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Despite Its Nefarious Reputation, New Report Finds Majority of Activity On Dark Web is Totally Legal and Mundane (digitaljournal.com)

According to a study published by dark web data intelligence provider Terbium Labs, the bulk of activity appearing on the dark web is much like the content and commerce found on the clear web. In fact, researchers found that nearly 55 percent of dark web content is legal. From a report:"What we've found is that the dark web isn't quite as dark as you may have thought," said Emily Wilson, Director of Analysis at Terbium Labs. "The vast majority of dark web research to date has focused on illegal activity while overlooking the existence of legal content. We wanted to take a complete view of the dark web to determine its true nature and to offer readers of this report a holistic view of dark web activity -- both good and bad." Key findings from the report are (condensed): Anonymity does not mean criminality. Pornography is prominent, but not all of it is illegal. Drugs are a popular topic, with 45 percent of illegal content being about drugs.

83 comments

  1. not suprising by chexican · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's dangerous.

    1. Re:not suprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You've obviously never encountered a Predator. Very fucking dangerous.

    2. Re: not suprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it bleeds, we can kill it.

    3. Re:not suprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are those anything like the "superpredators" Hillary Clinton described?

    4. Re:not suprising by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Logic fail

      "Unable to see does not imply it is dangerous" is not equivalent to "Unable to see it implies it is not dangerous". It means that no conclusion about the danger of something can be drawn solely from the inability to see it. It does not mean that something you might not see cannot be dangerous, and the only way that being unable to see it would impact this is that it may inhibit one's ability to evaluate the dangers objectively.

    5. Re:not suprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It means that no conclusion about the danger of something can be drawn solely from the inability to see it.

      One might even call them unknown unknowns.

  2. "Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I understand "illegal content" in the context of pornography; we have CP laws. But what about "illegal content about drugs"?
    A number of drugs are illegal, but is information about them also illegal?

    1. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      I understand "illegal content" in the context of pornography; we have CP laws. But what about "illegal content about drugs"?
      A number of drugs are illegal, but is information about them also illegal?

      Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

      My parents were sure this was going to be the downfall of civilization.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Your parents said that while fucking high to rock music.

    3. Re: "Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody cares what your parents think. I'll beat you and your daddy up!

    4. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If people knew how to grow their own weed and poppies, the CIA's drug empire would collapse.

    5. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Newsflash: people know how to grow their own weed, and the CIA has only been caught slinging hard drugs.

    6. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by GuB-42 · · Score: 2

      AFAIK, information about drugs isn't illegal. Erowid is on the open web since 1995 and contains pretty much everything you may want to know about drugs, including how to make them.
      Drug marketplaces, a dark web favorite, are illegal.

    7. Re: "Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it's not about that. It's because they sell drugs. That's what makes the info illegal.

    8. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Meaning they were speaking from experience? :)

    9. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by lgw · · Score: 1

      A number of drugs are illegal, but is information about them also illegal?

      Marketplaces where one can buy drugs are illegal. Info about drugs is probably a big chunk of that legal content.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by arth1 · · Score: 2

      My parents were sure this was going to be the downfall of civilization.

      And they were right. Not about the reasons, but the outcome.

    11. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And they were right. The civilization your parents lived in when they said this no longer exists.

    12. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And they were right. The civilization your parents lived in when they said this no longer exists.

      And that's a shame, because these times suck.

    13. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I understand "illegal content" in the context of pornography; we have CP laws.

      No, you don't understand it. Pornography may be legal in your country, in many places it is not. In many places content you do not consider 'Porn', is considered pornographic. Most of what is on the "dark net" IS illegal.... somewhere.

      A number of drugs are illegal, but is information about them also illegal?

      Depending on the country, yes. Depending on the information, yes. Depending on how the information is presented, yes.

    14. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is an American story on an American site. Only US law is relevant.

    15. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "This is an American story" = Relevant.

      "This is an Amercian site" != Relevant. And not correct in any meaningful sense either.

    16. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

      My parents were sure this was going to be the downfall of civilization.

      It *was* the downfall... of *their* civilization as they were comfortable having it.

      Good riddance.

