The Dark Side Of Science

We discover scientific knowledge in various natural science fields such as biology or chemistry. A common misconception about the natural sciences is that both the knowledge they reveal to us and the scientific method used in discovering this are purely analytical. This means that these sciences are rigid in facts and do not contain any subjectivity or creativity. However, the scientific method is not a rigid system of pursuing measurable facts. It contains fallacies and biases. In testing hypotheses, performing observations, or reasoning inductively, science is undoubtedly flawed and erroneous. Paradigms, commonly seen as infallible and containing rather insignificant errors, contribute to many of the errors involved in scientific

World Wide Web: World Wide Web is a collection of all web pages on the network of computers, where the browsers of computer uses internet.

In his work, “Introduction: Nanotechnology, Society, and Ethics”, CalPoly Associate Professor of Philosophy Patrick Lin writes, “Let’s take a step back and consider any given technology we have created: gunpowder, the printing press, the camera, the automobile, nuclear power, the computer, Prozac, Viagra, the mobile phone, the Internet. Undoubtedly, these have brought us much good, but each has also changed society in important, fundamental ways and caused new problems, such as increased pollution, urban sprawl, cyber-crimes, privacy concerns, intellectual property concerns, drug dependencies, new cases of sexually-transmitted diseases, other unintended health problems, mutually-assured destruction and much more. The point here is not that we would have been better off without these inventions. Rather, we should come to terms that our creations can have unintended or unforeseen consequences” (Lin, n.d., p. 1). Lin’s point goes across the board for all technologies, there will be unforeseen consequences, some will be good and some will certainly be perceived as bad.

The internet is similar to the Silk Road in this sense as people share ideas and information about various scientific topics in the world. However, connecting of ideas and information of the Silk Road and Internet are a tad distinct, as for the Silk Road ideas and information were spread by word and the object itself and as for the internet its spread online. It also took a long period of time for ideas and information to be spread along the Silk Road but on the

Tor allows users to surf the net, chat and send instant messages anonymously, and is employed by a large form of folks for each licit and illicit functions. Tor has, maybe, been utilized by criminal enterprises, hacktivism teams, and enforcement agencies at cross functions, typically simultaneously; likewise, agencies among the U.S. government multifariously fund Tor (the U.S. State Department, the National Science Foundation, and – through the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Pulling into a run-down neighborhood that you will never see again, meeting someone you have only spoken briefly to over text or through a prepaid call. Moving to the door the nerves kick in, Are the drugs tainted? Will I be shot, raped, mugged? Will I even make it out of this house alive? These are all real feelings of someone who uses drugs. Ross Ulbricht created the Silk Road to make a safer environment for those who choose the freedom to use drugs, “A frictionless marketplace where everyone had freedom as long as it didn’t impinge on someone else’s freedom.”(1) Keeping up with other countries the government could have profited from Silk Road because being Free is the Libertarian way.

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

The dramatic development of blockchain technologies seems to be a double-edged sword. Although cryptocurrency leads to innovative payments and transfers, it may be a tool for criminal usages. In terms of benefits, bitcoins have ability to solve double-spending problems and Ethereum’s smart contract is used for sharing economy. On the other hand, because there is no legal which is responsible for Bitcoin trading activities, Bitcoin is considered as one of the greatest risk to national security through illegal operations involving to financing of terrorism and extremism (Vovchenko et al, 2017). In 2013, for example, the U.S government closed down the largest website, named Silk Road, involved to illegal goods trading, in which there is 1.5% of Bitcoin was used for trading illicit drugs and counterfeit

There has been a ton of turmoil about the internet. A controversial issue on whether the internet is more helpful or hurtful to the human brain. On one hand, Nicholas Carr argues that technology may be weakening human abilities for deeper reading, an old fashion type of learning. Carr believes that relying on computers will cause humans intelligent to decline. On the other end, there’s Clive Thompson. Thompson presents computers as a digital tool that assists people in their everyday life. Providing phenomenal external memory, social connections, and endless availability of resources. Both, Carr and Thompson, believe that the internet can act as a tool that shapes the way humans think. Which brings us to the dilemma, is the internet a technological apocalypse or a promising utopia?

The invention of the internet technology has done a great deal of significant improvement in human lives. It has provided us an easy way of accessing and disseminating information’s in a very shorter period of time. It has also improved our level of productivities by means of robotic machines. However, I do think that it has done far more significant damaged to human mind in this generation than any other generations.

In the article “The Untold Story of Silk Road,” by Joshuah Bearman, he writes about Ross Ulbricht, describing the history and the founder of this underground black market named the “Silk Road.” In 2011, Ross Ulbricht, a materials scientist, started a new way to sell and buy drugs. An ideology of a libertarian utopia, free from governments prying eyes would be the basis of this site. Dreaming of a website that would be a black market to buy and sell drugs, Ulbricht created and fostered what he would call “The Silk Road.” The site saw major success with millions of dollars in bitcoins, an online currency used to purchase and sell items anonymously, coming to the site and ultimately making millions in commission. People from all over the world

The Silk Road was one of the most popular darknet sites that dealt mostly with drugs. In an interview with Alex Winter, the director of Deep Web a documentary about the deep web and the Silk Road. he said that the community needed a substance to draw people in, but they seemed to stick around for the ideals the website set up (4). During the documentary there was an interview with Dread Pirate Roberts, the supposed leader of Silk Road, where he explained, “What we’re doing isn’t about scoring drugs or sticking it to the man, it’s about standing up for our right as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong. Silk Road is a vehicle for that message. All else is secondary,” (5). In the same documentary many anonymous interviews were done with people associated with Silk Road. One interviewee states that the site had threads with, “great political and philosophical discussions,” (5). He also points out that although illegal things were happening, the site itself was a community for like minded people to come and discuss things that maybe they would not be allowed to, or they would not want to, if others knew their true identity. The Dread Pirate Roberts wrote on one of the posts, “Silk Road was founded on libertarian principles.” This user even created a book club where they would have in depth discussions on Austrian economics and free market

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.

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.

Before Einstein, Scientists believed that light waves travelled through a medium called ether. Einstein proved that ether was irrelevant and that light doesn’t travel through a medium. Einstein proved this by figuring out that the speed of light was constant, and in order for ether to be the medium light waves travel through, the speed of light would change depending on the observer. This discovery was one piece of the Specific Theory of Relativity.