How a darker web could turn over the internet to criminals

In the Back to the Future movies, Marty McFly at one point finds himself in a grim future full of crime, seediness and, worse, run by his nemesis Biff. Fortunately for our hero Marty, he acted so that future didn’t come to be. That is where we are today with the Internet, which is at a crossroads: will it be a safe neighborhood or a dark and fearful place where criminals have free rein?

With the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), Congress is now debating how to deal with sex crimes on the Internet. But the debate goes beyond whether a digital platform such as Backpage should be accountable for online sex trafficking. At the heart of this debate is what will the Internet look like in the near future.

{mosads}Technology is emerging that helps criminals shroud their online activities, stay a step ahead of law enforcement, and place Internet users in danger. For instance, it’s getting easier for criminals: 

• To shield their activities from law enforcement by blocking anyone from knowing who actually operates websites. During the first two decades of the Internet, website owners had to supply contact information. But due to a European initiative, that critical information is now jeopardized.

• To hide their illicit payments. The rise of Bitcoin digital currencies now makes it much easier for bad actors to shield their financial records from law enforcement.

• To hide their communications from the eyes of prosecutors. Through encryption, criminals – including terrorists – can keep their emails, texts, and social media communications inaccessible to authorities. 

If it’s extremely difficult to impossible to find out who operates a website and how they are paid and communicate, it will hamstring law enforcement and embolden criminals to seek out more victims.

These issues go well beyond whether the Communications Decency Act should be amended to enable prosecutors to go after platforms such as Backpage. What is really at stake is how empowered criminals will be in the future.

Over the last few years, Digital Citizens Alliance has documented a troubling blurring of the lines between mainstream digital platforms and the so-called Dark Web where anything goes – including stolen credit card information, drugs, pirated movies and TV shows and prostitution.

Oftentimes, consumers are being baited by criminals looking to do them harm. For example, Digital Citizens found that 1 in 3 pirate websites exposed consumers to malware that can lead to ID theft, financial loss, ransomware and the hijacking of the computer cameras of young teens.

These dangers have not been lost on federal and state officials. For example, more than half of state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission have warned consumers about the risks these websites posed.

These new risks are chipping away at the trustworthiness of digital platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. In polling conducted earlier this year, 64 percent of Americans said that their trust in digital platforms has dropped in the last year. 

Concerns about how platforms can be manipulated to influence democratic elections in the U.S. and Britain have added to a feeling that something isn’t right with the Internet. It’s gotten so bad that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has proposed the creation of an independent commission to write new rules to curb the social media presence in the United States of foreign entities. 

There is a lot at stake here. We need to discuss what the future of the Internet looks like and ensure that digital platforms can be free, open, and accountable. That means ensuring that law enforcement – whether federal officials or state attorneys general – aren’t shut down even before they can investigate, as Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was when he tried to launch an inquiry into Google’s practices.

Internet users need digital platforms to take more responsibility for the actors and actions on their sites. Digital Citizens has called on platforms to collaborate to identify bad actors and share that information with other industry leaders, much the same way as clearinghouses exist to curb sex trafficking.

This type of neighborhood watch approach has been utilized in the past by none other than Google. The company spearheaded the stopbadware.org initiative to identify websites with malware and warn consumers. Now that framework could be used to warn against drug peddlers, credit card thieves, content thieves and others looking to harm consumers and thwart law enforcement.

The future of the digital neighborhood is ours to decide. Let’s choose wisely.

Tom Galvin is executive director of the Digital Citizens Alliance, a coalition of consumers, businesses, and Internet experts focused on educating the public and policymakers on the threats people face on the Internet.