The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld

Book Title: The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld

Author Name: Jamie Bartlett

Total Pages: 320 pages

Published Date: August 21st 2014

Published By: William Heinemann


My Rating: 3 Stars

Synopsis:

Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit – a world of Google, Hotmail, Facebook and Amazon – lies a vast and often hidden network of sites, communities and cultures where freedom is pushed to its limits, and where people can be anyone, or do anything, they want. A world that is as creative and complex as it is dangerous and disturbing. A world that is much closer than you think.

The dark net is an underworld that stretches from popular social media sites to the most secretive corners of the encrypted web. It is a world that frequently appears in newspaper headlines, but one that is little understood, and rarely explored. The Dark Net is a revelatory examination of the internet today, and of its most innovative and dangerous subcultures: trolls and pornographers, drug dealers and hackers, political extremists and computer scientists, Bitcoin programmers and self-harmers, libertarians and vigilantes.

Based on extensive first-hand experience, exclusive interviews and shocking documentary evidence, The Dark Net offers a startling glimpse of human nature under the conditions of freedom and anonymity, and shines a light on an enigmatic and ever-changing world. 

Review:

I am a sort of a person who knows little about dark net, the hidden, more sinister side of the internet. That is one of the major reason why this book has attracted me.

The Dark Net is a place where our more shadowy sides live a life sheltered from the prying eyes of the rest of the world. There’s a parallel Internet you may not have run across yet accessed by a special browser and home to a freewheeling collection of sites for everything from anonymous activism to illicit activities.

The Dark Net includes illegal pornography, buying and selling of drugs, encouraging mentally ill people towards suicide and eating disorders like anorexia.

The taboo triggers an adrenaline reaction in the viewers which increases the viewers' excitement and make them curious to watch.

Following are some crazy sites mentioned by Jamie Bartlett in the book.

• Social platform from the 1990s called Usenet. The group was called alt.suicide.holiday and was created in 1991 by a California man named Andrew Beals to support people who wanted to commit suicide during the holidays. It was a place to discuss reasons for suicide and possible methods of killing oneself.

• Silk Road, a website that began spreading through the underground internet community in 2011. This encrypted site was a marketplace from which you could purchase any number of illegal goods. It was only accessible through a Tor browser, a free program that lets people surf the web with anonymity; second, products could only be purchased with the digital currency known as Bitcoins; and finally, visitors were encouraged to use pseudonyms. Even if a user did provide their real name, all their communication was encrypted and automatically deleted once the messages were read.
• Better and safer version of silk road announced: silk road 2.0

• Chaturbate. Online place for amateur porn, this site offers users access to upwards of 600 amateur models who perform online shows throughout the day. These so-called “camgirls” and “camboys” earn money by soliciting tips from their viewers in exchange for “seeing more.” Lots of cam models support themselves working just an hour a day.

It's an interested read but I expected more. The author could have given more details.