    17. Re:"Illegal content about drugs" by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I understand "illegal content" in the context of pornography; we have CP laws. But what about "illegal content about drugs"? A number of drugs are illegal, but is information about them also illegal?

      Presumably the illegal drugs were actually being traded.

      If I say "30% of the non-dark internet's content is shopping", I don't just mean there's a lot of online catalogues.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  3. not quite accurate by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Informative

    This depends on what country's laws you use to compare it. A long time ago I saw a screenshot of an alleged dark web index type thing and a lot of the site descriptions were like survival instructions in case of a government martial law type situation and bomb-making instructions. Neither of those are technically illegal in the US I think but they would be in a ton of other countries. A lot of stuff appeared to be very borderline but then again it wasn't an extensive list.

    1. Re:not quite accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      So does that mean you can tell us how a "dark web index type thing" differs from a "web page"?

      Is it just if your site has a robots.txt, it is automatically "dark web"? or what?

    2. Re:not quite accurate by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      So does that mean you can tell us how a "dark web index type thing" differs from a "web page"?

      The difference is that people can't access it without a password, and it doesn't show up in public indexes like Google. Much of the dark web doesn't even use DNS, just numerical IP addresses.

    3. Re:not quite accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not all content sought is nefarious. For example, some is just embarrassing.
      For example, if you had jock itch, or and STD, what would you do to find treatments?
      Google it? And get your search mapped to your IP address and stored in a Utah database for the rest of time?
      Yeah... no.
      You hop onto TOR, and go to webmd or wherever your searches would lead you. After that you go with cash in hand to some pharmacy you've never been to otherwise, buy what you need, and never show your face there again.

      Anonymous web searches are a god send sometimes.

    4. Re:not quite accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So does that mean you can tell us how a "dark web index type thing" differs from a "web page"?

      Is it just if your site has a robots.txt, it is automatically "dark web"? or what?

      You're getting "deep web" confused with "dark web". "Deep web" is things not indexed by search engines (e.g. a password-protected forum, or something with an appropriate robots.txt). The "dark web" refers to things that require specific software to access in a virtual network on top of the public Internet - things like Freenet, or Tor-only sites.

    5. Re:not quite accurate by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      Did you know that there are different kinds of webpages?

  4. Doubts by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 2

    Knowing how Freenet works, and that you can only see the content if you are given a USK or other key, I have to question the accuracy of their analysis. Perhaps they simply used Tor to browse the encrypted/anon web, but that is pretty far from the assertion of having analyzed the dark web... The dark web is dark because you ( and automated tools) can't see it.

    1. Re:Doubts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to question the accuracy of their analysis. Perhaps they simply used Tor to browse the encrypted/anon web,

      To correct your generally good point, you of course mean "Perhaps they simply used Tor(tm) to browse the Tor(tm)-encrypted/anon web". But of course to the top percentile of politicians that have a cyber clue, Tor is the definition of the dark web. It's not like anyone or their brother could set up a ssh server hosting an irc (or fuck, unix talk) daemon (like I did a couple decades ago for friends while in college).

      Your general point that this is all bullshit narrative is spot on though.

  5. Majority meaning "barely more than half" by jandrese · · Score: 1

    The summary damns the darknet with faint praise that a little over half of the content isn't illegal. If a full 45% of the people walking down a particular street were there to buy drugs or hire a prostitute or fence some stolen goods you can bet the cops would know that street well. That's a staggeringly high level of crime.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
    1. Re:Majority meaning "barely more than half" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So what is the "dark net" ? Sites that aren't on Google, Yahoo, or Bing? Sounds like corporate favoritism to me. Content is not even relevant to that, it is merely circumstantial.

    2. Re:Majority meaning "barely more than half" by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

      You misread it, but it isn't written well (no surprise). It didn't say that 45% of the activity on the darknet is illegal, but is ABOUT illegal things (drugs in particular).

      Discussing marijuana isn't the same as buying it.

    3. Re:Majority meaning "barely more than half" by xvan · · Score: 1

      You forgot people hiring a hitman

    4. Re:Majority meaning "barely more than half" by jandrese · · Score: 1

      Typically it refers to .onion sites. They are only available through TOR.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  6. Warm and Fluffy Web by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, the dark web isn't that bad then; it just has a PR problem.

