Free Essay: Pros, Cons, and Value of the Dark Net to Society

The Dark Net, as the name suggests, is a platform that allows its users the convenience of anonymity when engaging in different activities. It is part of the internet that requires a special type of browser to enable the user to access the area with little or no detection. One of the most renowned platforms is the Tor network. The Dark Net platform makes it easy for people to take part in both noble and nefarious activities to enjoy the convenience of being untraceable (Norrie and Moses, 2011). The Dark Net place can be misused by people due to the freedom the platform allows its users to enjoy, justifying the need to come up with innovative and creative rules and regulations that can control the behavior of registered persons. Unlike the conventional signals being sent from a user's device across the Internet, making it easy for one to see their preferences at ease, the Dark Net platform breaks the possible direct connection (Davis, 2014). The Tor browser which makes it easy for one to access the Dark Net breaks the request put by a user to limit the possibility of being linked or traced back as the original poster of a concept (Chen, 2011; Stockley, 2015). The Dark Net adds value to society as it gives people the comparative advantage of expressing themselves by pointing out evils taking place in society as well as engaging in activities that would have otherwise been impossible to do using conventional platforms.

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One of the misconceptions that people have about the existence of the Dark Net is that it is only used by people with criminal mindsets whose intentions are to destabilize society with their malicious activities (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019). It is normal to think that people with ill intentions would like to remain hidden since they would not like to be tracked down and executed. In as much as people with questionable intentions use the platform to perform in illegal activities, the Dark Net space has made it easy for its users to penetrate a complex algorithm on the internet (Davis, 2014). Items and identities have been sold using the Dark Net platform with both buyers and sellers connecting on the space. Mainstream media houses have painted the Dark Net as a platform where criminal activities tend to take place with ease, an ideology that governments and members of the public have accepted as the truth (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019). Illegal transactions are performed with drugs, weapons, exotic animals, and personal information being freely exchanged on the Dark Net. The technological character of the Dark Net provides traders with the convenience of privacy and anonymity.

People use the Dark Net internet platform for a range of socially and morally accepted activities with journalism activism, and whistle-blowing being some of the most popular happenings (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019; Stockley, 2015). Political and social based activities are shared on this platform as users openly express their opinions without being worried about being tracked by strong and powerful politicians. Governments across the world have been known to assassinate people that do not share their political ideologies and this has prompted members of the public to look for a particular platform in which they can call out for politicians going against them. Activists and journalists encourage people to use the Dark Net to call out for reforms in society and the political activities in their respective countries without having their identities disclosed (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019). One of the most renowned Dark Net markets is the Silk Road which allowed users the convenience of anonymity and with a payment system that could not enable the sellers or buyers to be traced down made it easy for the exchange of commodities and money.

Pros of the Dark Net to Society

The Dark Net internet provides a haven for people to enjoy their freedom of speech since they can say as they desire (Stockley, 2015). Most dictatorial governments limit their citizens’ ability to express themselves as they threaten their lives. Citizens of countries from such strict governments that do not practice democracy may use the Dark Net as an alternative for their messages against the governments. Governments get the message s and make informed decisions as they become aware that their citizens are unhappy about their conduct of the country (Urban Wire, 2015). Registration and membership to the Dark Net site are free and since governments have little or no mandate under which they can impose some form of censorship; members of the public can use abusive or rogue words against their leaders without the fear of being traced (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019). Sometimes it is difficult for the law enforcers and other stakeholders in society to help find a balance between morally and legally accepted activities without using force. Developing policies that would help support the conduct of business in the Dark Net channel would likely encourage users to engage in legal activities.

Arguably, whistleblowers also use the Dark Net as a medium to inform the public of illegal activities taking place in the organizations (Berton, 2015; Stockley, 2015). The fear of stigmatization or being labeled a snitch by others makes it hard for people to inform the relevant parties of misconduct or mismanagement taking place in their respective firms. For instance, shareholders expect some dividends at the end of each financial year. If the management in charge misuses the shareholders’ funds and went into losses, they would try as much as possible to hide that information from the relevant parties (Mirea, Wang, and Jung, 2019). However, a leak to the public using the Dark Net channel is likely to reach an interested party who may then call out the managers for mismanaging the resources entrusted to them.

