground network from existing, even if you disallowed encryption and inspected all packets. But you can do things to curtail it enough that you'd restrict commerce in that manner to some very specific players.
You'll never shut down highly skilled denizens, such as organized crime communications, but that one guy who just wants to order some weed from a Dark Net e-store may not have be able to do that.
Have Slashdot accessible from the Dark Net. All "Anonymous Cowards" would be listed as "Truly Anonymous Cowards"
The poll asks if the "dark net" should be shut down. It's not clear if they defined the darknet properly or at all. Certainly the only parts of the darknet that get press are the bad parts, and equally certainly the internet would have to be profoundly changed to shut it down.
How many of the respondents think that "the darknet" is "the illegal part"? If the question is being heard as "Should the illegal parts of the internet be shut down", then of COURSE the answer is "yea, naturally, the law should be enforced by law enforcement".
It's been shut down. Well, as far as you know. If you hear about the 'dark net' from now on, it's either a new one or pure rumor.
Won't someone please think of the children!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How much of the world favors the right to vote for people that they see as their enemy? There are only a few fundamentals to the foundation of the "free world". Respecting the rights of a rival as inalienable is the corner stone. Let's not forget what atrocities group think and fear of the unknown have brought us. Let's also recall what wonderful things bravery had allotted us once we coupled it with dissent. Please be brave.
Q. A part of the Internet known as the "Dark Net" is only accessible via special web browsers that allow you to surf the web anonymously. Journalists, human rights activists, dissidents and whistleblowers can use these services to rally against repression, exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and shed light upon corruption. At the same time, hackers, illegal marketplaces (eg. selling weapons and narcotic ...
It's almost as if every time they try to create a Light Net, where everything is cryptographically signed and authenticated so you know who can be trusted, it's too hard for people to actually go through the trouble of setting it up and using it, or something.
Oh, and the government backdoors. Gotta figure out how to sell people on the master key concept. Heh.
Sorry, but the Internet isn't a fucking democracy.
Nor a popularity contest.
So your average majority of ignorant luddites (including every single politician currently sitting in office, as well as those waiting in the wings) have exactly DICK to actually say about technology implementation.
Sure, they can THINK their word and opinion means something.
It isn't even worth the effort it takes to simply ignore them as the clueless blowhard jackasses they really are.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I still blame the manufacturers of those devices for that. Not everyone is a router expert or even understands the risks of that device, and the makers of home routers and wi-fi devices are marketing to those people. The manufacturers should know the risks and make it easy to both know that there is a password to change, and to ensure that it gets changed without a stupid amount of effort or domain knowledge.
Or at the very least, they should set a different initial password on each that isn't trivial to hack. Even if the user never changes it, there should be a reasonable possibility that the initial password will not be cracked before the device breaks. But that would require the manufacturers to think of that and have a process to do that, and they just want to stamp out software images that all have the same password on it and leave it up to people who don't know any better.
"A majority of societies are ok with how societies work and don't care enough for protecting the freedom of expression and opinions of those who don't, at-least not if that also allow more extreme people who don't like their society to act as-well."
Such fucking news.
Maybe they can with correctness call it "for democracy" as long as that democracy mean "for the views we the majority has decided to be the only correct ones", if the idea of a democracy is to be able to spread various opinions and effect society however then I don't see how it's democratic regardless of what those views are.
"Do you agree that the government should be able to ban, monitor, or log all traffic on non-public networks, such as your home Wi-Fi or office?"
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The global majority would also back a ban on networks, and given the chance, succeed at banning them, about half a day before realizing Facebook and Youtube were delivered over one of those now-banned network thingies.
1. First, outlaw these darknets used by those pesky pedophiles and terrorists;
2. Then, interpret "darknet" to cover all anonymous and/or encrypted communication;
3. ???
4. PROFIT!
This is yet another good argument against "democracy".
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What they really want is the internet to become the equivalent of television. A one way stream of pay to play. Its already getting there. You can whistle blow all you want and you'll be buried by search engines and social media algorithms. Think about this... even snowden did it. He gave the docs to an established journalist, otherwise you'd not hear a peep.
Darknets let one access unsanctioned information. Otherwise 90% of everything comes through places like google. We almost lost the encryption fight during the infancy of the internet. These days, lets just say I have low hopes.
Prove me wrong please... tell me how its possible to reach large numbers of people if you don't already have an established or public following? Double when someone is trying to hide you.
This 0 post will prove itself, I guarantee it.
Easily done, as demonstrated here by Sir Humphrey https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
So if they shut down the dark web,
what if I create a cloud-based business called "Communication Club" and offer the service of private anonymous communication.
I arrange the encryption so the corporation has no way of decrypting your private channels/subweb.
So is this "creative use of a private intranet" now also illegal?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
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Unless it becomes a crime to move stores of random numbers across borders it will always be possible to set up dark networks. And why is the opinion of the majority even relevant when they have no idea about how these things work and are used?
There may be serious problems but banning the unstoppable certainly isn't even close to a solution, in fact I see the idea as an admission that certain people do not have the intelligence or imagination to come up with a better solution to the core issues that dark networks are associated with.
Why is stupid always so loud?
Let's not stop there.
Let's also outlaw terrorism, that will stop it!
...have some fucking clue about how the internet works.
Tech is not magic.
The Internet is not a machine that drives itself. Untouched by political forces, laws, treaties, contracts, and so on.
If the will can be found to change the rules that define how the Internet works, the Internet will change. The geek will have a voice in these decisions, but he will not have the final say. It wouldn't be the first time the technocrat saw power slip through his fingers.
