Hello again欢迎来到Happy Hour英文小酒馆。关注公众号璐璐的英文小酒馆，加入我们的酒馆社群，邂逅更精彩更广阔的世界

Welcome everyone to Geek Time, this is Brad. How are you doing Lulu.

Hi Brad. So in this advanced episode about Dark Web, exciting, exciting.

You promise to tell us a few stories, and also like cautionary tales.

So we'll start off… we'll talk a little bit about one of the most famous sites on the Dark Web, it's called Silk Road.

Or the most notorious.

Yeah, the most notorious, you can say that as well, most notorious. It was one of the first, like big auction sites for… on the Dark Web. And originally the guy who started it said he wasn't planning on selling illegal things on the site, or having, allowing illegal things on the site.

Let me stop you there for a bit, when I was preparing for this, I did do a little bit of research on the Silk Road, and then I found some people are calling it，some Chinese writers are calling it the dark version, the dark and illegal version of Taobao. Is it that sort of idea… it’s still like an E-Commerce website, it just sells really, really illegal stuff.

It sold lots of illegal stuff. At first, he said he was going to not allow that type of stuff, but I think when he saw the dollar signs, he was just said, okay, do whatever you want to do.

Why did he start on the Dark Web, if he originally wasn't meant for this to be an illegal site.

Well, he didn't start with the Dark Web, he had actually tried to have several businesses, and when none of his businesses went well, he decided that well, I'm just gonna try something on the Dark Web.

Oh, to bypass the regulations and stuff…

He did have some education in IT, I don't think… that wasn’t his primary education, but his education did help him get into it.

I read his story, he started it in his 20s, and within a couple of years, I think he made billions doing this.

Yeah.

How did they trade? Obviously, they cannot leave any paper trail.

Basically, when someone wanted to buy something, they would buy and sell with bitcoin .

So we were talking about this cryptocurrency.

And sometimes when people would buy and sell things with bitcoin , they would maybe have like different layers of account, so they would move the currency from one account to another account to another account to try to hide like the trail.

And they just stay virtual. Nothing is stayed like digital. There's no actual money trace.

Well, you have to buy the bitcoin from somewhere, you have to get the bitcoin somewhere. So there was like a transfer at some point with the some E wallet or such, but they would just try to hide that by moving the funds around or buying other things, paying for other goods.

Yeah, and then you said there's some illegal stuff. But I've seen some screenshots of it, I think by the time he got really big, it was mostly illegal stuff, because that's where the profit lied, right?

He started it, and like almost immediately, people are putting illegal things on it. And he said he was gonna not allow that, but then he was libertarian. So he said there shouldn't be any limit on things like firearms, and so he started letting firearms; but then it certainly went right from that into drugs, and then everything else.

And then he eventually was caught and sentenced to life in prison.

Yeah, so it was really funny how he was caught. Early when he was first starting, getting the information out, he was trying to get people to know about the site; and he puts basically kind of like an advertisement out for people to find the site on the Dark Web, but he put it on the surface web or at least something that people on the Surface Web could find, but that was tied to his email address basically.

Like come to my Dark Website, and then eventually he was caught because of that email address.

They weren't be able to like completely connected to him, so basically the FBI watched him. And they found out that he would go to the library, and connect to the Dark Web through the library’s connection, that way would never be at his house. And they just waited for him to have his computer open, and they as soon as he has computer open and connected, they made sure to grab him right then and there, that way he had accessed everything right away.

So they called him red handed.

Yep.

I say it's a bit ironic to, you know if you devote your entire career or business to hiding all the traces, it's just ironic if you get caught by trying to advertise your website on using your email address. But there's other things were linked with… apart from the hugely illegal like selling firearms or drugs, there’s also like the, I would say less seriously illegal things, like illegal downloads.

Like in for the last 20 years people have been downloading music, movies, and books, and things like this copyrighted material that stuff that it is illegal to download it. And so people don't put the files directly on sites. They use peer-to-peer sharing like software, you can find like the file that allows you to connect to that particular file, basically it's two files. You download one file that allows you to connect to others who have that file.

Okay, let's slow down for a bit. I know it's advanced episode, but in case many of our listeners don't really know that much about this, peer-to-peer or sometimes called p to p这个叫点对点或者叫对等式的网络。This is basically the opposite of the centralized, controlled network, right?

Before you could go to a website and directly download the file from that website, now the website doesn't have the file, the people have the file, and then they just tell you how to connect me to you, so you can give me the file.

Oh, I see, so that's the peer to peer. In this way, I guess the websites they don't store illegal files for illegal downloads, so it’s more difficult for authorities to track them down, and then to punish them.

