The Dark Web: Alan Pearce @ TEDxBrighton (Transcript)

Alan Pearce at TEDxBrighton

Full transcript of journalist and author Alan Pearce’s TEDx Talk on The Dark Web at TEDxBrighton conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio: The dark web by Alan Pearce @ TEDxBrighton

Alan Pearce – Journalist and author

Hello. All right, deep web.

What is the deep web?

Actually, it is the hidden part of the Internet. I could go into more detail, no time, but let’s just say – but actually is as dull as dishwater, most of it – the hidden part of the Internet is the kind of place where if you want to be anonymous, you most certainly can, but, in many ways, we are looking at a parallel universe.

We are looking at an alternative Internet, a place where people communicate secretly and securely away from the prying eyes of governments.

At this level of the deep web, we are looking at a mirror image of the regular Internet, the surface web. You have got websites and bulletin boards, you’ve got clones of Twitter and Facebook, and all the rest of the things that you would normally expect from the Internet.

So, who is using this stuff?

Well, actually, all sorts of people: journalists and activists, aid workers and dissidents, whistle-blowers and free-speech advocates, criminals and spies, all sorts of people use deep web tools to be anonymous on the Internet.