Monday, November 8, 2021

The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld

The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld
By Jamie Bartlett
Melville House, 2015. 320 pages. Nonfiction

Beyond the familiar online world that most of us inhabit — a world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter — lies a vast and often hidden network of sites, communities, and cultures where freedom is pushed to its limits, and where people can be anyone, or do anything, they want. This is the world of Bitcoin and Silk Road, of radicalism and pornography. This is the Dark Net. In this important and revealing book, Jamie Bartlett takes us deep into the digital underworld and presents an extraordinary look at the internet we don't know.

This is honestly a hard book to read at times.  While some aspects of the Dark Net can be liberating, it's hard to read how people's worst instincts and inclinations can be manifested as well. And yet, there is something to be said for being aware of what is happening in "the Dark Net."  If we live in ignorance of it, we risk never being equipped to deal with how it can impact our lives offline.  A challenging but thought-provoking read.

BHG

 If you liked The Dark Net you might also like:

The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data
By Kevin Mitnick with Robert Vamosi
Little, Brown and Company, 2017. 320 pages. Nonfiction

A world-famous hacker reveals unsettling truths about information vulnerability while outlining affordable online and offline strategies for maximizing privacy and computer security.

Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
By Marc Goodman
Doubleday, 2015. 392 pages. Nonfiction

An FBI futurist and senior advisor to Interpol analyzes the digital underground to reveal the alarming ways criminals, corporations and countries are using emerging technologies to target individuals and wage war.

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