The Dark Net

June 15, 2015
Bartlett, a technology columnist for the Telegraph, takes readers on an engaging if occasionally disturbing tour of the Internet's darker corners. While some associate the term "dark net" with the deeper levels untraveled by most casual users, Bartlett expands the designation to include more accessible niches as well, including sites for child pornography, racial supremacists, suicide forums, and camgirls. These Internet underworlds are "worlds of freedom and anonymity, where users say and do what they like, often uncensored, unregulated, and outside of society's norms," Bartlett writes. As he explores the evolution and nature of trolling online and traces its origins back to the dawn of the Internet itself, he likewise examines the function of identity in a setting where you can reinvent yourself endlessly, for good and bad, and how it impacts the real world. He looks at how the Internet fosters communities brought together by every interest imaginable. He also touches upon the evolution of commerce and illicit transactions, visiting the famed Silk Road website to see all that's available for those who dare. While some of these revelations come as little surpriseâpornography online is hardly a secretâthis is still a lively, darkly informative work. Readers may find some of the frankness and subject matter upsetting, though, as Bartlett hits some controversial subjects (e.g., pro-anorexia and pro-suicide websites) along the way. Agent: Caroline Michel, Peters Fraser & Dunlop (U.K.).

A Telegraph columnist and researcher of online social movements reports his findings collected while roaming the outer limits of the Internet. Bartlett found a world inhabited by trolls, lone wolves, drug dealers, anorexia sufferers, libertarians, camgirls, pedophiles, and neo-Nazis, among countless others. Beginning with an informative and entertaining look at the beginnings of the Internet, the author briefly explains Arpanet, bulletin board systems, flame wars, and the evolution of radical online libertarians who came to be known as cypherpunks. These early colonizers of the Internet stressed that this new frontier of cyberspace should be used to shore up the values of "personal liberty, privacy and anonymity." Bartlett deconstructs the intricacies of encryption, crypto money, and stealth addresses. The author combines technical information with his own excursions to the other side of the Web: making a purchase from the Silk Road; attending a camgirl session with one of the "world's top cam-models"; meeting with a well-known member and founder of the anti-immigration English Defence League. As Bartlett notes, those in need of "talking" with someone regarding issues of self-mutilation, bulimia, anorexia, or suicide can find what they think is help and counsel online, where support groups have proliferated. Though the author's tone is nonjudgmental throughout, Bartlett advises readers to be wary when entering this murky environment: "freedom in the dark net comes with a price. People have to be prepared for what they might encounter there." Bartlett also explains that these shadowy online behaviors, which at first glance may appear to be simple moral questions of right and wrong, are more nuanced. He concludes with a solid compilation of endnotes covering the posts, articles, and websites he relied on and a reading list for further exploration of the subject. A provocative excursion to the darker side of human nature set free by the anonymous and unregulated boundaries of cyberspace. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.