    I would suggest changing it's name first. It's amazing how much more goodwiil people will grant you if you're called something like "the warm and fluffy" web instead of the dark web.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    1. Re:Warm and Fluffy Web by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      It's completely true. Just look at how many people in Congress voted for the Patriot Act.

    2. Re:Warm and Fluffy Web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #NotAllGNAAs

    3. Re:Warm and Fluffy Web by b783719 · · Score: 1

      "the warm and fluffy" web instead of dark web... I call in first in making the Cannabis thread into a MyLittlePony thread!

    4. Re:Warm and Fluffy Web by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

      "the warm and fluffy" web instead of dark web... I call in first in making the Cannabis thread into a MyLittlePony thread!

      My Little Pony is a gateway to cannabis.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    5. Re:Warm and Fluffy Web by Tom · · Score: 1

      It's a typical "techie vs. marketing guy" problem.

      The term was coined originally (in the 70s !) not for the purpose of appearing evil, but in the same sense that the deep web is used - to indicate that it is "in the shadows", that it is not publicly visible, without any of the bad vibes non-tech people associate with that.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  7. Nefarious reputation eh? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Informative

    I suspect most of the "dark web"'s reputation (including it's nefarious-sounding name) is mostly made up by the media, themselves controlled by the states, to prevent honest people who would legitimately like to escape state and big data surveillance. Most honest people fear being caught doing something that has a dodgy reputation, even if it's perfectly legal.

    Maintaining the myth that the "dark web" is strictly for pedophiles, drug dealers, paid hitmen, carders and other illegal activities keeps good people from going under the radar, That suits a whole bunch of genuinely nefarious internet actors just fine. It also suits law enforcement agencies, as the myth tends to isolate and concentrate truly nasty activities on the dark web - making the myth self-perpetuating - and it kills any desire for legit concerns to invest in anonymous internet accessibility. Just look at what happened to DuckDuckGo's or Soylentnews' TOR nodes: they've disappeared, because they didn't get enough traffic.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by bmo · · Score: 2

      >I suspect most of the "dark web"'s reputation (including it's nefarious-sounding name) is mostly made up by the media,

      It's the exact same thing we heard about the BBS scene and the early Internet. Fucking Anthony Weiner got ISPs to drop Usenet altogether because /some/ groups were echoing "bad pictures" (the fucking IRONY!).

      And that was /this/ century.

      Fuck all these guys.

      Tech reporting is a fucking nightmare. The new article at Slate about some sort of connection between a Trump DNS server and a Russian bank is a fucking mess. I don't doubt that Trump might have High Friends in Low Places in a Russian bank, but ... jesus. The article is like listening to an article about a game of telephone.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      I was under the impression that piracy would probably be the largest chunk but they didn't mention it at all.

    3. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The name refers to the difficulty of finding it (like searching for something in the dark).

      On the modern net that requires special effort, as merely registering a domain will get you indexed by Google et al. And the point of publishing something on the net is to share it. So the dark net is the self selecting set of web pages that don't want to be found by "just anybody". Logically that biases towards illegal or socially unacceptable content, as that's the content you want seen only by otehr like minded individuals.

      The usual culprits drawn from human history would be political opinions, sex related content, and illegal drugs.

    4. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anthony Weiner got ISPs to drop Usenet...

      That was Anthony Cuomo, not Weiner, bonehead.

    5. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by bmo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you're right.

      >bonehead

      I'll take it.

      The point stands, though. Out of 80 some-odd groups from a selection of over 60,000 groups, Cox et al., dropped Usenet totally because of Anthony Cuomo.

      Because "boogity-boo!"
      --
      BMO

    6. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suspect most of the "dark web"'s reputation (including it's nefarious-sounding name) is mostly made up by the media,

      s/media/Comey/

    7. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 2

      That was Anthony Cuomo, not Weiner, bonehead.

      Actually that was Andrew Cuomo.

      Don't let the irony hit you on your way out...

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    8. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by gustygolf · · Score: 1

      Just look at what happened to DuckDuckGo's or Soylentnews' TOR nodes: they've disappeared, because they didn't get enough traffic.

