Toggle light / dark theme

The “Dark Web” is a hidden corner of the internet that is home to many things people want to keep in the shadows: drugs, counterfeits, stolen items, and so on.

But there are also far stranger elements.

A popular thread on Reddit once asked the simple question, “What’s your Deep Web story?” In other words, the Reddit user was asking people to share any weird experiences they had encountered while using anonymous web services to access secret websites.

Read more

Liviu Babitz is not content waiting around for evolution to improve upon his human form. Like other transhumanists, Babitz believes that science and technology can take a person’s intelligence, physical performance and psychological state to the next level, all in less than the span of a single lifetime.

To that end, he helped develop North Sense, a small silicone gadget that detects magnetic north. This is not a GPS device, nor a tracker. It’s not even connected to the Internet nor any other network. This is a new sensory organ designed to be pierced to a person’s body and vibrate each time the wearer faces magnetic north.

The idea is that over time, the brain will assimilate the vibration into the everyday human experience, enhancing it. That will open a person up to a world that exists beyond his or her own current capabilities.

Read more

Meet TOR the Dark Web’s friend. It does many of the same capabilities like a Google except your IP address is hidden. There are rules about using the site that a person signing up must agree to such as not going to sights that bogs down the performance, etc.


Ever wondered how cyber criminals meet online. How do they conduct their meetings and operations? Is it anyway near your Hollywood fantasy? Check this post to know about various anonymous platforms of hacker dealings!

Read more

I can honestly state there is already one that folks are using; I would suggest DARPA should assess it and maybe acquire it. As it would give them a jump start and they can enhance it for their own needs.


In today’s data-rich world, companies, governments and individuals want to analyze anything and everything they can get their hands on – and the World Wide Web has loads of information. At present, the most easily indexed material from the web is text. But as much as 89 to 96 percent of the content on the internet is actually something else – images, video, audio, in all thousands of different kinds of nontextual data types.

Further, the vast majority of online content isn’t available in a form that’s easily indexed by electronic archiving systems like Google’s. Rather, it requires a user to log in, or it is provided dynamically by a program running when a user visits the page. If we’re going to catalog online human knowledge, we need to be sure we can get to and recognize all of it, and that we can do so automatically.

How can we teach computers to recognize, index and search all the different types of material that’s available online? Thanks to federal efforts in the global fight against and weapons dealing, my research forms the basis for a new tool that can help with this effort.

DARPA’s Tactical Undersea Network Architecture (TUNA) program recently completed its initial phase, successfully developing concepts and technologies aimed at restoring connectivity for U.S. forces when traditional tactical networks are knocked offline or otherwise unavailable. The program now enters the next phase, which calls for the demonstration of a prototype of the system at sea.

TUNA seeks to develop and demonstrate novel, optical-fiber-based technology options and designs to temporarily restore radio frequency (RF) tactical data networks in a contested environment via an undersea optical fiber backbone. The concept involves deploying RF network node buoys—dropped from aircraft or ships, for example—that would be connected via thin underwater fiber-optic cables. The very-small-diameter fiber-optic cables being developed are designed to last 30 days in the rough ocean environment—long enough to provide essential connectivity until primary methods of communications are restored.

“Phase 1 of the program included successful modeling, simulation, and at-sea tests of unique fiber-cable and buoy-component technologies needed to make such an undersea architecture work,” said John Kamp, program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. “Teams were able to design strong, hair-thin, buoyant fiber-optic cables able to withstand the pressure, saltwater, and currents of the ocean, as well as develop novel power generation concepts.”

Read more

cyber-attack

The revival of the Cold War attitudes between the U.S. and Russia are just the beginning of the an expanding scene of digital vulnerabilities and shocks to the system that could shut down the grid, cut off grocery and supply lines or leave millions without power in the cold. With global tension, the pretext could come from anywhere:

From Mac Slavo:

The coming era could be the age of electronic disruption, as ATMs, power grids, bank accounts, Internet servers and other important entities in society are intercepted, taken down, hacked or shut off by criminals and commandos in the ongoing cyberwar. Dissidents will be flagged and cut off from their accounts. Natural disasters will compound with these factors, testing the infrastructure and the integrity of the people themselves, who are in danger of devolving into civil unrest.

Read more

QC in the mainstream is definitely viable less than 7 yrs. and possible within 5 yrs. However, I have a friend who even believes we’re looking at 3 years.


Internet security, once considered to be strictly in the domain of the wonkiest tech experts, has become central to public discourse over the past year. Besides the attacks on the DNC, even tech savvy business like Snapchat, Oracle and Verizon Enterprise Solutions have had significant breaches in the last year.

For the most part, these attacks were preventable. Often, hackers use a technique called social engineering, to trick people into allowing them into a system. Other times, they exploit a vulnerability in software to give them access to confidential data. In most cases, more stringent procedures can prevent attacks.

However, there is a more serious crisis coming. In five to ten years, we are likely to see quantum computers that are so powerful that they are able to break even the strongest encryption in use today. That means that soon, even our most vital and well protected data will be at risk. So if you want to protect your businesses, you should start preparing now.

The answer may be counter-intuitive: Not only can Bitcoin be widely adopted under a supply cap, its trust and integrity are a direct result of a provably limited supply. As a result, it will flourish because it is capped.

Everyone Can Own and Trade a Limited Commodity, IF…

…if it is both measurable and divisible. Bitcoin has a capped supply just as gold has a capped supply. Although both assets will be mined for some time into the future, there is only so much that will ever be uncovered. Thereafter, the total pie cannot grow.

But the transaction units will continue to grow as needed, because the pie is divisible into very, very tiny units:

There will eventually be 21 million BTC and each coin is divisible into 108 units. This yields (21 million * 100 million), or 21 trillion exchangeable units. And, it can be divided further by consensus.

As Bitcoin is adopted—whether as a simple payment instrument, an investment asset or even as national currencies around the world—each unit of the limited supply simply rises in value. If thought of as a currency, with a value established by supply & demand, it leads to a deflationary economy.

But, Isn’t Deflation Bad for the Economy?

It’s common to associate deflation with economic ills. One need only glance back at the the last century to conclude that deflation coincides with wars, joblessness, recession and a crippling concentration of wealth. Perhaps, just as bad, the tools used to pull a nation out of deflation often force governments to cherry pick beneficiaries of stimulus spending.

But it is important to note that deflation plays no role in causing these things. On the contrary, it is an effect rather than a cause… In fact, when a supply cap is introduced as a designed control input for monetary policy, all sorts of good things follow. I address these in various answers at Quora. Dig in:

Philip Raymond co-chairs Cryptocurrency Standards Association. He was host and producer of The Bitcoin Event in New York. In his spare time, he edits A Wild Duck