Global Majority Backs a Ban On 'Dark Net,' Poll Says (reuters.com) 222
Alastair Sharp reports for Reuters: Seven in 10 people say the 'dark net' -- an anonymous online home to both criminals and activists fearful of government surveillance -- should be shut down, according to a global Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. The findings, from a poll of at least 1,000 people in each of 24 countries, come as policymakers and technology companies argue over whether digital privacy should be curbed to help regulators and law enforcement more easily thwart hackers and other digital threats.
luck (Score:5, Insightful)
good luck with that
Re:luck (Score:5, Insightful)
you know, maybe we should make crime illegal or something...
Re:luck (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, support outlawing bad and will gladly sign a petition saying that bad should, in fact, be banned. Only the bad would support bad. And so I must support good, as must anyone who is good. I will, for that matter, go so far as to say that bad is bad and that good is good--and would take issue with anyone who would say otherwise.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
> Never trust people whose identity is caught up in appearing good.
I always thought Father Maxie was up to no good.
E
Re: (Score:2)
I've more recently amused myself by telling people about the other cultural impacts. This works well for me since I have no fixed moral compass and will just reconfigure to operate within society's bounds; that's a secondary effect of being SPD I think: I'm not socially-attached to you and so don't sympathize with your moral panic. I'll raise issue when objective harm is done--which happens a lot both when you break moral systems (regardless of if the moral system is essential--that is, an act that's ha
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or they can look at a meth addicts teeth and realize the affects that metabolizing meth has on the body and decide that meth use is probably something to stay away from if you want to continue to have teeth and good health.
Or they thought their dad's uncle looked pretty scary after losing most of his lower jaw to cancer from heavy use of tobacco and alcohol and decided that they didn't want to be the one to go around scaring little kids.
Or they saw sisters and aunts waste their lives and mental acuity by ab
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Evil will always triumph because GOOD is DUMB.
Re: luck (Score:2)
Good bad and bad good (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That's the province of social conservatives, progressives and the rest of the control freaks out there.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The "Dark net" doesn't just (or even primarily) mean places like Silk Road. Every corporate WAN falls under that description as well; every paywalled (or even just "login required to see anything") site on the internet counts as part of the darknet; Every 100% legitimate VPN provider offers a portal to your own private darknet; Hell, even your own home LAN could arguably count as a darknet.
The problem here has nothing to do with legality; mo
Re: (Score:2)
exactly, which is why, even if we could, we should not make non-indexed, or other darknet sites illegal. The sites that are illegal are already illegal. And for that matter, the illegal sites will just move to somewhere else, so declaring they are even more illegal will not change anything.
Re: luck (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
According to those who still ask for it (seemingly the majority of the western world), it has gone extremely well. So well, in fact, that we should do more of it.
Given the fact that Europe has been having issues with people using guns that are extremely difficult to legally own even in the "decadent" (by gun control standards) US, I'm not sure reality is on their side.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure they got what they paid for.
no where does it say 1000 randomly selected people.
the countries do appear to be random, though stopping at 24 was odd.
I guess it gave them what they needed.
Re:luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the following question "Do you agree that the dark net, a part of the global internet that houses illegal drugs, child pornography, and other illicit activity should be banned by the world's governments?" along with the usual strong agree, agree, etc. options. Of course you'd naturally expect people to agree it should be banned. You could make up something called the dragon net and people would overwhelmingly be in favor of banning it, even though it doesn't exist.
Of course you could phrase the question another way and paint the dark net as a place where people go to escape government censorship or authoritarian surveillance and I'd bet you'd get people voting that the U.S. should do more to fund it. Without knowing the question which was asked, the answer is almost meaningless.
