The DarkNet vs Apple

The Justice Department has avoided a run-in with Apple by giving in and doing what they should have done before.  But, it isn't just Apple that is working towards a safe-haven from government.  The Dark Web, or DarkNet is doing the same thing.   Criminals, at least the ones who don't get caught, need security and protection from law enforcement just as terrorists do, and those technologies are starting to converge.  Apple was never leading this effort, in spite of what the exchanges between the FBI and Apple must sound like.

Governments are much more intrusive than they were in the early days of the Internet when law enforcement and counter terrorism units had next to nothing in the way of tools or equipment to monitor.  Now they have an array of software that monitor cell phones, Internet activity, and can track a person anywhere there is a cell tower.   With a warrant, almost any jurisdiction can get  cell phone numbers, geolocation, thermal imaging of a property, and the the data needed to map connections between all of the people in our family of crooks.  Life is tough everywhere.  But, as one of my graduate professors used to say, they spend as much time at their job as you do at yours.  They look for ways to protect themselves from this technology.

The DarkNet is a different concept and the opposite idea from the Internet.  Instead of just encrypting each transaction and storing data where no unauthorized person can get it, these nets are not visible to anyone unless the user knows where to go.  There is a Daily Mail article from 2013 that speaks to the number of assassins who are available there [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2454735/The-disturbing-world-Deep-Web-contract-killers-drug-dealers-ply-trade-internet.html ].  It would be difficult for contract killers or drug dealers to advertise on the Internet.

Besides sites like Silk Road, replaced by several with the same technologies, thieves now use bitcoins rather than banks, separating themselves from the monitoring laws for currency exchange.  The number and different types of sites extend to terrorists like ISIS who have learned to avoid exposure to the Internet once a person has expressed an interest in their work.  Unlike Apple, these are real bad guys.  Our Justice Department needs to spend more time working on the kinds of things our enemies are doing and less on what technologists do to protect our personal data.