Search Engines : The Deep Web

Sergey Brin noted, “Some say Google is God. Others say Google is Satan. But if they think Google is too powerful, remember that with search engines, unlike other companies, all it takes is a single click to go to another search engine.” Nicholas Carr’s essay challenges this assertion. Nicholas Carr believes even though there are multiple search engines, “the faster we surf across the Web-the more links we click and pages we view-the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements.” This topic elicits such strong responses because technology is a part of our everyday lives. Technology is only becoming more advanced and will continue to be a source of debate for all who use it.

In this document you will learn how to use the alternative ways to search the Internet anonymously using Tor and proxy servers.

Time Newspaper has learnt that it's not surprising that Internet companies have electronic dossiers that contain personal information for individuals who subscribe to the websites. Generally, these companies have obtained the information from people based on individual's visit to the website, sent and received emails, tagged photos, and searches people carry out. However, the extent of personal information known by these Internet companies has remained largely unknown as well who they provide and/or sell this information to. However, Internet companies continue to gather lots of personal information from different people who focus on carrying out online activities on a daily basis. Currently, it's estimated that these firms gather personal information from nearly 500 million users but are hesitant to provide this information to the other firms or individuals. As their unwillingness to share has attracted significant congressional inquiry, things could finally change in California following the introduction of a bill that may force companies to disclose the kind of personal information they have gathered and how this information is being used.

A rapid surge of innovation within the past several years has allowed us to synthesize the renowned global communication network known as the Internet. This immense network is comprised of billions of webpages, several search engines, and of course, malicious content and scams. Although the Internet was inaccessible to majority of the people in the past, it is estimated that there are over 3 billion internet users in the world. This accounts for over 40% of the world population! However, with such frequent usage and advancements in technology, hindrances are inevitable and bound to occur. In his critical essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Carr asserts that common users are blinded from the detrimental effects of search engines such as Google.

The sharing of information may well be the most advanced activity of the twenty-first century occurring across ages and backgrounds with relative ease. Nevertheless, the use of information that is aired through the internet raises several genuine concerns regarding nature, intent, source, and destination as well as the consequences of the content. This is particularly true when the information has to do with people 's identities and other activities that may touch on critical aspects of national security and unauthorized business. As such, there is a mix of reactions among individuals regarding the extent of privacy they would like regarding information that they share or retrieve on the internet. While some may have genuine concerns such as protecting their identity, others are on malicious tracks to cover their person and conduct unwarranted business on the web. The mix of concerns led to the rise of the Dark Web on darknets. A darknet is an overlay network that utilizes the public Internet but requires authorization or special software to access mainly to protect the user’s identity and location from network surveillance and traffic analysis (Sui, Caverlee & Rudesill 2003). Such trends on the internet raise the question; is the Dark Web an important and necessary tool to offset pervasive online surveillance in contemporary society or is the moral panic surrounding the Dark Web in global news media justified? The aim of this research is to answer the raised question

Today, society is affected by the many advances in technology. These advances affect almost every person in the world. One of the prevalent advances in technology was the invention and mass use of the Internet. Today more than ever, people around the world use the Internet to support their personal and business tasks on a daily basis. The Internet is a portal into vast amounts of information concerning almost every aspect of life including education, business, politics, entertainment, social networking, and world security. (idebate.com) Although the Internet has become a key resource in developing the world, the mass use of Internet has highlighted a major problem, privacy and the protection of individual, corporate, and even government

The media’s skewed outlook and reports on the deep web has affected the way the majority of people view this resource that is inherently not a bad tool. The media also misrepresents the deep web by confusing it with the darknet and giving false information about the two. It is easy to get caught in the wave of horror stories that appear in magazines and online content about the deep web and the darknet, but more often than not the deep web is doing more good than is portrayed by the media. The advances in cryptography that is being used within the deep web and the darknet are creating a safer environment for reporters and political activists; even the simple internet user needs cryptography to protect their information stored in the deep web.

