SILK ROAD / BLOG 7

         The subject of my blog post this week is more along the lines of Chapters 9 and 11. Chapter 10 not so much. But please, bear with me. After completing lab 7 (and slightly overlapping while completing it), I came across wired.com's "Story of Silk Road" Parts One and Two on Ross Ulbricht and everything prior, during and after the fall of the Silk Road.

         I cannot believe that I read the entire thing but I actually did. It was a page-turner. And by page-turner, I mean finger scroller. Since there weren't actual pages I don't know how long the two parts ended up being but it took about an hour to read leisurely. I was fascinated in myself for being so interested in this story. The author brings you on a trip through the rise and fall of the Silk Road, a Dark Web black market website focused on selling drugs and pornography. The story is told from many different angles between Ross Ulbricht, the creator and the different government agencies who were consecutively fighting to crack the case first such as the FBI, DEA and more. Mainly through Ross's journal that he kept on his computer, the reader is able to journey through Ross's life and how he changed internally as the success of Silk Road grew over time. At the peak of his empire, Ross was making $7 million a year. That was quite a substantial amount for the way that Ross was living (with a roommate with no lavish belongings).

         Prior to beginning lab 7 I had no idea about the Deep Web or how to access it. By completing the lab and reading this story I am confident that my base knowledge is set and now I can only begin to learn more. I was absolutely taken by how Agent Force in the story working for the FBI was able to con Ulbricht by chatting with him. Force was able to get onto Silk Road and begin conversing with Ulbricht, who favored community over anything. Force pretended to be a cartel head and over the course of a YEAR and A HALF gained his trust through (staged) assassinations, advice and simple friendship. Although Ross was intelligent and a good business man when it came to the Silk Road, he was not tech-savvy at all. That eventually led to his downfall and aided in his foolishness when he didn't realize or figure out that he was not talking to 'Nob' the cartel leader but instead Agent Force who was sitting in his family's living room on his laptop. The Rise and Fall of Silk Road was an incredible eye-opener that taught me so much about a topic I knew so little on; so little on that I didn't even know the subject itself before this week.

         If you are reading my blog and have never read the WIRED articles/stories on Ross Ulbricht, please do. It will be educational to any eye that reads it regardless of how little or much you know about the Deep Web or the Silk Road itself.

HATE GROUPS / BLOG 6

            Despite the downward slide in numbers of hate groups in America, the groups that are still around are reverting back to their old ways of communicating strictly by word-of-mouth. Leaving the Internet marks a big change in ways for these groups as they are going against what the entirely of the country is doing. While everybody has begun relying on technology to intervene into almost every aspect of our lives, hate groups strive to get back to their old ways so that they can conserve their power and regain strength after faltering in their numbers in recent years.

            The reelection of Barack Obama has been marked as the cause of the dwindling amounts of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and more but the initial election of President Obama is what started sprouting so many groups up to begin with. Obama’s election made these groups angsty because of his race, naturally, but his reelection showed that the general public was okay with his background and that ostracizing realization is what could have made the groups lose steam. Now that the decline has begun, hopefully this decline can slide us back and past the numbers that were around pre-2008 and pre-Obama in the White House.

            How could these groups operate without any form of communication other than verbal communication? They are “everywhere” says a member of the Klan and with over 150 chapters in the country, it can’t be that difficult to come together when needed. But this does make me wonder if the violence and evil doings of these hate groups will become more centralized to the specific chapters within the groups instead of potentially mass events or occurrences because of this shift offline.

            This CNN article mentioned that another cause for the decline could be legislation shifting to the right and aligning more with these extremist’s views. Regardless of how these groups feel about the current political climate, the fact that they are moving off of the Internet is going to allow the groups to regain their strength in leadership again, which while stronger leadership in a group that spread so much hate is not necessarily what everybody wants, it is proven that having a leader in place diminishes chances of violent outbursts between the members of the group and the public and more specifically, the groups of people that the group is against.

Article link: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/us/hate-groups-decline

SUBWAY NO WAY / BLOG 5

         After finishing up with my reading of chapter 8 on cyber obscenity, one story rang clear in my mind. That story is of fallen Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle who last month reached a plea agreement in his child pornography scandal. Jared Fogle was charged for possessing child pornography and for crossing state lines in order to have paid sex with minors. Fogle's plea deal would allow him to see between five to over twelve years in prison for his crimes. Aside from his jail time, Jared Fogle will also give money for damages to his victims.

         This much reported about story brings to light a very large issue of cyber obscenity that is child pornography. Child pornography has become such a large issue with trafficking of images of minors to producing and even creating digital versions of children inappropriately on the Internet. Fogle obtained his images from a man who was working for his Jared Foundation and instead of turning the man into the cops, took the creepy role and kept the images for himself and eventually acting on those desires of his that he had by then made clear.

            In this case, the term “child” is often misrepresented as many of the children involved were near legal age to consent to sexual relations. That does not make the acts of Jared and the man involved through the Jared Foundation any less guilty of their acts. These images are still around and will be around to haunt the victims for the rest of their lives. That is the main issue in my mind about cyber obscenity is that even if the images are of people who are of-age and even if it was consensual at the time does not mean that those people will feel the same way in twenty years when those images and/or videos will still be in perfect form to be replicated or sent around the Internet.

         What is the absolute worst side of this story, if there really could even be one, is that the man who worked for the Jared Foundation obtained these obscenities by secretly video taping the victims in his bedroom. These victims did not even know that they were being recorded and later passed onto Jared Fogle at all. $100,000 per victim may be a lot of money but it does not cover up any of the immoral acts that the man and Fogle did during this entire incident.

Article link: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/21/us/subway-jared-fogle-charges/index.html