Re:luck (Score:5, Informative)
If you download the Detailed Tables 2 file from the article it has the start of the question:
" A part of the Internet known as the "Dark Net" is only accessible via special web browsers that allow you to surf the web anonymously. Journalists, human rights activists, dissidents and whistleblowers can use these services to rally against repression, exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and shed light upon corruption. At the same time, hackers, illegal marketplaces (eg. selling weap"
But it's cut off there. However I do wish they would post the full questions right with their results in order to be transparent.
Re: (Score:2)
If you download the Detailed Tables 2 file from the article it has the start of the question:
" A part of the Internet known as the "Dark Net" is only accessible via special web browsers that allow you to surf the web anonymously. Journalists, human rights activists, dissidents and whistleblowers can use these services to rally against repression, exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and shed light upon corruption. At the same time, hackers, illegal marketplaces (eg. selling weap"
But it's cut off there. However I do wish they would post the full questions right with their results in order to be transparent.
Also necessary to assume that those being polled took the time to actually read and understand the question(s).
As well, were the people being polled truly a random statistically relevant sample of the global population or, for example, only police officers?
Re: (Score:2)
So, what you are saying is that a group that seems to be pushing for the dark net to be suppressed because the dark net lacks transparency is apparently afraid of transparency? Who would ever believe something like that? Believing that something like that being possible would be just as dumb as believing that the wealthiest 10 individuals in the US really are asking for their taxes to be raised significantly.
Re: (Score:2)
The other 3 out of 10... (Score:5, Insightful)
...have some fucking clue about how the internet works.
Another way of putting it (Score:2)
"A majority of societies are ok with how societies work and don't care enough for protecting the freedom of expression and opinions of those who don't, at-least not if that also allow more extreme people who don't like their society to act as-well."
Such fucking news.
Maybe they can with correctness call it "for democracy" as long as that democracy mean "for the views we the majority has decided to be the only correct ones", if the idea of a democracy is to be able to spread various opinions and effect societ
The only constant is change. (Score:2)
...have some fucking clue about how the internet works.
Tech is not magic.
The Internet is not a machine that drives itself. Untouched by political forces, laws, treaties, contracts, and so on.
If the will can be found to change the rules that define how the Internet works, the Internet will change. The geek will have a voice in these decisions, but he will not have the final say. It wouldn't be the first time the technocrat saw power slip through his fingers.
Re: The only constant is change. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We'll see.
Re: (Score:2)
People don't understand that you can't really shutdown an abstract concept.
Re: The other 3 out of 10... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
*sigh* Sadly, yes. It fits the example though with the masses supporting a stupid and impossible initiative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The other 3 out of 10... (Score:2)
..I.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer ..!.. :P
A ban on invisibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A ban on invisibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Call it "dark net, home of criminals and terrorists" and what do you _think_ public opinion will be.
Call it virtual private networks, home to banking transactions, corporate and personal communications - then what's the response?
Both are encrypted and impenetrable to normal eavesdropping methods.
Re:A ban on invisibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about the darkest nets of them one, the ones where government secrets are kept from citizens so that corrupt politicians can stay in power. I vote 100% for the removal of those. So get rid of them first and then government agencies and then all businesses worth more than one hundred million dollars and then all religious organisations in fact any organisation with a tax free status and then I have no problem with them coming for the rest of us. Of course to be fair, I already have no digital privacy and encryption would definitely create problems for me (better to let them digitally in, then have them force their way physically in).
Re: (Score:2)
Now I'm pretty sure that simply stringing together dark and web is easily enough for supermajority of average earthlings.
Hmmm... Clearly, dark isn't good and don't webs come from spiders? Ewww!
Re:A ban on invisibility? (Score:5, Informative)
Actual question:
I'm not sure it's that poorly worded. But it is an "internet poll", whatever that means.
And looking at the actual data, in the US for instance it's only 33% who selected "strongly agree". 58% selected one of the wishy-washy "somewhat agree" or "somewhat disagree" boxes. Only 9% selected "strongly disagree".
