Talk: An Introduction to the Dark Net

Tonight, another Funzing talk - An Introduction to the Dark Net. At Sink.. only about 10 minutes' walk from the office. For which I earned a loyalty discount, on account of all I booked recently!

Well, another hard day's work - and it was as well I could stay late, to get in my yearly performance review, which was due by COB (Pacific Time). I still cut it fine, arriving with the proverbial "minutes to spare". The sign inside the door helpfully pointed to the left, where a young woman stood with a welcoming smile. She, it turned out, had drink tokens, in return for you presenting your ticket - of course, I hadn't printed mine out (as usual for Funzing), the damn website had logged me out, and I couldn't find where to log in again! She finally looked up my name on her list, and I got my token - which entitled me to a small glass of house white. What the hey, it's ages since they gave it away for free anyway.

Upstairs then, and the room was fairly full, most of the remaining seating at the back. Nonetheless, it's a decent venue for a talk, and I got a good view of the screen. Again, the Funzing lady made a mistake in her presentation, saying that the sixth talk is free.. it isn't, you get a discount equal to the price of the talk, or the value of the cheapest thing you paid for while earning your discount: whichever is cheaper.

The chap presenting was a pleasant-seeming fellow, who really entertained us over the next hour or so with a wee chat about the dark net - which, as he said, isn't as scary as you might think. Indeed, the "clearnet" (regular internet) can be a lot scarier, as in his story about an unwise young woman who posted nude photos of herself on a chat forum. Members would ask her to take photos in different poses, and from seemingly innocuous requests for her to pose with various items, they managed to piece together her complete identity. The mission then became to expose her completely, finding her on Facebook and Twitter, posting the photos to everyone on her contact list.. you don't have to go to the dark net to find dangerous people.

Having said that, he then led us down a merry, dark path - of drug dealers who sell in the same way as Amazon, with customer reviews and discount offers. He did also point out that the dark net can be a very handy way to avoid censorship - for journalists in sensitive parts of the world, for instance, or where governments ban the websites you might want to visit. He told us the interesting story of how Tor, the browser used, was actually developed by the US Navy! It then occurred to them that they might be a bit conspicuous if they were the only ones using it! so they made it freely available. It's a bit slower than conventional browsers, since it bounces your signal around the world, to make your IP address untraceable. So it's a choice - greater security means a sacrifice of some convenience.

After a short break, an interesting Q+A had several people asking questions - but the most enthusiastic response of the night came when he said he'd give us ONE URL to play with. :-) Deepdotweb.com lists the most popular dark net sites, as well as broadcasting news of the dark net.. by 'eck, he had to repeat that name several times, to general mirth, as so many people wanted to make sure they'd got it exactly right! I tell you this, it's interesting to browse - but remember to use Tor (or similar) if you want to do any actual business with sites listed on it! Someone brought up the thorny issue of terrorism - well, as he said, that's the kind of traffic that doesn't really get publicly listed - it's just a set of untraceable URLs distributed amongst specific groups. There's a whole load of internet out there that we'll just never know about.

Well, the weather's switched again - it was freezing on the way home. The next two days, back again with Up in the Cheap Seats: tomorrow is for An Ideal Husband - part of the Oscar Wilde Season, at the Vaudeville. Stars father and son, Edward and Freddie Fox. And Susan Hampshire. Wednesday is for Mood Music, at the Old Vic, with Ben Chaplin.

On Thursday, the London European Club is attending a lecture at the LSE, on Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration. Then I'm back to the highly non-Eurosceptic Ireland again, for the weekend.

Next Monday, back with Up in the Cheap Seats, for A Gym Thing - got a fright when I saw that, but no, it's a play - in the Pleasaunce.

On the 1st, I'm back with North London Friends - to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East for Our Country's Good.

On the 2nd, Up in the Cheap Seats is off to The Writer, at the Almeida.

On the 3rd, London Literary Walks is doing - ahem - Stalin's Doss House. Meeting at Starbucks, naturally!

Then we're into the Early May Bank Holiday - and I saw an interesting trip, advertised by Carpe Diem, for a long weekend in Bulgaria. So I applied for a place - only to be told that there'd only been six, which were now gone. When I pointed out that the Meetup page advertised 12 places, and that some were shown as still available, they removed the event entirely. Instead, on the 4th I'm headed - with the £3.60 club - to Music Hall Monster: The Insatiable Mr. Fred Barnes, at Wilton's. Could be good.

And on the 5th, as of now, I'm signed up to an overnight trip to Newquay in Cornwall with Eddie's Excursions. This time, I got in the first six - ironically, they're not guaranteeing it'll go ahead unless they can fill a minibus! Watch this space..