      That's odd. When I duckduckgo for 'duckduckgo onion', I still get the "DuckDuckGo is available on Tor" message with a link to 3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion

      --
      "Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 58 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment" -- slashdot, driving users away.
    9. Re:Nefarious reputation eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would go one step further. By putting up the concept of a scary evil darkweb, it will make it easier to morph the internet into a whitelist: only approved sites will be allowed to exist; all other will be banned.
      I volunteer to be on the committee who approves sites.

  8. 55% is a "good" result? by butchersong · · Score: 1

    When around half your content is illegal it strikes me that you have earned the name dark web. Is this result really surprising? I would have assumed the innocuous content would be higher than 55%.

    1. Re:55% is a "good" result? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Peer-to-peer networks are still really bad at providing good service due to the horrible upload-to-download ratios offered by internet providers. It stands to reason that if you're going to invest the time and network resources to use one of these infrastructures you would do so only if it offers something that isn't available on the general internet. The fact that over half the analyzed content is legal means that people are either in this for the novelty or more likely for the privacy problems with the "not dark" web. Maybe we should start calling unencrypted snoopable sections of the internet the "stalker web"?

    2. Re:55% is a "good" result? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      The problem with throwing out a number like that is that we have no context to understand it. After all, the vast majority of illegal torrents, ROMs, warez, drug talk, etc. are run over the plain old web, rather than the dark web, so who's to say whether 55% is high or low? For all I know, 90% of content on the plain old web is illegal content, which would make the dark web look great in comparison. Or those numbers could be flipped, in which case the dark web looks like a seedy place. But without that context, we're just left to guess.

    3. Re:55% is a "good" result? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also probably relevant to discuss what portion of that 45% really *ought* to be illegal. If, for example, you're of the opinion that consenting adults should be able to ingest chemicals without interference from the government, then even if "illegal drug sales" are widespread on the dark web, then it's not as big a deal as if, say, the majority of that 45% was murder for hire or something.

    4. Re:55% is a "good" result? by butchersong · · Score: 1

      I guess I think about it like a bunch of gang members hanging out at their local club/bar. The entire organization is based on crime but day to day they are chatting about this or that sports team, playing Foosball, baking cookies etc.

  9. Drugs eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    20% of the dark web is concerned with drug dealing. I can think of an easy way to make only 33% of the dark web content illegal.

  10. And for the next study. by durrr · · Score: 4, Funny

    Of the hundred people in attendance in this rooms the majority is not a homicidal cannibal stalker, we found 51% of those in attendance have no plans to murder and eat someone once they leave the building.

    1. Re:And for the next study. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Glad to hear your visit to Washington DC's national institutions went well.

    2. Re:And for the next study. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just need to hang around the right kind of people.

  11. Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most activity anywhere is legal and mundane. It's only the very tiny fraction of activity that is bad, which unfortunately gets all the press and makes it look like certain areas are worse than others. If the news reported on everything good, legal and mundane that happened, they'd have no room to report on 99% of the "bad" stuff that happens. Instead they like to use 99% of their time and resources focusing on 1% of the population's activities.

  12. Dark Web? by LordLucless · · Score: 2

    What even is "the dark web"? Is it just websites people don't know about because they aren't Facebook or Google?

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    1. Re:Dark Web? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm curious too, and assumed it was just a nickname for the tor network.

    2. Re:Dark Web? by Akili · · Score: 4, Informative

      In general, the 'dark web' is parts of the Internet that can only be accessed if you configure your system in a particular way. Whether that's running a TOR browser, or joining as a Freenet node, or something like that. The content is (generally) still HTML-based code, so standard web browser engines are used. But just having the address to the site, or even the server's IP, won't provide the information. As a result, they also aren't indexed, and can be difficult to navigate.

      There's another coined phrase of 'deep web', which are non-indexed websites that you may still be able to access if you are told of their addresses. These can still be reached with a standard browser and configuration. I might make it analogous to Youtube videos that are posted by their owners but marked 'Unlisted'.

    3. Re:Dark Web? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Appreciate the insight. Wish I had points for you.

  13. Hidden in plain sight by hawguy · · Score: 2

    This is why I hide my illegal content using steganography in otherwise legal content. It's secure because no one is willing to sit through enough furry porn to find it.

