To the Next President of the United States,

Unfortunately, the world has a lot of bad people. Many people think they only roam the streets of the real world. That is not entirely true. Many criminals come from the Internet, and not just sites like Google or Yahoo, but a place called the Dark Web. You may also know it as the Deep Web, Invisible Web, or the Hidden Web. But no matter what you call it, it is a very bad place.

You may wonder; “What is the harm of going on the Dark Web, has anyone gotten hurt on here?” The answer is yes, they have. There are many activities that happen in the Dark Web, such as people offering to kill for money, drug trafficking, terrorist sites, and many other horrible things. Sites like these need to be shut down by the government. One of the reasons it is sometimes called the Invisible Web is because people who access it use a hidden browser that the government can’t see what they are doing. Many people who want to do bad things can go on the Dark Web without much worry of getting caught.

One of the most disgusting sites in the Dark Web is called the Red Room, where people kidnap and torture others while viewers get to choose the methods online. There are also sites about cannibalism the provide instructions on how to cook people and even some that show cannibalism live on camera.

Probably the most famous Dark Web site was called Silk Road. It was closed by the government in October 2013. According to USA Today, the person who ran it, Ross Ulbricht, is serving life in jail. The Silk Road was an marketplace that offered a variety of illegal services, including hit men for hire and drug sales. According to Mashable.com, the Silk Road made an estimated 9,519,664 Bitcoins, which would be about 6,773,050,542.72 US Dollars from February 6, 2011, to July 23, 2013.This comes to show how much someone can do on a hidden browser.

The reason why this is so important to me is because the people on the Dark Web commit all kinds of crimes. I don’t want to risk my privacy by just going on the regular Internet and have criminals from the Dark Web get my personal information, including where I live, what my name is, and what I look like. Please Next President, at least consider shutting it down.

Thank you for your time,

Ethan Larson

Lab Middle School

Links:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-deep-dark-web-and-how-do-you-access-it

http://www.planetdolan.com/10-disturbing-stories-from-the-deep-web/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/07/nsa-prism-records-surveillance-questions

https://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/releases/2010/domain_names.pdf

http://mashable.com/2013/10/04/silk-road-by-the-numbers/#pekeWKNgOkqK

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.7139v1.pdf

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/29/ulbricht-silk-road-sentencing/28072247/