Governance
Darkathon-2022
- 17 Feb 2022
- 4 min read
For Prelims: Darknet, Darkathon.
For Mains: Darknet and related Concerns.
Why in News?
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) launched a ‘Darkathon’ for cyber experts to find effective solutions to unravel the anonymity of markets in the dark web.
- The role of NCB as the nodal agency on the matter of drug law enforcement in India has gained prominence in recent times.
What is Darkathon-2022?
- The competitors will have to provide a “solution” based on crawling of darkweb to identify and catalog darknet markets selling drugs with a mechanism to automatically add new markets and drop inactive ones, identify drug traffickers based in India and the drugs on sale and digital footprinting of active drug traffickers.
- The number of drug seizures from parcel or courier consignments increased by almost 250% in India after the outbreak of the pandemic and a good number of them are linked to drug trafficking through darknet markets.
What is Darknet and Concerns?
- About: Internet consists of three layers:
- The first layer is public, consisting of sites that one uses frequently such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and LinkedIn. This layer makes up only 4% of the entire internet.
- The second layer, the deep web, is a network where data is stored in inaccessible databases (i.e. cannot be accessed through traditional search engines like Google). It is used to provide access to a specific group of people.
- The data is generally sensitive and private (government private data, bank data, cloud data etc), so kept out of reach.
- The third layer is the darknet which is also known as a part of the ‘Deep Web’. It is a network built over the internet which is encrypted.
- It is basically a layer of the Internet accessible only by using special software like TOR (The Onion Router), or I2P, which stands for Invisible Internet Project.
- Anything present on the dark web will not be pulled up in internet searches, thereby offering a high degree of anonymity.
- Concerns over Darknet:
- In February 2016, in a study titled ‘Cryptopolitik and the Darknet’, researchers analysed content over the TOR network.
- Of the 2,723 websites they could classify by content, 1,547 – 57 % – hosted illicit material ranging from drugs (423 sites), illegitimate pornography (122) and hacking (96), among others.
- There were also reports of log-in details of streaming sites like Netflix being sold on the dark web marketplaces for cheap rates.
- The network is also used by several activists especially those living under oppressive regimes to communicate without any government censorship.
- The TOR network was used by activists during the Arab Spring.
- In February 2016, in a study titled ‘Cryptopolitik and the Darknet’, researchers analysed content over the TOR network.
- Darknet and India:
- The Information Technology Act, 2000 deals with cybercrime and comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. There are only six sections in the law that deal with cybercrime.
- With the changing times, India needs a code of criminal procedures dealing with cybercrime that would come under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which deals with policing issues.
- Also, there is a need for police, trained in changing cyber trends who are dedicated only to cybercrime and not transferred to other police units.