Re: (Score:3)
It's poorly worded; specifically the paragraph ends with a conclusory phrase to which one is to agree or disagree: the "Dark Net" should be shut down.
People tend to instinctively associate formal surveys with an "authority figure" in their mental space, and feel inclination or pressure to conform to expectations, so when an "authority" asks someone to agree or disagree with a conclusory phrase...
Conducting a truly unbiased survey is difficult, even if that's what you're trying to accomplish.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll add that's not the only problem with it; if you look through the thread, there are posts pointing out additional issues.
Simpletons! (Score:2)
So much dumb these days.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
My IRL experience was very similar.
Amazing how blind I can be now.
Sadly my fingerprints still cause me trouble when applying for some forms of access, even though I was only a witness.
-nb
Re: (Score:2)
Based on William Strunk's observation that the last point made in a sentence or paragraph makes the strongest impression in the reader's mind?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure a "global majority" support outlawing the other guy's religion, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Problem solved - Be it resolved as of today, February 29, 2016, the Dark Net is officially dead.
For all your criminal and paranoid needs, please use Unicorn Net, now with 5 extra rainbows out its ass.
War on Darknets == covert War on Privacy (Score:3)
Your observation is accurate beyond mere criticism of the survey. The governments are deliberately raising the profile of this new "War on Darknets" because they don't dare call it what it really is, namely their War on Privacy . The deception created by tech-sounding wordplay which the majority don't understand is central to making their plan work, because otherwise they encounter pushback from the ma
Re: (Score:2)
Not penn and teller, I believe that was 'The Man Show' from comedy central.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, are you telling me that my herdeflorfty isn't going to taste as good if I fleem da floopdy herdy bordy?
depends on how the poll is worded... (Score:5, Insightful)
a poll can be bend to agree with anything the sponsor wants.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Q. A part of the Internet known as the "Dark Net" is only accessible via special web browsers that allow you to surf the web anonymously. Journalists, human rights activists, dissidents and whistleblowers can use these services to rally against repression, exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and shed light upon corruption. At the same time, hackers, illegal marketplaces (eg. selling weapons and narcotics), and child abuse sites can also use these services to hide from law enforcement. Do yo
Re: (Score:3)
Assuming it's not just an outright fabrication ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This was probably a bullshit fucking push poll worded to elicit a certain response. But whether it was or it wasn't, here's a hearty disdainful BAAA BAAA BAAA to the fucking sheep who made up the 71%.
It's probably more like this: (Score:3)
The findings, from a poll of at least 1,000 people hand-picked by the respective governments in each of 24 countries, come as policymakers and technology companies argue over whether digital privacy should be curbed to help regulators and law enforcement more easily thwart hackers, identify malcontents, whistle-blowers, criticizers of governments and government leaders/officials, 'undesirables', and other digital threats.
Emphasis mine, of course
The U.S. is far from being the only country in the world that has a problem with nosy government and 'law enforcement' (more like 'will enforcement' in some cases, to be honest). We're just (still, for the moment) allowed to actually talk about it (without [much] fear of being made to disappear).
How about dark libraries? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
How are you supposed to read a book in a dark library? They don't have backlit screens.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I learned how to make thermite in school. The chemistry teacher even made a little and demonstrated it behind the screen.
Many years later I was quite amused to see it in Mythbusters with Adam mocklingly referring to the components as 'blur' and 'blur' and holding bottles with pixelated labels, because this information was considered so dangerous by the producers that the ingredients could not even be named.
I've enough knowledge of chemistry right now to make four explosives (not including thermite, which do
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Look, if we could rid the world of the Dark Oculators, I'd be right on that. Those guys are bad juju.
Global majority has no idea what 'Dark Net' is (Score:3)
Poll indicates that 9/10 people have no idea how technology works.
Summary: (Score:3)
...7 in 10 people don't understand the Internet
It's just confusion from the poll (Score:2)
The poll asks if the "dark net" should be shut down. It's not clear if they defined the darknet properly or at all. Certainly the only parts of the darknet that get press are the bad parts, and equally certainly the internet would have to be profoundly changed to shut it down.
How many of the respondents think that "the darknet" is "the illegal part"? If the question is being heard as "Should the illegal parts of the internet be shut down", then of COURSE the answer is "yea, naturally, the law should be e
Re: (Score:2)
They defined it pretty fairly. A place where whistleblowers and journalists exercise their rights and hackers and illicit goods marketplaces communicate.
I mean they left out the entire privacy for individuals bit, but on balance....
Ok, you get your wish (Score:2)
It's been shut down. Well, as far as you know. If you hear about the 'dark net' from now on, it's either a new one or pure rumor.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Won't someone please think of the children!
Partial question wording (Score:3)
Q. A part of the Internet known as the "Dark Net" is only accessible via special web browsers that allow you to surf the web anonymously. Journalists, human rights activists, dissidents and whistleblowers can use these services to rally against repression, exercise their fundamental rights to free expression and shed light upon corruption. At the same time, hackers, illegal marketplaces (eg. selling weapons and narcotic ...
'cause the ignorant majority knows its shit right? (Score:2)
Sorry, but the Internet isn't a fucking democracy.
Nor a popularity contest.
So your average majority of ignorant luddites (including every single politician currently sitting in office, as well as those waiting in the wings) have exactly DICK to actually say about technology implementation.
Sure, they can THINK their word and opinion means something.
It isn't even worth the effort it takes to simply ignore them as the clueless blowhard jackasses they really are.
All about the wording (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
How to fix an opinion poll (Score:2)
Communication Club Corporation (Score:2)
So if they shut down the dark web,
what if I create a cloud-based business called "Communication Club" and offer the service of private anonymous communication.
I arrange the encryption so the corporation has no way of decrypting your private channels/subweb.
So is this "creative use of a private intranet" now also illegal?
Not possible. (Score:2)
There may be serious problems but banning the unstoppable certainly isn't even close to a solution, in fact I see the idea as an admission that certain people do not have the intelligence or imagination to come up with a better solution to the core issues that dark
Re: (Score:2)
That no bid funding and expert overtime will add up once the banning laws set in
Cash for the expert skills, cash for new support networks that cant be tracked back or found by anyone so sock puppets and undercover personas can thrive online over years.
The software needed to log and capture data all has to be rented or created too
Re:Not possible. (Score:2)
Brilliant idea! (Score:2)
Let's not stop there.
Let's also outlaw terrorism, that will stop it!
What is ... (Score:2)
Somebody should tell them... (Score:2)
.....it is mostly full of teenage boys mastibabting to porn.
Or perhaps they already did and that is the problem :/ .
It's purely a nomenclature issue (Score:2)
In my state, tickets for any kind of public event, from a fair to the Super Bowl, can be traded freely after purchase by individuals or brokers. It's a great convenience if you have bought tickets to a game or concert and your lans change, so everyone here loves the system. But in states where the event operator and sports lobby is strong, ticket resale is kept illegal by calling it "scalping." This sounds awful, so people tacitly accept the inconvenience of resale being banned.
In the same way, the name Dar
Re: (Score:2)
Control the language, control the public. I recently wrote a comment on another story about the American College of Pediatricians. Look at that name and think what it brings to mind. Respected medical professionals? Academic integrity? That's the intention. In reality the respectable one is the American Academy of Pediatrics - after the AAP endorsed allowing gay couples to adopt in 2002 a few of their members broke off in protest and formed the ACP - an explicitly religious organisation, the primary purpose
When I see a poll like this ... (Score:2)
"Do you think the dark net, used by terrorists and pedophiles, should be shut down?"
OR
"Do you think the dark net, used by dissidents opposing totalitarian governments, should be shut down?"
.
Leading the witness much? (Score:2)
Why stop at calling it "the Dark Net"? If they referred to it as the "Super Evil Kitten-Punching Net of Doom", they could probably get 9 out of 10 people to oppose it.
Feh.
Another bullshit study (Score:2)
So at least 24,000 out of a global population of nearing 8 billion.
Again, what a shit study. Shit sample size, shitty controls, horrible sample group selection.
Scam science like this should never be allowed on /.
Dark == no DNS entries (Score:2)
Dark == no DNS entries
Quit charging for DNS hosting and domain names, and the majority of this problem evaporates over night.
I think you're right. (Score:2)
And it's everywhere, it's not highly populated but backward areas, it's approximately the same everywhere US = 72%.
The thing is, people are also too stupid to realize that outlawing something means only outlaws will have that thing.
Banning encryption ( or banning un-backdoored 'encryption' ) wouldn't stop criminals from using it, it would only mean the darknet still runs, but only for people who are breaking the law. You are never going to keep the ability to apply a one time pad to a message from the h
This was already addressed in RFC3514 in 2003. (Score:2)
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc35... [ietf.org]
Just in case you were wondering (Score:2)
Have you ever been wondering "Who the fuck keeps voting in those idiots?"
There's your answer.
Statistics fail (Score:2)
Anyone with any wits about them at all recognizes that polls are generally worthless anyway, even when they aren't deceitfully designed to elicit a particular desired response through careful wording of the poll questions. But to assert a mere 1,000 people could accurately represent the views of the billions of people worldwide who use the internet is sheer fallacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
With a concerted effort, it could be considerably hampered. There are patterns of behavior which are currently allowed which the so-called Dark Net takes advantage of to make that environment convenient enough for a relatively wide user base. If you shut down some of those allowed capabilities, or severely restrict them, the Dark Net would be considerably reduced.
There's nothing that could stop some form of underground network from existing, even if you disallowed encryption and inspected all packets. Bu
Re: Shock (Score:2)
It's almost as if every time they try to create a Light Net, where everything is cryptographically signed and authenticated so you know who can be trusted, it's too hard for people to actually go through the trouble of setting it up and using it, or something.
Oh, and the government backdoors. Gotta figure out how to sell people on the master key concept. Heh.
Re: Shock (Score:4, Interesting)
Outlaw encrypted connections. No more SSL, no more legal VPN services, no more standardized, general encryption for connections. If you see anything you can't inspect the packets for at the telco without decryption, you order telecoms to dump those packets into the bit bucket at the router.
Only exception: if you want to do business with someone securely, you have to register with them so you can receive the appropriate key which only works from your identity to their servers. That key is available to the government, and might even be already on file so they don't even need to ask the business for it. Maybe it is the government that issues your private key. Your packets have your ID number in the header, and the routing can only happen between your registered key and the IP address(es) of the merchant site.
Not likely to happen in the US, but a place like China could force it. They already force all sorts of registration. If it was a real program, they'd have to phase it in or their economy flounders, but I think China is moving in that direction. They just need to re-write some protocols and get a few more capabilities.
Re: (Score:2)
Outlaw encrypted connections. No more SSL, no more legal VPN services, no more standardized, general encryption for connections. If you see anything you can't inspect the packets for at the telco without decryption, you order telecoms to dump those packets into the bit bucket at the router.
Not likely to happen in the US, but a place like China could force it.
Might be good if this kind of thing started happening in the US... we'd get such a strong flourish of steganographic and out-of-band communications utilities, it'd be awesome. For some definition of awesome.
Re: (Score:2)
I still blame the manufacturers of those devices for that. Not everyone is a router expert or even understands the risks of that device, and the makers of home routers and wi-fi devices are marketing to those people. The manufacturers should know the risks and make it easy to both know that there is a password to change, and to ensure that it gets changed without a stupid amount of effort or domain knowledge.
Or at the very least, they should set a different initial password on each that isn't trivial to h
Re: (Score:2)