The dark web: Guns and drugs for sale on the internet's secret black market - BBC
Out of reach of regular internet searches is the secretive online world known as the ‘dark web’ - anonymous, virtually untraceable global networks used by political activists and criminals alike.
“You have the availability of multiple dealers so you can compare products - and customers can review the dealer’s product, too.”
American student, David - not his real name - explains why he chooses to buy illegal drugs on the so-called ‘dark web’.
“You don’t have to go in front of a street dealer, where there might be a risk of violence,” he adds.
And it is not just drugs which are available on this online black market. Fake passports, guns - even child pornography.
(See above link for more)
He talked about Tyler’s senior year in high school. “I would characterize him as a child growing up,” he said. “He was getting more into being fashion-conscious. Now, this kid, he had to dress for orchestra—since he was seven, he was wearing suits and ties. But he was getting more trendy, in the last year or so.” Jane Clementi recalled that, not long before his death, Tyler had bought a spectacular new pair of glasses—bright green on the inside of the stems. His father said, “He was definitely trying to express himself.”
They never saw any sign of depression, and can’t even see it retrospectively. “As a parent, what it says to me is that what you think you know, you don’t know,” Joseph Clementi said. “And that’s a hard thing, because we all think, I know what my kid’s up to. You don’t.”
On the night Jane Clementi learned that Tyler was gay, she said, “I told him not to hurt himself.” Not long before, a girl from his school had committed suicide. “We had talked about it briefly that summer, and for some reason that thought came to mind. And all I said was ‘Don’t hurt yourself,’ and he looked me right in the eye and he laughed, and said, ‘I would never do anything like that.’ ”
- In this week’s issue, Ian Parker gives the first in-depth assessment of the Tyler Clementi case, told through a series of exclusive interviews & IM conversations: http://nyr.kr/AeSgrV
Internet Stats From 2011 - Buzzfeed
800+ million – Number of users on Facebook by the end of 2011.
200 million – Number of users added to Facebook during 2011.
2.4 billion – Social networking accounts worldwide.
2.6 billion – Worldwide IM accounts.
225 million – Number of Twitter accounts.
250 million – Number of tweets per day (October 2011).
18.1 million – People following Lady Gaga. Twitter’s most popular user.
“After Wikipedia blackrout, somewhere, a student today is doing original research and getting his/her facts straight. Perish the thought.”
(via cheatsheet)
"The Washington Post is joining several other media organizations, including the Guardian and NPR, to encourage a one-day crowdsourcing solution for those left searching for answers: #altwiki. That’s basically it. Ask a question on Twitter with the hashtag #altwiki, and we’ll ask our readers to help provide an answer."
h/t @MikeNizza
Internet addiction has same effect as cocaine on brains: study
This is your brain on the Internet: Messed up where there should be connections for making decisions and having normal emotions.
Results of a new study suggest people who cannot control, cut back or stop their use of the Internet have abnormal white matter structure in the brain similar to what is seen in cocaine and crystal-meth addicts.
According to the study’s authors, as the number of people logging onto cyberspace soars, “Internet addiction disorder” — which is poised to enter the official lexicon of psychiatric illnesses — “is becoming a serious mental-health issue around the world.”
The disorder, as described in the study published this week in the journal PLoS One, is defined as “problematic” or pathological computer use that can cause “marked distress” and interfere with school, work, family and social relationships.
For their study, led by Hao Lei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, researchers scanned the brains of 17 teens and young adults, aged 14 to 24, with Internet addiction and 16 healthy “controls” of similar age.
People were classified as suffering from Internet addiction disorder, or IAD, based on a questionnaire that included the following: Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet? Do you stay online longer than originally intended? Do you feel restless, moody, depressed or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use?
Where memes begin: An interview with Josh Fonner, whose photo was used for two popular memes - WaPo
Is technological connectivity mankind’s next evolutionary step?
“We created computers as an extension of our brains, and now we’re connecting through those computers and the Internet cloud as a way of expanding them,” - Tiffany Shlain, Filmmaker & Webby Awards founder
In her new documentary, Connected, which premiered at Sundance this year, Shlain sees digital connection as the next step in harnessing our collective brainpower—as long as we don’t lose our ability to relate to each other.
(via fastcompany)
I just wrote for @fastcompany about a new subscription service that lets intelligence agencies, academics and police/military stream from a library of 15,000+ terrorist propaganda videos. Think of it as “The Netflix of Terrorism.”
Looking forward to your follow-up on “The Qwikster of Terrorism,” and the resulting consumer uproar within the CIA’s ranks!
“As your daughter, I remember helping you send your first text message. …and my father still calls the Internet the “World Wide Web.”
“Google is not going to be Facebook. Likewise, Microsoft was not going to be Google. And it is partly because, contrary to the shibboleths of user-created blah-blah, people love content—and, mirabile dictu, it increases traffic. The problem is, advertisers don’t love it. Or they don’t love it enough. Or there is so much of it, they can be fickle lovers of it—hence the cost goes down (and down). This math has actually created an entire genre of online businesses that are all about being able to keep lowering the cost of content to keep up with the ever-lower price that can be charged for it.
And yet, there is content that works—that remains unique and that commands premium pricing. That’s television—or video.
Put another way, what still works, what advertisers and audiences still seek, is superexpensive content.
And there is a model in which mature non-content-producing businesses help themselves by becoming sophisticated content producers: the premium channel business, the HBO model. HBO was not a content creator; it was effectively just an aggregator and a redistributor. But faced with higher licensing fees and lower margins, and looking to solidify its own brand, it started to produce its own content.”
When I look around at other people’s blogs, I usually find myself trying to decypher how they really are at the other side of their deliberately published self-image. This diagram shows more or less what I think about that. I know there are a lot of different people and ways of posting online, but I think this could be close to the “average” mode.
This gets to the idea of identity projection and social media. On the Web create cool simulacra of ourselves and project these simulacra as ourselves. The best services let us do this easily and efficiently, convincing ourselves and the world that we are this “cooler” version of ourselves. Tumblr is excellent at this, which is a very big reason for Tumblr’s success.
I was cool before I had a tumblr.
Go Daddy?
Hey guys, I know Tumblr had some hiccups this morning but I always have connection or slow loading issues when using my custome domain name: brooklynmutt.com. I just removed it and I’m using .tumblr, and now it’s working fine. Is this a Go Daddy issue? Should I change hosts? If so, who do you guys recommend?
P.S. Am I locked in with Go Daddy? I know I renewed for two years not long ago, can I remove my domain name and use a new host?