  14. the ninja paradox by SethJohnson · · Score: 2

    I fully agree with your dismissal of their results due to flawed methodology.

    It's kind of like the old saying, "No living person has ever seen a ninja." No shit. If you did, you're dead. Or if you're alive, then what you saw wasn't a real ninja.

    1. Re:the ninja paradox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An interesting take on the the "no true Scotsman" fallacy...

  15. 7%? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Pornography [on the] dark web is home to its fair share of explicit content that is totally legal -- almost 7% of the total content in this study.

    So 93% is illegal? The 7% is probably accidental then, or foreplay.

  16. Such Plans Are On The Open Web Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So? I have plans to murder and eat someone after reading this thread. I'll even publish them in the open!

    Step 1: Read this thread,
    Step 2: Murder someone,
    Step 3: Eat them.
    Step 4: There is no Step 4!

    1. Re:Such Plans Are On The Open Web Too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's no four because you ate yourself. See?

      Step 5: Make millions on your auto-biography writing as your own ghost writer.

  17. Totally Legal and Mundane Pornography by Zobeid · · Score: 1

    Reminded me of this incident. . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  18. chaussure nike air max 90 BW by zhenyucuan · · Score: 0

    La courbe des naissances repart à la hausse en Suisse depuis 2003, alors qu’elle diminuait depuis la fin du XIXe siècle. On est pourtant loin d’un nouveau baby-boom. Cette augmentation est liée aux flux migratoires qui métissent la société helvétiqueLa courbe des naissances remonte en Suisse depuis 2003, quand 71000 naissances étaient enregistrées contre quelque 86000 en 2015. L’indice conjoncturel de fécondité, c’est-à-dire le nombre d’enfants par femme en âge de procréer, était de 1,22 en 2001 chez les Suissesses mais de 1,43 en 2015. Une progression qui s’explique par les naturalisations, selon Philippe Wanner, professeur à l’Institut de démographie air max Pas Cher et socioéconomie de l’Université de Genève.

  19. Peolpe dont want to be traked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No matter what it is they are doing even grocery shopping.

  20. Who would risk the internet? by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Informative

    The problem is that any US state task force with federal funding or federal case now has the budget per case to track users ip's.
    Been on the dark web is as now as safe as using your own ip and isp.
    Anything left is a honey pot, bait, a trap or has been turned long ago and is now a gov run front to collect with.
    Every file is has a checksum. Every checksum is tracked on download and upload. New files get a checksum. Facial recognition and any camera details left in a file are extracted and sorted. Every file linked back to a real ip.
    The interesting groups are now invite only and in back the real world. Its back to 1900-1980's with clusters of crime interlinked by trusted real people.
    Spending time exposed to some vast digital trap is a risk that is well understood.
    Think of what the internet once was, chatrooms without SJW and approved social media. Users are looking to rediscover the freedom and fun of the net around the 1980's - 1990's.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  21. Enjoy the -1 downmod weasel... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ESPECIALLY Pikoro who runs from a challenge & likes DNS but creates NOTHING OF VALUE https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... hiding behind his FAKE NAME ONLINE since he's a do nothing "ne'er-do-well"!

    OR

    Are you Falcone'er-do-well (hahaha) caught lying about me who I humilated for it yesterday https://science.slashdot.org/c...

    or

    1 of many trolls I utterly crushed later yesterday https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... and now your off-topic talk behind MY back bitch tactics of yours are down moderated for what they are troll.

    I show how weak dns is in security issues and resource consumption in 100's of examples https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

    APK

    P.S.=> Since hosts do what dns does for less with less problems and hosts are easily migrated to PC endpoints on a network... apk

    1. Re:Enjoy the -1 downmod weasel... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for all the links, I was wondering what to do with all those mod points. Thread modded appropriately.

    2. Re:Enjoy the -1 downmod weasel... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahahahahaha what a fucking loser you are!

  22. Better look again douche (lol)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: I always get the last laugh so keep blowing those "downmod points" - I'll post again & exhaust you of them.

    * :)

    (You're the picture of insanity - trying the SAME bullshit over & over expecting to get different results...)

    APK

    P.S.=> LOL @ U... apk