One of the great things about the internet is the possibility to act anonymously to a greater extent than in real life. This has made life a lot easier for people engage in activities ranging from political discussions to filesharing and has provided safehouse for people with differing opinions. This has changed a lot through the years though and as it is now, several nations in europe are introducing laws and regulations heavily jeopardizing the integrity of it’s citizens. Goverments are given full authority to gather and collect information of each everyones habits on the net. Companies are given the right to persecute people and violate their integrity for the sole sake of profit. Sweden is no exception to this. The human rights-group “Privacy International” has published a report on how well europe’s nations are handling peoples integrity each year since 1997. On the latest index of 2006, Sweden was left almost last on the list, only second to Brittain when it comes to violating peoples privacy. As a citizen of Sweden I had no idea things were this bad mostly because we are kept in the dark when it comes to these changes. Our politicians try to tone down every new law contributing to the big brother society we are clearly heading towards.
Slowly people are realizing this though, and countermeasures have been taken. As the open internet slowly turns into a censored, surveiled proporty, more and more people are turning to darknets. The traditional definition of a darknet is an isolated community of people trusting each other, closed to everyone else. Anonymity is maintained by keeping unwelcomed people out rendering surveillance impossible. Several different software tools that help setting up and using such a community are available freely in the internet. Most software can only handle small groups of people but some software, like Freenet is said to support millions of users.
On a larger scale, services are popping up that allows for anonymously switching IP. This enables users to have total anonymity independent of ISP. Some people say that this is a perfectly good solution in order to reestablish users integrity on the internet. The problem with these anonymous darknets is that they work indiscriminatly. Terrorists, rapists, pedophiles aswell as filesharers and political activists all hide under the same umbrella with no distinction between them from the outside. On the open internet, “lightnet” if you will, heavier criminals such as terrorists and sexual predators could still be traced. I believe the lobby organisations representing record companys and the movies industry are largely to blame for this devlopment. With so many filesharers scared to be persecuted the development of darknet services are inevitably driven forward. In many ways it is a choice between security and privacy. On one hand we have a big brother society monitoring our every move, on the other, a lawless darknet where criminals do as they please. At this time I see no middle path. As more people will understand the extent of the privacy invasion currently being performed, whether it is a lobbyorganisation looking for filesharers, a marketing company logging your behavior or a goverment looking for unwanted opinions, they will consider darknets as a viable option.
Privacy is a precious thing and as long as darknets are our only option, I am totally for it. Question is what it will take for our goverment to fully understand darknets potential. Are they really ready to lose what little controll they still have left?
Tor - online anonymity
Privacy International
Relakks - ip-switcher
Freenet - online anonymity
1 comment:
Jag tror inte regeringen kommer göra så mycket för att stoppa darknet, de är för okunniga helt enkelt. Det speciella med internet, är att det inte är en del som statsmaskinen verkar ha tagit på allvar. Ens idag.. Så fort de kommer med ett nytt förbud, så kommer det en ny möjlighet för oss fria människor.
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