The Internet Isn’t As Deep as You Think
The Internet Really Isn’t as “Deep” as it Looks
In the age of the internet, privacy has become of paramount concern for many people. When the internet was first made in the early 2000s and the late 1900s, it was not made with privacy concerns in mind. It was supposed to be a fully transparent network where essentially everything that we do or say is recorded and will forever be left there. Obviously there is a lot of public backlash against such a system, so there have been some privacy measures in place by none other than the NSA (the US National Security Agency), which is actually a US funded agency. As a result of this, people have begun to question what goes on in the internet, what people need to really hide, and why even the US government might need a private system like Tor or I2P.
To begin, the one thing that needs to be understood is what exactly systems like Tor or I2P do. As mentioned before, the NSA invented a system that is called onion routing in which the regular network is instead overridden by several overlay networks that essentially only show the start and end point, but do not show the midpoint between two inputs. As a result, there are only two points which are the beginning and the end. Since there are a number of overlay networks, it was thus nicknamed “onion routing (appropriately named since an onion tends to have layers)” Applications like Tor or I2P do all of the overlay networking for the user, thus being much more effective than any VPN or firewall. However, if it is common knowledge that illicit activities occur on the deep web and Tor, then why would the government release such a system to the public? The best way to possibly explain that phenomena would be the fact that if only the government were available to use the system, then whenever a connection came up, people would know that they are boeing spied on, however, if everyone were to use the system for licit and illicit purposes, then no one would know where they are hidden. This shows the public that the government needs the system just as much as any illegal criminal would need the system as well. Although this does not show good faith in terms of morals, there are no morals when it comes to a system that virtually hides every activity that you do, and creates a space where anything can be legal.
Applications like Tor also open up conversation for virtual currencies like bitcoin and ethereum. So as of Oct 2 6:30 PM, 1 bitcoin is roughly equivalent to $47,795.30 and 1 Ethereum is roughly equivalent to $3,366.96 The reason why crypto currency has become so popular in the recent ages is because of the fact that much of cryptocurrency is unregulated and not taxed. As a result this has become very popular for people trying to protect their privacy. Politically however, this has become a topic of discussion for many people. All in all, Republicans love cryptocurrency because of the fact that it promotes a free market, and Democrats tend to not like cryptocurrency because of the sole fact that it is not regulated, so bitcoin cannot be taxed. But of course, bitcoin, just like Tor, tends to have a negative aspect to it as well. Since bitcoin and crypto are untraceable, that means any transactions can be made online without knowledge of who made the transaction, what the transaction was for, and who the transaction went to. That is the reason why the US government needs something like Tor just as much as any criminal does. Because through Tor the US government is actually able to track down these criminals without giving away that they are following the criminal’s activity. To simplify, think of an unmarked police car. Of course it seems sketchy that a policeman would try to hide himself, but it is only necessary in order for the policeman to catch any potential criminals. If the criminal knew that the policeman would be there, then the crime would never happen in the first place, and there would be no point in a private service like Tor in the first place.
Political perceptions tend to be mixed in terms of the deep web, but there is a misconception that has to be cleared first. The majority of the population believes that the deep web is some sort of huge underground criminal network. However, that could not be further from the truth. The deep web is merely a name for the part of the internet that is password protected so personal documents, emails, videos, and etc. As a result, the deep web is something people use everyday, and the surface web is the part of the internet that can be found via a search engine. Most of the criminal activity takes place in the dark web, which can be accessed via multiple “dark nets,” such as Tor. It is impossible to determine how large the deep web really is, but it is actually important to note that the deep web is not the illegal space many people think it is. Even the Dark Web tends to get a bad rep, because a majority of users (70–80%) tend to just use the dark web for personal privacy concerns. This graph (1) shows what the internet roughly looks like in the form of an iceberg. When asked if the dark web should be shut down, almost 7 in 10 people wanted it shut down. Even crypto like bitcoin gets a bad political reputation specifically by the democrats who suggest that it would “throw a wrench in the economic system,” when that is generally far from the truth. Since bitcoin is completely independent, it tends to not interact with the US economy at all. Republican Ex-president Donald Trump tended to have a more “hands-off” approach when it came to cryptocurrency while Democratic President is willing to accept crypto into the economy with restrictions. And countries like China have outright banned cryptocurrency.
The internet will continue to be used by people whether it be for purposes both good and bad. Even if it seems morally ambiguous to allow a network where virtually anything is allowed, it is important to remember, the government needs the system just as much as any criminal needs too. Furthermore, statistics prove that an overwhelming majority of people who use these “darknets” like I2P and Tor end up not using the website for illegal purposes anyway. In order for the US government to mask themselves from being revealed, they need to hide amongst the criminals as well.
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Work Cited
What are perceptions about internet privacy, and how much does internet privacy really protect us?
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/study-finds-7-10-people-want-dark-web-shut/
- Important stat about why people want the dark web shut down
- Why is the dark web important?
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/042015/why-governments-are-afraid-bitcoin.asp
- What bitcoin means for the economy (left leaning)
- Could throw a wrench into the economy
- Democrats want to regulate bitcoin
- What that could mean for the future of bitcoin
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/26/democrats-propose-online-privacy-laws
- Privacy law proposed by dems after facebook caught harvesting millions of personal info
- How much of our internet lives are being watched
- There is no law technically stating that we have our right to privacy on the internet
https://decrypt.co/45837/what-president-biden-administration-means-for-bitcoin
- Trump’s hands off approach to bitcoin and crypto compared to now president Biden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUP0tx7Ib2w
- The is the difference between the dark web and the deep web
- Why the NSA developed a program like onion routing
- Majority of people use Tor for licit purposes
https://pando.com/2014/07/16/tor-spooks/
- Tors funding
- Majority of people use Tor for good purposes
