This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You press the back button – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You continue reading – you stay in Wonderland and I show you
how deep the rabbit-hole goes. – – Morpheus (The matrix, 1999)
Enter Tor.
Whether or not your a student, teacher, mother, father, aunt or brother. Hell, maybe you dont belong in any of these categries and your a straight-up computer lover. In any case there has been at least one point in your life, where you either stated or were convinced that anything can be found on the internet. You probably still do! I’m here to tell you, that your completelyand utterly correct. But maybe you just didn’t know where to look. Cue the Deepwebs/Darknet/Tor/Onion Network. Your one stop for complete anonymity. Check this video out for a brief introduction to the services the network provides;
The Tor network is an anonymous server that was actually originally created by the U.S. government (as stated in the video). Why you may ask? For spies of course! With more advanced internet tracking, government intelligence (like the NSA) and political persecution the USA found it increasingly difficult to keep in contact with overseas spies securely. Soon enough, journalists in war-torn countries began using the network to spread their news across the globe quickly and quietly. The network essentially bounces your IP signal across the globe a ton of times simultaneously. This makes it extremely difficult for anybody to find whose posting and where (Even the US government). Unfortunately this level of privacy is too much for the US government. Why? Because they’re nosy and they don’t like to be kept in the dark.
Deep Web has Washington Worried
The services of the deepweb are absolutely endless. Anonymity stems to illegality. Everyone has heard of Wikipedia, but most haven’t ever seen or heard of the hidden wiki. One of many sites only available to be visited using the Onion browser (deepweb software). The hidden wiki, like the normal wikipedia chronicles and archives websites and services only available on the deepnet. Ranging from counterfeit money, to contract killers. It’s the black market at your finger tips.
Welcome to Silk Road.. 2!.Yet another one of the onion network’s infamous hidden sites. Dubbed as the black market’s ebay, the site has actually already been shut down once by the US government.. Only to be re-created again a few months later. This site is pretty much a digital drug dealer. Where sellers and chemists can sell their har earned ‘work’ to the world. With the invention of bitcoin, one can be completely anonymous while buying their bag of meth. What’s even better is, like ebay, each dealer has their own rating! But wait, there’s more. Maybe drugs aren’t your thing, maybe illegal firearms, counterfeit cash or child porn is more your style! Head on down, cause they’ve got that too. Be careful though, with anonymity also comes digital insecurity. Like any illegal dealings, it’s the wild west out there.
Could’ve just used Silk Road and saved yourself the trouble Walt.
So why is the government really trying to shut this thing down? Well Snowden for one was a great reason. Freely exposing the government’s sensitive documentation to the eye’s of the world didn’t help the USA with their… inquisitive character. Then the fact that malicious websites are being designed and tested anonymously in the TOR network before being exposed to the web. Check this out for example, designed in TOR. Named the scariest search engine on the web, the site s the very reason you should change your digital devices default passwords.
The Digital Device Search Engine
So the question is– Is Tor Network a good thing? In computers and society a major underlying theme was the fact that we are always being monitered and privacy online is pretty much non-existant. The original use for TOR seemed to be designed in good nature, for the betterment of humans. We can go about our business (legal or not) without prying eyes of god-knows-who. But as we’ve read, and seen the government react, the Tor network is seemingly getting worse. Plagued with more and more illegal sites filled with pedophiles, rapists, killers and scammers. I mean it’s nothing new compared to the internet we know, but does it scare us because it’s the internet we’ll never truly know? I believe that people should have a choice to be anonymous if they so please. But at what cost? A lack of security? We should be able to freely choose anonymity without forgoing basic rights. I believe the TOR network is a movement against government surveillance, and I gotta tell ya’, I’m lovin it.
Liftoff 