We spend an average of 6 ½ hours every day on the World Wide Web, a portion of the Internet consisting of pages and documents connected by hyperlinks. Over five billion people - two-thirds of the world’s population - works remotely, scrolls through information, and streams content using popular search engines and browsers to index and view web pages. The Web we know is an enormous creature. Still, it represents less than 10% of the total Internet – the tip of the iceberg.The remainder of the Internet, the part below the surface which requires a special “Tor” browser, is often referred to as the “Dark Web.” While the Dark Web is perfectly legal, it’s sketchy reputation comes from people like Ross Ulbricht and his darknet market website Silk Road. For two years, Silk Road facilitated the sale of narcotics as well as other illegal products and services. The enterprise was a huge success, earning Ross free room and board for life at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson.
The dark web itself predates Ross. Around the turn of the millennium, Ian Clarke was wrapping up his student thesis project at the University of Edinburgh. Ian’s goal was to create an innovative way of communicating and sharing files anonymously on the Internet. He released his “Freenet” in 2000, forming the basis of the Tor project which began 2 years later and launched its first browser in 2008. Users could now peruse the Dark Web anonymously, their information routed through thousands of relay points that make browsing virtually impossible to trace. The U.S. Department of Defense was an early adopter.
Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road may be offline, but the Dark Web is far from safe. Those brave enough to give it a try are advised to update their security software often, browse only through a robust VPN, and use a non-standard email address. There at still plenty of Silk Road wannabe’s, and cybersecurity threats – including large-scale data breaches – continue to provide employment opportunities for Government IT specialists.
Don’t be afraid. Just stay off the Dark Web and everything will be fine, right? The Dark Web may be the devil we know, but we still face less obvious threats even without Tor. While many may seem comparatively benign, they range from annoying to expensive. This latter group is loosely characterized under the heading “dark patterns.”
The average Internet user has little or no experience with the Dark Web, yet all of us who browse conventionally have been exposed to dark patterns. Dark patterns are tricks web designers use to get us to do what they want. If you’ve ever signed up, subscribed, made a purchase, or changed your mind and tried to cancel, you’ve fallen under the spell of a dark pattern.
All of this has not escaped the watchful screens of those busy Government IT specialists. The General Data Protection Regulation is a European set of guidelines (in the US there is the CCPA, or California Consumer Privacy Act) that addresses some of the issues. In a bid to thwart those tricky web designers, Article 7 of the GDPR simply states – “It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.” In case you didn’t read the terms until after you hit “Enter”, there may still be hope.
I’ve been exploring this very issue myself lately. I confess that I typically receive more than 300 emails daily. The recent deluge of political ads finally prompted me to quit procrastinating and start cleaning up my inbox. About a dozen of those emails are of some value to me. The challenge is to identify and rid my system of the rest.
To comply with the GDPR, a newsletter or other regular mailing must have an “unsubscribe” or similar live-link clearly identified at the bottom of the page, making it “as easy to withdraw as to give consent.” Phrases like “unsubscribe”, “cancel”, or “change email preferences” are usually buried in a long paragraph in barely readable text at the bottom of a long email. Once you locate and click on one, it often requires you to enter your email address (!), confirm you want to be removed, review all your mailing preferences, or some combination of the above. UX (User Experience) researcher Harry Brignull has dubbed this common pattern a “Roach Motel” – easy to get into and hard to get out of.
Harry has gone so far as to categorize the various different types of dark patterns, and has even created a Hall of Shame with numerous examples. Have you ever noticed a speck of dust on your screen while browsing? In one dark scenario, web designers will “dirty up” your touchscreen so that when you try to brush it off with your finger, you are unwillingly selecting an ad. Sticking to major web players – e.g. Google, Amazon or Tumblr – will not protect you from darkness. If you’ve tried closing your account on Amazon, for example, you know just how hard it can be. Submitting complaints will shed some light on the ethical companies, while the others will undoubtedly become more devious
Don’t be afraid. Browsing the Web is like doing the laundry – it all starts with separating the light from the dark.