Well, it's still just the same, they usually go to countries that have lax laws on this type of thing; and then governments will still pressure… foreign governments will still pressure them to push and say, cut the server down, don't allow them to transmit the files.

And that just moved people onto the Dark Web. And so, there are some sites that might have like files for a movie or for a book. And if someone contacts the site, this is my book, you can't give it out for free. They'll take the book down, but they'll include a link to the Dark Web.

So you can still access it through Tor, through an Onion Router Tor, I see. I mean it's difficult for content providers because it's very difficult to protect your copyright.

Definitely

There's one way to protect your copyright, and there's ten ways to violate that.

Previously in the basic episode, I started the whole discussion by asking you if Dark Web the “dark” means it's evil. So what do you think? Do you think Dark Web is intrinsically evil, or filled with ill intentions?

Not at all, like it was started by the US navy. There's a few other, like the Department of Defense, they wanted to have this like internet and they wanted to have it as a way to transmit data more securely.

But if they're the only ones that are sending data over the Dark Web, then it makes it easier for other people to find this data, and try to decrypt it because they know exactly where this data is coming from, government agencies, right.

And so rather than just only have themselves using it, they allow everyone else to gain access to it through tools like Tor, and by allowing them to gain access to it, there's a lot more data being transferred over the network.

Ok, I get it.

And this way it’s hidden, and their data is harder to find.

It's hidden in playing site, so instead of trying to go to a remote place to hide your treasure, you just try to encourage everyone around you to dig for the treasure together. And then in that way, people don't know who is who, they don't really know where the most important data lies.

OK, sounds interesting, I have to say it sounds very interesting.

Yeah.

So government, it surely sounds like government makes use of the Dark Web.

Yes. Government uses it because they wanna transmit data securely, news websites have started to use this as a way to get information from whistle blowers, because if someone wanted to connect to a news site, and maybe send them an email or send them a file, their IP address is going to be connected to that file or to that email, which the government can gain access to, so they can find out who sent that file which can put whistle blowers in danger.

And so the Tor allows people to, or Dark Web allows people to send files to news organizations at their like their drop sites, this way that no one can find out who sent the file.

I see, so for example, if I witnessed a crime, but my life is being threatened if I actually whistle blow on that crime, then I can just use Dark Web, I can use Tor to cover my tracks. And then they will still… the authorities or people who should get the information can still get the information and I don't have to reveal my identity.

Right

I see. But having said all of that, the last bit of our Dark Web talk is although we discussed all this, but Dark Web is not something you really should try.

Yeah, you definitely…

So when you go to the Dark Web, there are sites that you might use like I mentioned the whistleblower sites. You don't wanna just go to random sites on the Dark Web. People have gone got the Tor router, in the Onion Router, and gained access to the Dark Web, and then started using that to go around and kind of like to see what they could find on the Dark Web.

Out of curiosity

Yeah, but when that happens is there are websites on there that are set up by hackers, they’re websites on there that are set up by people with nefarious intentions. And so if you connect to their site, they could basically put a file onto your computer which allows them to track you.

They can threaten on your data security, they can even just blackmail you, right? It happened before, you get blackmail just by searching on the Dark Web.

Not only that, in some countries, using the Onion Router is illegal.

It's just outright illegal.

Yeah, outright illegal, but in countries where the Onion Router is legal and something you can use, going to some web sites on the Dark Web is completely illegal, because those web sites are something connected to a crime.

And so if you go to those websites, you can also get in trouble, but you can also get like you might get a stalker, you might get someone who takes pictures of you and then later sends you those pictures to let you know that they're following you now.

That is creepy.

Like I've heard stuff like this, but some of that stuff might just be people trying to scare others, but I wouldn't doubt some of those stories.

But honestly internet has already provided us with so much information, even just on the surface web, there's so much information you can use.

So I mean just don't risk it.

Yeah, I wouldn't either.

Exactly, I think we're going back to that imagery of like the deep sea. Would you really want it without any lifesaving equipment or like a submarine? Would you actually want to just take a nosedive into the deep, dark sea?

Even with like some of the lifesaving equipment, I still wouldn't go there.

Exactly

I'll just remain on the surface of the sea.

That's right.

I think I'm good with that.

Even then, I don't like the surface.

All right, thank you Brad for coming to the show and for giving me new nightmares. And for those of you, if you know anything…well, don't tell us, but if you have any comments about the internet in general about Dark Web leave us a comment in the comment section, but be careful what you leave there.

See you in the next Geek Time.

See you next time.

See you.