Did you know?
Internet surfers use just three hundredths of one per cent of the internet, so
where’s the rest? The answer lies in the ‘dark web’ or the ‘dark internet’, an
unmonitored area in cyberspace that has become increasingly more sinister and
accessible.
Waseem Saddique comments: “It may surprise the ‘average’
internet user to know that when using the Google search engine to find
information the pages listed do not make up the entire internet. Think of the
internet like an iceberg, the tip sits above the surface, but the bulk of the
iceberg stretches miles below the surface.”
Waseem continues: “The iceberg analogy represents a perfect
model of the internet; Google is simply the tip of the iceberg, whilst the rest
of the internet holds deeper and darker secrets.”
The ‘dark web’ originates from software pioneered by the US
Navy in 2002, designed to safeguard government communications.
However, the Tor
software system was soon adopted by savvy techies all over the world. It’s the
Tor software system that has developed a reputation as the ‘dark web’, allowing
internet users to surf the web completely unmonitored and anonymously.
Now, as the Government pushes for companies like Google,
Facebook, Twitter and other major online companies to censor ‘harmful’ content,
concerns have surfaced that such pressure to implement censorship will drive
web users towards the ‘dark web’ proxy, obscuring the identity of users and the
sites hosted.
The pioneers of the Tor project, a non-profit organisation
whose inception took place in Walpole, Massachusetts in 2002, say that the
project was establish with the intention of making anonymous web-surfing
mainstream.
In an article published by the Independent, Tor project
pioneers claim that ‘the numbers of users of its free software doubled between
2011 and 2012, reaching around 600,000 people each year – and, though the
numbers are hard to trust, its data suggests there are 15,715 unique daily
users in Britain. But as whole companies could be operating from one address,
calculating the true usage is impossible.’
How does Tor work?
Tor, short for ‘The Onion Router’ because of its layer like
complexities, functions by directing web traffic across a series of nodes – aka
onion routes – adding layers of encrypted code at various intervals. The result
is that browsers and online users, as well as the individuals hosting the
websites it features, remain untraceable by authorities.
It is Tor software that kept the identity of ‘Prism’
whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, anonymous before he publically revealed details
of the USA’s ‘secret’ surveillance system.
How does it damage
business?
Waseem Saddique comments: “Reputation management becomes
increasingly difficult as a result of the ‘dark web’, a proportion of companies
in particular industry sectors have been subjected to a barrage of negative
publicity as a result of dark web activity.”
As the ‘dark web’ is made up of non-indexable content and is
500 times larger than the ‘web surface’, the content stored is so much more
difficult to trace and access. Businesses under attack from negative publicity
posted through the ‘dark web’ will find it virtually impossible to trace the
perpetrator and even if they do locate them the damage may already be
irreparable.
The other sinister aspect of the ‘dark web’ is that it
allows for complete anonymity, which provides people with the opportunity to
post slanderous and defamatory comments about particular businesses all over
the web, whether via blog, social media or an online forum. The ramifications
of such activity could easily damage a business brand, without any means of
preventing it.
The warning issued to online business owners by computer security
consultants is beware and get educated about the ‘dark web’.
