Darkode and the dark side of the internet. In this weeks story we followed an old woman and her experience from being hack and the tale of how some of this dark side of the internet culture started. It began as a kid in his parents basement with an interest in computers and then over the course of time blossomed into the world’s hub for black market computer hacking. I won’t get further into the story because as a class we all listened to the same story this week.
Physical: With more and more people gaining education on how computers work some use their knowledge to prey on others for financial gain in the form of file/data ransom or by other means. The FBI took down this black market website darkode and made a large number of arrests; however, due to the nature of the internet the site sprung right back up again just two weeks later. When I talk about the nature of the internet in this sense I am talking about how anyone from anywhere can make an input to create and add code to something like a website. Computers and the internet have been a great tool for man but as seen with any tool, it can be used to create positive or negative aspirations and we as a people need to educate ourselves and others on how we can protect us from these attacks.
Temporal: The timing of when darkode was taken down was just three months ago. We will see more events like this were a governing body will try to stop or lay siege to places on the internet’s dark side in an attempt to help people from criminal activity, but we do not know when the web and computers will be safe if ever from vicious persons.
Cultural: Computers and the web have created a diverse cultural of people from those who like pictures of cats to people who ransom anonymous innocent users for untraceable currency. I see it as being very ironic that some of these people doing these crimes has a sense of power now when ten or twenty years ago they could have been the geeks and nerds picked on in highschool. Since computers are constantly being upgraded and updated the culture of us as people I feel like update and upgrade with it but at a slower pace.
Social: The way the internet works in layman's terms is that computers talk to one another to create this network of information. That in a sense makes computers probably close to as social as us maybe? Anyhow the acts of cyber terrorism are being more seen today through the news and other media outlets which can better enlighten people about the dangers they face with their computers.
Psychological: These events I think can be very psychologically disturbing. For those who use computers but don’t know a lot about them they can see this as never being safe again from criminals. The evolution of internet crimes has evolved from spamming, to viruses, and now to file ransom; so that asks the question what is next? The only limitations it seems are what these hackers can think up next in their imaginations. Will we see real life kidnappings from people’s cars being hacked as they drive them? You may laugh at this assumption but care to think how close we are to self-driving cars. They can already track where you are from your phone, you know that device which everyone has from seniors to children have now. We know they sell or rent the technology to anyone relatively cheaply. So what will happen when it falls into more sinister hands? It really calls for a voice of concern on how we can protect ourselves from these criminals.
Thanks for reading.
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