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Dark Web Mapping Reveals That Half of the Content Is Legal (helpnetsecurity.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Cyber threat intelligence firm Intelliagg and dark net indexing company Darksum have released the results of their efforts to map the dark web (actually, only the Tor network). They discovered that Tor network is much smaller than commonly thought, and that around 68% of the sites analyzed can be classified as illegal under UK and US law. In related news, a recent poll found that the vast majority of people want a ban on the dark net.

49 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Article says 68%, not 48% by Sowelu · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Of those that have been accessed and analyzed with the companies’ “machine-learning” classification method, less than half (48%) can be classified as illegal under UK and US law. A separate manual classification of 1,000 sites found about 68% of the content to be illegal under those same laws."

    Seriously, guys? The only place the 48% number comes from is from the same sentence saying that a more careful count said 68%.

    1. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Shouldn't it be UK OR US law? Since no person is going to be under both jurisdictions at the same time?

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
    2. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by Sowelu · · Score: 4, Informative

      Okay wow! Thank you editors! The summary got changed and I appreciate that. Seemed like that never happened on old Slashdot.

    3. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Well it's likely in the UK that only 10% or less of the content is legal. There's a huge gap between both countries in what is legal and illegal, including speech and things like pornography.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Shouldn't it be UK OR US law? Since no person is going to be under both jurisdictions at the same time?

      Then it should be UK XOR US law.

    5. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I think you're right - the last article he pushed was monday the 28th

      https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

      If he's gone, who do we make fun of next?

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
    6. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by Matheus · · Score: 1

      s/Half/One Third/g

      Ah...

    7. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by TroII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No kidding. Remember, the UK recently made porn that depicts face-sitting or female squirting illegal. As well, the UK doesn't have the free speech protections that America does, and America doesn't always have the free speech protections it's supposed to. What I find most interesting is that porno/fetish only makes up about 1% of .onion sites and drugs account for only 4%. Listening to the media, the "dark web" is 110% child porn and 93% drug trafficking, which adds up to 451% illegal. It is of course no wonder that most people surveyed want it shut down.

    8. Re:Article says 68%, not 48% by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

      Props....

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  2. Squiddie by Squiddie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My guess is that a large part of that is simple copyright infringement or other such things. The "illegal content problem" is not really a problem. It's just people afraid of free speech and sharing of information.

    1. Re:Squiddie by Squiddie · · Score: 2

      Who cares? Child porn is just an image of a crime scene. I don't see how a pedophile looking at it rapes the kid all over again. Go after the people actually abusing children. In either case, it won't work. People will always find a way to share data and remain underground.

    2. Re:Squiddie by Squiddie · · Score: 1

      Sure, but I wonder why anyone would trust such things when the free version exists. You also shouldn't download binaries from random places on the internet. Remember, you don't know where it's been.

    3. Re: Squiddie by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      Getting one on viewing gives pressure for him to inform on the others in the group.

      You have at all backwards. If it's illegal for both parties then they have a mutual reason to keep it quiet. On the other hand if it's legal to consume but illegal to create then you have one side working against the other. This works for prostitution and bribes too. There should be a reward on one side. For instance, if you make it legal to give bribes but illegal to receive them then anyone who can convince a politician to accept a bribe gets rewarded. The same could work for child pornography. You could give an incentive for white hat hackers to track down and DOX creators of child porn. The way it is now, there is no legal gray area for someone to even research child pornography because even the act of searching for it is illegal.

    4. Re:Squiddie by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      There is child porn in the Dark Web, and drug selling, and murderers for hire, and more child porn.

      All of that stuff is on the normal web too. Sometimes it's even more pervasive.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  3. Dark web needs some rebranding by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Let's call it happy web. Seriously though of course folks want to ban it. If you're not hiding out from an oppressive regime or looking at porn it's not much use to anyone. So we've got something that can be used for bad things and is pretty much useless for good things that matter unless you're part of the under class. Good luck with that.

    --
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    1. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well that's part of the problem. As with the bigger issues of encryption, e.g. Apple vs. FBI, if one "good guy" government can crack it, then so can the bad guys, whom it was designed to fight.

      Does anybody think Russia and China, at a minimum, can't muster the technological and financial oomph to get the same job done as the NSA/FBI?

      This on top of things they also do, like the US, like phone metadata and Eye in the Sky. Sometimes they even buy the software for analysis from western companies.

      If we can do it for good guy reasons, so can they, and as far as I am concerned, this is all about stopping the building of these tools to begin with, to avoid the 1984 "Imagine a boot stepping on a human face...forever."

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I am offended at the word "Dark". It needs to be called the "Web Of Color".