Cons of the Dark Net to Society

Most of the major criminal activities take place in the Dark Net with the sale and purchase of goods and services that governments consider illegal within their jurisdictions (Stockley, 2015). Guns are easily sold and bought on this platform and people do not have to be legal gun holders as long as they have the finances to fund the items they need (Davis, 2014). The presence of the Silk Road, a virtual platform that had different versions despite being tracked down by government officials, has made it easy for traders to interact with their customers. Narcotics, counterfeit currencies, and fake documents pass from a buyer to a customer without necessarily needing an intermediary (Davis, 2014). Professional assassins also advertise their services openly on the platform as they promise to kill for profit.

Activists also use the Dark Net medium as a control to mitigate the risks. They use the platform to limit the evils taking place in society (Jardine, 2015). People with high technological skills hack some sites to ensure they stop some operations from taking place because the Dark Net is a platform that follows no rules and users upload different kinds of videos and images. For instance, activists have been known to hack children's pornographic content as a way to protect the innocence and justice for kids. Some adults take advantage of the children’s mild exposure and use them to satisfy their wild sexual fantasies. The anonymity of the channel gives them an added advantage to hide behind their screens without being captured by law enforcers (Stockley, 2015). Due to the constantly changing URLs in the Dark Net sites, activists who stand for a good cause may also find some challenges when hacking some of these sites that have little or no moral standings.

It is hard to trace, access, or hack any communication taking place between buyers and sellers in the Dark Net since the IPs and servers are hidden (Stockley, 2015). The URLs which host the opened sites disappear or change randomly making it almost impossible to copy or trace the user on the other end. This justifies why law enforcers, policymakers, and courts that would want to administer justice to the victims might find it hard to offer their services. Police officers have made successful attempts to pose as 'hitmen' to clients and have helped save the lives of targeted people and apprehended murderers (Berton, 2015). This has necessitated potential murderers to be overly cautious when conducting their malicious activities to increase their success rates.

Criminal operators take advantage of the encryption characteristic of the Dark Net platform to mask their identities and easily engage in illegal activities (Berton, 2015; Davis, 2014). Some dishonest persons conceal their identities and steal from the buyers since they know that there is a low probability of being traced. This means that law enforcers have little or no power to execute criminals. As such, criminal activities go unpunished. For instance, exotic animals continue being killed and their parts sold on the Dark Net platform meaning poachers are encouraged by the high demand for endangered species horns, skins, or tasks (Jardine, 2015). Elephant tusks attract millions of profit for the traders on the black market on the Dark Net which creates interest amongst poachers to continue killing this breed of animals.

Dark Net attracts users with different characters, beliefs, and practices (Davis, 2014). Pedophiles that actively engage and support child pornographic content upload videos and images of kids being molested as they know that they can never be traced. Such social misconducts reflect the evils taking place in society that have not been brought to the attention of law enforcers (Jardine, 2015). This is also an indication that millions of children across the world continue being sexually molested and justice is never being served to them (Davis, 2014). Child pornography is a social issue that has been affecting societies across the world since it takes place in the community but it is very hard to trace as kids are threatened by their abusers.

Value of the Dark Net to Society

The Dark Net platform helps streamline society and more so the political events taking place in a country (Berton, 2015). This is because it provides the space and chance for people, identifying themselves as whistleblowers, to reveal to the world and the members of society some of the events taking place in governments and organizations. This has created some form of accountability and imposed integrity on leaders that are expected to make both major and minor decisions on behalf of large numbers of people (Stockley, 2015). For instance, government officials fear embezzling public funds as they know their actions will be revealed and the person doing the expose is hidden to protect their safety and wellbeing. Managers of both private and public offices cannot tell the persons who leak information to the shareholders or other interested parties of their wrongdoings.

Law enforcers can use the Dark Net platform as bait to arrest people with criminal-based minds (Jardine, 2015). For instance, the administrators of both the first and second versions of the Silk Road websites were arrested by law enforcers who managed to track their IP addresses using an enhanced technological tool. This means that the anonymity characteristic of the Dark Net is almost impossible to maintain. Law enforcers may face some challenges when tracing down some users on the platform due to undetectable characteristic (Berton, 2015). Law enforcers use so much resources and time to locate the administrators of such platforms which would have been used to engage in other activities that would have helped reduce the criminal activities in the country (Stockley, 2015).