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Global Majority Backs a Ban On 'Dark Net,' Poll Says (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the it's-hard-to-please-people dept.

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.

18 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    good luck with that

    1. Re:luck by graphius · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you know, maybe we should make crime illegal or something...

    2. Re:luck by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I, for one, support outlawing bad and will gladly sign a petition saying that bad should, in fact, be banned. Only the bad would support bad. And so I must support good, as must anyone who is good. I will, for that matter, go so far as to say that bad is bad and that good is good--and would take issue with anyone who would say otherwise.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:luck by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if all of that was done properly, they don't provide a copy of the poll questions so who knows what they actually asked.

      Consider the following question "Do you agree that the dark net, a part of the global internet that houses illegal drugs, child pornography, and other illicit activity should be banned by the world's governments?" along with the usual strong agree, agree, etc. options. Of course you'd naturally expect people to agree it should be banned. You could make up something called the dragon net and people would overwhelmingly be in favor of banning it, even though it doesn't exist.

      Of course you could phrase the question another way and paint the dark net as a place where people go to escape government censorship or authoritarian surveillance and I'd bet you'd get people voting that the U.S. should do more to fund it. Without knowing the question which was asked, the answer is almost meaningless.

    4. Re:luck by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you download the Detailed Tables 2 file from the article it has the start of the question:

      " 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 weap"

      But it's cut off there. However I do wish they would post the full questions right with their results in order to be transparent.

    5. Re:luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Evil will always triumph because GOOD is DUMB.

  2. The other 3 out of 10... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...have some fucking clue about how the internet works.

  3. ..I.. by zenlessyank · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ..I..

  4. A ban on invisibility? by AlexanKulbashian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:A ban on invisibility? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Call it "dark net, home of criminals and terrorists" and what do you _think_ public opinion will be.

      Call it virtual private networks, home to banking transactions, corporate and personal communications - then what's the response?

      Both are encrypted and impenetrable to normal eavesdropping methods.

    2. Re:A ban on invisibility? by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about the darkest nets of them one, the ones where government secrets are kept from citizens so that corrupt politicians can stay in power. I vote 100% for the removal of those. So get rid of them first and then government agencies and then all businesses worth more than one hundred million dollars and then all religious organisations in fact any organisation with a tax free status and then I have no problem with them coming for the rest of us. Of course to be fair, I already have no digital privacy and encryption would definitely create problems for me (better to let them digitally in, then have them force their way physically in).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:A ban on invisibility? by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actual question:

      Q13. 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 narcotics), and child abuse sites can also use these services to hide from law enforcement. Do you agree or disagree that the "Dark Net" should be shut down.

      I'm not sure it's that poorly worded. But it is an "internet poll", whatever that means.

      And looking at the actual data, in the US for instance it's only 33% who selected "strongly agree". 58% selected one of the wishy-washy "somewhat agree" or "somewhat disagree" boxes. Only 9% selected "strongly disagree".

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:A ban on invisibility? by houghi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Many years ago a newspaper asked me about a child porn case where the city was giving out webhosting. This was in 1997 or 1998.
      One of their questions was if it was OK for the city to hand out a place to host child porn for free at the cost of the citizens.

      It was obvious to me that they were trying to set me up to say that it was terrible that a city gives out places to host child porn.
      My reaction was to separate the hosting of child porn and the giving away of webspace. I praised the city to give people the opportunity to get a website (not evident then where I lived) and the fact that it is up to the police, whom I had informed about the child porn and they had done nothing, to go after illegal usage.

      I am well aware many people will not see what the intend of the questions is (besides from getting an answer)

      In the end the police tried to bully me by saying I was distributing childporn (I had send the URL to them, after I saw it in a Usenet group that fights Internet abuse), identity falsification (because I used face info to activate a free email account) and found me by calling my company telling my manager that they wanted to talk to me concerning a child porn case. Luckily my boss wasn't stupid and even offered to pay for a lawyer if anything ever came of it.

      Somehow after that I NEVER saw anything illegal anywhere ever again. Not online, not offline.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  5. depends on how the poll is worded... by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a poll can be bend to agree with anything the sponsor wants.

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  6. How about dark libraries? by Nkwe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re: Shock by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion