Dark Side of the Net Lecture 1 Introduction
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The document outlines a course on the dark side of the net, discussing key topics like the dark net, deep web, hacking, and online criminality. Learning outcomes include understanding various online crimes and their societal perceptions through a cultural criminology lens. The course aims to educate participants on the technologies and behaviors associated with the dark net, with assessments involving a video presentation and annotated bibliography.
Dark Side of the Net Lecture 1 Introduction
- 1. MC3003 Dark Side of the Net Introduction
- 2. Welcome to the dark side of the net. • In this introductory session we are going to look at: • Information about the course; • Defining what we mean by the dark side of the net • What is the surface web, • What is the deep web, • What is the dark net.; • Course content; • Assessment. • If time we may watch a video on the dark net.
- 3. Learning outcomes • (things you should be able to do once you have passed the course) • identify and critically discuss key elements of criminality on line including some of the methods used in online crime; • demonstrate an awareness of a variety of approaches to the study of criminality on line; • critically discuss a range of topics related to hacking, spamming, copyright violations, phishing and other aspects of illegal and anti-social online behaviour . And lots of other stuff. You will not be learning how to hack or anything like that (though we may discuss how hacks are conducted and talk you through examples). Basically the idea is to familiarise you with information about the darknet and some of the academic research on it.
- 4. Course content • The aim of this course is two fold: 1. To introduce you to some of the systems that make the dark net possible. We will be looking at a range of technical systems that allow people to engage in activity that if not illegal, verge on the boundaries of legality. 2. To consider a number of specific practices and activities that occur on the dark net. • Each week we will do a lecture followed by a seminar (or they may get mixed up, a bit of lecture followed by a discussion or activity then back to the lecture). • We may also watch some videos (possibly today).
- 5. Reading and watching • There are a number of set texts on the Canvas page – please try and look at least one for each week as we go along - these will help you in the assignments – more on this later • They serve as the basis for the assignments but you are expected to go much further. • The lectures will serve as an introduction but the readings will go much deeper into the issues. • We will be covering the topic in the seminar – though seminars are designed to enable you to grasp the issue – if you want to look at the issue in detail – do the reading.
- 6. General course perspective • The topics under consideration on this course have been studied from a variety of perspectives. • The main way in which people approach this stuff is from a technical perspective – how to prevent against it. • Here we will be a little bit more nuanced and amongst others we will draw upon an approach called a cultural criminological.
- 7. Cultural criminology • Crime is socially constructed. • There are few crimes that are crimes for all time and place - murder, incest (even these are very debatable). • What is a crime in one country / society may not be a crime in another, actions can be interpreted differently. • We don’t believe in ‘criminals’ - people do things (they may be very nasty and unpleasant) but they are not pre disposed to break the law – the law here is different to elsewhere. • Instead we assert that there is ‘deviant behaviour’ – behaviour that is not socially acceptable within wider society (though it may be acceptable in a sub culture) and that people may engage in in for a variety of reasons. • Economic; • Political; • Psychological;
- 8. So what are we studying? • We are looking at: • The activities that take place through digital media that many in society would consider deviant. • At the moment some of this is illegal, • Some of it was not illegal in the past, • Some things that were illegal in the past but are now legal, • Some things that are legal here but not elsewhere, • Some things that are illegal elsewhere but not here. • We may also consider what it is about these things that make them exist – the social conditions. • However what we are primarily interested in is stuff that happens on the Dark Net.
- 9. What is the dark net? • The dark net is something beyond the normal web. • There are also something called the deep web which again is something slightly different. • To grasp what the difference between the three is we need to understand how normal search engines work and where they get their information. Surface web Deep web
- 10. How search engines work… • Search engines consist of three main components: • Web crawler: • A small programme that goes from web page to web page. • Reads a file on web pages robots.txt. Sends information about web pages and sites back to the search engine. • Indexer: • A database of the results of the web crawler – words are linked to web pages and it creates a giant list of pages associated with words and phrases. • Searcher: • Looking through the list of and ranking the pages. • How pages are ranked is the USP of different search engines. • The first approach was to look at the number of hits, Google's big innovation was to rank them according to the number of links to them from other pages, newer versions count the umber of subscriptions and likes a page has.
- 11. What search engines do not see… • Search engines only see what is in ‘static’ pages. • In the past few years an increasing number of web pages are created ‘on the fly’ or dynamically for the user from a database. • For example the university’s library catalogue creates pages depending on our search criteria. • Such pages only exist for the length of the search, they are not pages in the normal sense and therefore do not get crawled. • An increasing number of pages are like this. • Also there are lots of files and documents that cannot be searched by crawlers.
- 12. How much deep web is there? • A lot. • Current estimates say that about 4% of the web is searchable. • Which means there is more than 20 the size of the visible web out there but not searchable.
- 13. Deep net • However this is not the dark net. • The deep web can be found, that we can’t see it is a problem with search engines and the technologies used to create web pages – it’s not trying to hide. • It is open to us, we just aren’t looking. • There is also a further subsection of the deep web however that does try to remain hidden. • This bit is called the dark net or dark web.
- 14. Dark Net or Dark Web? • They are essentially the same thing. • The web is just what you can see using a browser. • There is a lot on the internet that is not web stuff (though we use a browser to see it, it often wasn’t designed to be in a browser). • Dark web is not wrong, it is just that there is more than just web pages. • The dark net is a more technically accurate description of what we are looking at.
- 15. The dark net • It cannot be visited with a normal browser (for the most part, there are exceptions and they may advertise on the normal web). • Instead you need to install a specialist piece of software called TOR (The Onion Router), this is a browser that is specially designed to hide you from prying eyes and allows you to visit sites that do not want to be found by people using normal browsers. • Also use of VPNs (Virtual private networks that allow un- interceptable data transfers). • The main reasons for this are: • They are scared of being spied upon – journalists and civic activists in developing certain countries. • They resent the idea that some could spy on them. • They are doing something naughty.
- 16. Where is the dark net? • The darknet is not separate from the normal net. • Instead it is application that sits on top of the normal net, it uses the same pathways and data transfer technologies but uses encryption to hide its actual key information. • Encryption is key to the dark net as it stops people from observing what you are doing on the net.
- 17. What the dark net is not. • There are lots of unpleasant things on the surface web. • Beheading videos on youtube; • Instances of grooming on Facebook; • Lots of porn sites of various flavours; • Homophobic and racist sites; • Illegally copied and distributed digital content available on web based services. • This is not what we are interested in on this course. • Instead we look at the hidden, non-searchable stuff. • We look at the culture and facilitating technologies that allow the dark net to function.
- 18. What goes on in the dark net? Lots of stuff, • Some of it legal and above board – no different from normal web except its private. • Some of it not so. 1. Lots of sharing of files and information. 2. Lots of trading and selling of information, goods and services. • This is done through non-standard forms of banking – bit coin or other cryptocurrency. 3. Communication between people of similar interests.
- 22. Who uses the darknet? • Basically anyone who: • Is wary of corporate or governmental surveillance. • This includes: • Journalists; • Political activists who may be surveiled by government forces. • Includes terrorists. • Trades in something deemed illegal. • Narcotics, • Weapons, • Hacking software, • Pornography – legal and illegal. • Data they do not have rights to – stolen ids, • Illegal services – Fake ID, various services, violence.
- 23. In addition to the ‘actual’ darknet… • In addition to the ‘actual’ darknet we are also going to be looking at some of the activities that are facilitated by the darknet, cryptography, Bitcoin and similar technologies. • We will be looking at hacking – the practice of illegally using and penetrating other peoples computers. • Spam - the sending of unsolicited emails. • The ‘eco system’ of hacking, spam and organised crime.
- 24. Week by week Week Topic 1 Overview 2 Cryptography 3 Bit coin, crypto currencies and the block chain 4 The Onion Router 5 Fora and Forums – dark net trading 6 Hacking – History, basic practices and some widely used techniques 7 Hacking 2 - Theorizing hacking 8 Spam - What is it and How does it work? 9 Organized crime and the economy of spam 10 Tutorials – Assessment approval 11 Tutorials – Idea development 12 Tutorials – Video and bibliography support
- 25. Assessment - portfolio • The portfolio consists of two items. 1. A 3-5 minute video in which you explore one of the issues covered on the course. • The video should offer a critical engagement with the topic. It should draw upon academic sources but offer an interesting overview and engagement with the topic. • You are judged on you critical engagement with the subject matter, your analysis and breadth of knowledge. • While it is important to present your ideas in a manner that makes them interesting and understandable you are not specifically judged on your production skills – ie the ideas count for far more than you ability with a camera or editing software. However the video should be of an acceptable and watchable standard. • No genre is specified, but choose something that will allow you to demonstrate your knowledge and not get in the way. • Please upload the file directly to Canvas using a suitable format - MOV, MP4 (MPEG4), AVI, WMV. • Come and see me in week 10 (or before) to discuss your topic.
- 26. Assessment - portfolio 2. An annotated bibliography of items you used in your video. • Produce an annotated, extended bibliography of references related to the topic of your video. • This list should comprise of books, journal articles, newspaper articles, web sites, youtube videos and other media on your topic. • You should include a formal Harvard style reference for each and a short annotation which describes what the item is about. • This list should contain a minimum of ten item but can be longer.
- 27. Submission date for both: 8th May 2018 12.00
- 28. Video on the dark web. • https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/07A36EE B?bcast=114064723