    3. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

      Call it "Freedom Web" and watch Fox News explode in a puff of logic as it tries to find out what side to take.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by lgw · · Score: 2

      Freenet is a real thing, BTW, a different sort of dark net that never really caught on. More secure for uploaders than TOR, though (much better for Wikileaks) since there are no servers.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      So we've got something that can be used for bad things and is pretty much useless for good things that matter unless you're part of the under class. Good luck with that.

      So I assume journalists and whistleblowers are part of the "under class" along with all the people living under oppressive regimes you mentioned?

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    6. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by Flavianoep · · Score: 1

      Why would one go to the Dark Web to look for porn besides for bestiality, child porn, rape &c. IFAIK, streaming is not so fast on Tor.

      --
      Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
    7. Re:Dark web needs some rebranding by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Nonono. FREEDOM Net. Just to use a name that is almost like another one and get everyone confused so they can't tell them apart, then as soon as something bad happens inside of one both of them can be smeared.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Superior summary enclosed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    During the test period, 29,532 Tor sites were identifiable.
    13,584 were accessible (the remainder is assumed to be nefarious, but left out of all the statistics).
    An over-hyped text matching script determined that 6,520 of the accessible sites would probably be illegal under US and/or UK law.

    The pretty chart of Tor site content percent by type is here.
    Unlike the bright-net, only 1% of the dark-net appears to be porn. However, 29% is file sharing, and another 28% is "leaked data", which taken together provides a much more believable 58% porn content.

    1. Re:Superior summary enclosed by ron_ivi · · Score: 1

      13,584 were accessible .... the remainder is assumed to be nefarious,

      Seriously?!?

      At least some of those are probably my "hello world" virtual machines where I set up a hidden services that serve literally just the static page '<html\>Hello World\</html\>', or just the default installs of things like WikiMedia, just to see if i could.

      I never could figure out anything interesting to do with them; so they're just hosting empty wikis, blogs, etc; that were locked down so I'm the only one that can get in, to avoid spammers from uploading crap into them.

      TL/DR: No, most of the inaccessible sites should not be 'assumed to be nefarious'. Just boring.

    2. Re:Superior summary enclosed by Thud457 · · Score: 1

      You should load up some output from M-x spook as a placeholder to freak the mundanes.
      Or at least change "hello world!" to "Allah akbar!"

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  5. "oh, yeah, leave it partway on, baby" by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 3, Funny

    Dark Web Mapping Reveals That Half of the Content Is Legal

    Yes, sir, certainly she was old enough, that's not the issue. The problem is that a llama can't legally consent to anything, even if she's over 21.

    1. Re:"oh, yeah, leave it partway on, baby" by Pseudonymous+Powers · · Score: 2

      Bestiality is legal in a number of states. Only recently has there been a drive to have the government control what goes on in your hayloft, and even then it's usually after someone gets themselves fucked to death by a horse.

      I know perverts are nothing if not dedicated, but I shudder at the thought of how much effort it would take to get a horse up into a hayloft.

      As a corollary: Never trust a farmer with an elevator in his barn.

  6. What about "black bodies"? by davidwr · · Score: 1

    I hear they give off radiation.

    uhhh 'dark' web? can you call it that any more? coloured? african american?

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  7. Not really accurate. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Al they're saying is half the content that they could find is legal ... it's called the dark web for a reason. If they could find it all, it wouldn't be the dark web. And what they did find couldn't be all that dark - after all, they found it.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  8. Re:Who cares? We care. by bmo · · Score: 2

    If you actually read the TFA but this being Slashdot, you didn't and I almost didn't, thinking "oh god not this shit again."

    This isn't about actually banning anything but battling against the meme that the "dark web" is all illegal sites.

    âoeWe believe it is important for the public to gain a better understanding of the contents of the dark web in order for there to be a proper debate about its nature, dangers â" and potential benefits,â the companies say. âoeMisunderstanding about the dark net is rife, and has been fueled by often misleading media coverage. This, in turn, has influenced policy debates based on incorrect assumptions and hyperbole.â

    --
    BMO

  9. Dark? It is pitch black. by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    ...and you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  10. Re:Who cares? by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They don't want to ban it for YOUR safety, they want to ban it for THEIRS.

    I'm just sayin'...

    --
    Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
  11. 'Banning' the 'dark web' by kheldan · · Score: 4, Informative

    This 'vast majority' of people, like most non-technical people, don't understand how things actually work. You can't ban the so-called 'dark web' because you really can't identify where it is. Even making Tor illegal (yeah, and good luck with that, too) would only get rid of part of the Dark Web.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:'Banning' the 'dark web' by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

      They're following the same kind of logic that makes Donald Trump think that Bill Gates can kick ISIS off the Internet, so they think that all you need to do is find a prominent personality somehow related to darknet technology, go into his basement/office, and use a convenient control panel/big red button to make the necessary change.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:'Banning' the 'dark web' by westlake · · Score: 1

      You can't ban the so-called 'dark web' because you really can't identify where it is.