Sometimes, in order for an individual's own safety, sacrifices have to be made. The government has full justification to arbitrate the people’s online private matters because it is necessary for the protection of the country and its citizens. One example comes from an underground network called the “deep web”. The deep web could be described as the wild west of the internet. Numerous amounts of information are posted on the deep web where normal search engines like Google or Bing do not show. According to Tyler Biscontini, a writer for the Salem Press, the deep web is useful for many different reasons. It provides anonymity to anyone using it. Special software must be downloaded in order to run the deep web. This is mainly because the deep web’s main feature is that the user’s ip address is changed so that they can roam the web free of the fear of being tracked. It also provides a significant greater amount of information that is not accessible on a normal browser. Journalist especially, use the deep web in order to dive into research and scouting topics for future stories. However, the deep web can also be a dangerous place. Many individuals take advantage of its features for wrongdoing. Due to the anonymity that comes with accessing the deep web, it is hard to track down individuals performing the crimes. Lev Grossman, a writer for Time Magazine, describes an occurrence that happened

In the Age of Information or the Era of the Internet, everyone is connected. Everyone carries around a computer in their pocket with more than enough computing power to send a man to the moon. Invisibly, data is constantly flowing. Virtually everything we interact with in today’s world has one thing in common: the internet. It plays a huge role in everything from sharing pictures with friends to the election. It is widely accessible and houses a wealth of information. Anyone should be able to access the network of data that is the internet. However, just as this Swiss Army Knife of innovation can be applied towards the common good, it can also be limited and used nefariously—an action that manifests itself in the form of censorship. Internet

Security and privacy concerns present challenges for law enforcement combating deep web criminal activity. Crimes committed on or with the Internet are relatively new. Those crimes include illicit trade in drugs, weapons, wildlife, stolen goods, or people; illegal gambling; sex trafficking; child pornography; terrorism and anarchy; corporate and sovereign espionage; and financial crimes. Police agencies have been fighting an uphill battle always one step behind an ever evolving digital landscape and the criminals who exploit it. The novelty of the Internet begets jurisdictional and legal issues law enforcement must address while remaining ethical and holding to the code of law. Due to the anonymous nature of deep web criminal activity and the means for uncovering perpetrators, privacy concerns of citizens legally using the same software or websites are now a hot topic.

Our reliance on the Internet is becoming too much for our own good. With no end in sight on advances to the Internet, there is no real way to know the impact the Internet is having, “Where does it end? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be

Internet privacy is the security of a user’s personal data that is stored or published on the internet. The internet is an important part of every individual’s daily life. In today’s society, the internet is used by many different people for many reasons. It can be used for research, communication, and purchasing items. Without the internet, many things that are completed during the course of a day would be impossible or take time to complete. As people use the internet, everything is stored in a database that tracks and keeps any personal information that is entered by users. As users continue to use the internet to complete important tasks such as purchasing items and paying bills, their privacy and security become at risk. Although the internet can be seen to have a positive impact on society, it does have a negative impact. Since the internet can be accessed by anybody it can cause a lot of damage. Examples of internet risk include identity thieves, phasing, and scams. Due to things such as online shopping, banking and other e-commerce options, personal information is stored in the internet enabling many cybercrimes to occur. Cybercrimes are very similar to any regular crime; the crime just happens to take place on websites for criminals to hack and steal user’s information for their own personal benefit. Cybercriminals tend to attack users based on their emails, social media accounts, and web history because the most history about an individual is stored in those sites.

The Dark Web is a term that is referred to specifically as a collection of websites that are publicly visible, but hide the IP addresses (Location) of the servers that run them. Thus they can be visited by any web user, but it is very difficult to work out who is behind and using the sites. And you cannot find these sites using any regular search engines such as google. Almost all sites on the Dark Web hide their identity and IP address using the Tor encryption tool. You can use Tor to hide your identity, and spoof your location. When a website is run through Tor it has much the same effect.

Privacy concerns on the web have become an undesirable consequence that people face with cyber technology. The ability of computers to gather and store unlimited amount of information from the internet raises privacy issues concerning an individual’s informational privacy. A person’s right to informational privacy is the ability to control the flow of their personal information, including the transfer and exchange of that information. An invasion of informational privacy denies people the right to control who accesses their personal information. Many internet users are unaware that they are more likely to compromise their privacy when using the internet services such as search engines and social networking sites. The internet provides access to an incredible amount of information from all over the world. Some internet users use the internet exclusively as a source of information while other internet users use the internet to create and disseminate information for others to use. However, the vast amount of information floating on the internet would not

As technology has propelled forward in our exploration of knowledge relating to computers and their science it is understandable that there are still areas of this field which may yet remain unexplored. One particular field being the Dark Web, which has been defined as an area of the deep web which has, “been intentionally hidden and is therefore inaccessible through standard [web] browsers.” (Brightplanet.) Although this web has evolved over the course of many years, possibly dating back to the 1990s and the development of onion routing, it has advanced itself into an industry which no one could have ever predicted. Further as well delve deeper into this developmental occurrence known as the Dark Web, I feel that we must ask ourselves how this has evolved into what we know it as today and whether or not it represents our future or past in dealing with the internet activities.