Web side story: The good and bad of the deep dark net

The dark net is an anonymous Internet where people go to look for things without being tracked. “In an age where privacy is a real concern for many people, who feel that the moment they go online, big corporations and the government —not to mention other individuals — can see every move that they make, the dark web is actually a viable alternative,” says Sandeep Rana, a computer programmer and physicist from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. The increasing concern about privacy has led many mainstream social networks, including Facebook, to host versions of themselves on the dark web. Journalist Jamie Bartlett, author of the book The Dark Net, said in a TEDTalk that the future of the Internet may involve a larger share for the dark web because of the concerns about privacy and security that people feel while surfing the normal web. So though the dark web allows criminals to sell illegal things online and host child pornography with impunity, it also allows people to spread awareness and exercise free speech, even if they live in a dictatorship.