      Unless, of course, the user or the network can be exposed by other means. The tech isn't as good as the geek thinks it is or its users or administrators can't be trusted. The geek who turns to crime has an unfortunate tendency to show off when things are going well. He needs a bigger audience than the dark net can give him.

    3. Re:'Banning' the 'dark web' by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Kicking ISIS off the internet seems easy enough. Jammers + snipping physical lines would prevent anyone from ISIS-controlled territory from communicating with the outside world. Plus, a wall of course to prevent IPOverSneakers. And every knows Donald Trump is a wall builder. It's gonna be the greatest wall.

      You know, I have trouble with my cellphone inside some buildings. If the wall is high enough and thick enough, you might not need jammers.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re:'Banning' the 'dark web' by kheldan · · Score: 1

      The way to get the so-called 'islamic state' off the Internet, is to use a new technology called BOMB (Bitwise Overwrite Methodology Blocking). BOMB devices can effectively and permanently disable any access points that ISIS operatives are using to connect to the Internet. Strategic deployment of BOMBs, guided by intelligence data, will, over time, effectively remove ISIS presense from the Internet. BOMBs, being cutting-edge technology, are small and lightweight enough to be delivered by any number of methods, and especially effective when delivered via drones. Unfortunately, however, BOMBs are one-use items, expending themselves entirely on their primary target, but BOMBs can be mass-produced rapidly, so no worries there.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    5. Re:'Banning' the 'dark web' by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      That wouldn't do anything because ISIS exist outside of ISIS controlled areas as well.

      It wouldn't do everything. It would isolate those few from logistical and technical support.

      Making it easier for them to communicate would be better so you can try track them down.

      If we could reliably track them. Which you then point out we have a lot of trouble doing. Either might be the right decision, I don't know how well the tracking program works.

      --
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  12. I'd wager... by wbr1 · · Score: 2
    I would bet that if you polled people asking if power companies should be involved in dark energy, a large percentage would oppose.

    Of course the name has -nothing- to do with it.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  13. Re: Who cares? We care. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    About 68% of criminal activity goes unprosecuted because criminals invoke their constitutional rights. It would be so much easier if they didn't have those rights. So lets let the 32% of people who are saved by constitutional rights hang in the wind.
    That's effectively what you are saying when you want to prevent the 32% of sites that are used by whistleblowers, journalists, resistance fighters and dissidents from having a platform that is safe to communicate.

  14. W/o copyright, people would trade disassemblies by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If copyright didn't apply to computer programs, and this applied to both Sony Computer Entertainment and the free software community, there would be no need for copyleft. Instead, people could just make and share commented disassemblies of proprietary software. This already happens underground.

    1. Re:W/o copyright, people would trade disassemblies by tepples · · Score: 1

      It causes people to reconsider the false equivalence inherent in playing the GPL card.

    2. Re:W/o copyright, people would trade disassemblies by tepples · · Score: 1

      Correct.

      The fear that caused the FSF to draft the GPL was that a publisher could take a permissively licensed free program private, make improvements, and lock the improvements behind copyright. But if there were no copyright in computer programs, this fear is moot because people could lawfully share the results of reverse-engineering said proprietary improvements.

    3. Re:W/o copyright, people would trade disassemblies by Raenex · · Score: 1

      But if there were no copyright in computer programs, this fear is moot because people could lawfully share the results of reverse-engineering said proprietary improvements.

      Not that I endorse the GPL, but it is true that not having the source is a big hindrance, and greatly reduces the number of people that can effectively make improvements to proprietary software.

  15. Who would've thunk by sjukfan · · Score: 1

    So when government agencies says they need to be able to decrypt the dark web because there's only terrorists and paedophiles there... they lied? Who would've thunk. But hey, I guess it sounds better than "So we can prevent the next Snowden."

  16. "Intellectual property" in the US Code by tepples · · Score: 1

    There's no Dark Web as there's no Intellectual Property. These are scare terms not codified into science or law.

    "Intellectual property" isn't well defined in the U.S. Code, to the best of my knowledge. This means a judge applying 47 USC 230(e)(2) may have to define it in case law.

    Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property.

  17. *sigh* by sootman · · Score: 2

    "A recent poll found that the vast majority of people want a ban on the dark net."

    Genius. You know what else? We should ban crime, too. Just make being a criminal illegal and *poof*, crime goes away.

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  18. Only ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... the odd numbered bytes.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  19. Re: Who cares? We care. by bmo · · Score: 1

    >you nerds

    I think you are on the wrong web page.

    Facebook is ----->that way.

    Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

    Bye, Felicia.

    --
    BMO