Outlaw encrypted connections. No more SSL, no more legal VPN services, no more standardized, general encryption for connections. If you see anything you can't inspect the packets for at the telco without decryption, you order telecoms to dump those packets into the bit bucket at the router.
Only exception: if you want to do business with someone securely, you have to register with them so you can receive the appropriate key which only works from your identity to their servers. That key is available to the government, and might even be already on file so they don't even need to ask the business for it. Maybe it is the government that issues your private key. Your packets have your ID number in the header, and the routing can only happen between your registered key and the IP address(es) of the merchant site.
Not likely to happen in the US, but a place like China could force it. They already force all sorts of registration. If it was a real program, they'd have to phase it in or their economy flounders, but I think China is moving in that direction. They just need to re-write some protocols and get a few more capabilities.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.....it is mostly full of teenage boys mastibabting to porn.
Or perhaps they already did and that is the problem :/ .
Your observation is accurate beyond mere criticism of the survey. The governments are deliberately raising the profile of this new "War on Darknets" because they don't dare call it what it really is, namely their War on Privacy . The deception created by tech-sounding wordplay which the majority don't understand is central to making their plan work, because otherwise they encounter pushback from the masses who value their privacy.
"Darknet" has no specific meaning in CompSci, and so it can be used to denote any communication which NSA, FBI and DOJ do not control. This is very much a "thin end of the wedge" issue, because their desire to see and control everything will end only when there is no privacy left at all. These people don't believe in limits on their power.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
In my state, tickets for any kind of public event, from a fair to the Super Bowl, can be traded freely after purchase by individuals or brokers. It's a great convenience if you have bought tickets to a game or concert and your lans change, so everyone here loves the system. But in states where the event operator and sports lobby is strong, ticket resale is kept illegal by calling it "scalping." This sounds awful, so people tacitly accept the inconvenience of resale being banned.
In the same way, the name Dark Net evokes fear. It's dark, so it has to be a sketchy neighborhood even though the poll question specifically cites some beneficial uses for it.
Now if we called it the Internet Safe Space instead, we would think of the drug traders and child molesters as interlopers on a peoples' space, rather than thinking of whistleblowers hiding in the corners of Gangster Town.
Yes, but do they support a ban on the (totally not the "Dark Net") "Freedom Net"?
I always have to ask how the question was phrased:
"Do you think the dark net, used by terrorists and pedophiles, should be shut down?"
OR
"Do you think the dark net, used by dissidents opposing totalitarian governments, should be shut down?"
.
In other news, 83.5% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Why stop at calling it "the Dark Net"? If they referred to it as the "Super Evil Kitten-Punching Net of Doom", they could probably get 9 out of 10 people to oppose it.
Feh.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I noticed that you waffled on grey areas....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
So at least 24,000 out of a global population of nearing 8 billion.
Again, what a shit study. Shit sample size, shitty controls, horrible sample group selection.
Scam science like this should never be allowed on /.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The survey might as well have asked them if the government should ban cancer.
So much dumb these days.
Ban cash and any untraceable currency. Everyone should wear a GPS tracker at all time (after all criminals and terrorists walk and drive to places in a way that hampers the security services). Ban the use of slang or foreign languages. These might stop a police officer overhearing a plot.
Dark == no DNS entries
Quit charging for DNS hosting and domain names, and the majority of this problem evaporates over night.
And it's everywhere, it's not highly populated but backward areas, it's approximately the same everywhere US = 72%.
The thing is, people are also too stupid to realize that outlawing something means only outlaws will have that thing.
Banning encryption ( or banning un-backdoored 'encryption' ) wouldn't stop criminals from using it, it would only mean the darknet still runs, but only for people who are breaking the law. You are never going to keep the ability to apply a one time pad to a message from the hands of criminals. The only thing they can shut down is the friendly clickable visible darknet. But even that has turned into more of a honeypot than anything, with just about everyone who tries to make a living by flouting the law being caught eventually.
Banning encryption would only take the darknet out of the hands of those who aren't breaking the law but would like a little privacy - these are the ones who wouldn't break the law to go dark.
...
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc35...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
You seriously think the Dark Net is less capable.
Silly silly people.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
FWIW, I used to fill in Ipsos surveys. I'd spend maybe 10 minutes on one before it decided I wasn't a suitable respondent for that particular survey, and the questions were frequently just WRONG based on my previous answers. I finally quit because they were a waste of my time. YMMV, of course.
Have you ever been wondering "Who the fuck keeps voting in those idiots?"
There's your answer.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As if 1,000 people could even be remotely representative of the millions of people in my state, much less the ~330 million people in the U.S.
Anyone with any wits about them at all recognizes that polls are generally worthless anyway, even when they aren't deceitfully designed to elicit a particular desired response through careful wording of the poll questions. But to assert a mere 1,000 people could accurately represent the views of the billions of people worldwide who use the internet is sheer fallacy.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
1,000 people each from 24 countries. So, 24,000 respondents.
Still, 24,000 out of over 7,000,000,000 is definitely not statistically significant.
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/......
There will be no change, and without the dark web, there are niether revolutions, nor honest news, nor reporters able to get intel from inside corrupt governments like the U.S. and China.
Better more drug runners than less reportage.
Outlaw encrypted connections. No more SSL, no more legal VPN services, no more standardized, general encryption for connections. If you see anything you can't inspect the packets for at the telco without decryption, you order telecoms to dump those packets into the bit bucket at the router.
Not likely to happen in the US, but a place like China could force it.
Might be good if this kind of thing started happening in the US... we'd get such a strong flourish of steganographic and out-of-band communications utilities, it'd be awesome. For some definition of awesome.
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