The Darkness of The Web

Tim Birners-Lee, admits, the web he created 28 years ago, has strayed from what he imagined - a platform of ubiquity, for opportunity and collaboration and the dilution of geographic and cultural boundaries.

It has become less than what he envisioned.

The net is now an interesting place. It is Robert Browning’s modern version of the Pied Piper, and it’s not Hamelin that is rat-infested, but how the net is being used and the tune it is playing.

Its charm and appeal is the accessibility of information it serves, the knowledge it can provide, the entertainment it creates, but increasingly the dangers that hide within its deep abyss create an overwhelming concerning. It is playing a different tune to that of what Browning’s Pied Piper’s tune achieved.

Analogies are great, and the comparison between the net and Hamelin is an interesting dichotomy.

The Pied Piper played a magical tune, and the net’s lure, its free content of sites in exchange for personal data – is a problem that has grown wildly out of control.

Trading and capturing data is an issue on every level, and its our children who are becoming victims of the trolls who stalk the net for the personal information of children exposing and taking advantage of their innocence and vulnerability.

The seemingly harmless games they play online, or sites they sign up to like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Skype, are opening doors to the dark web where predators lurk and prey.

A child’s personal data is now identifiable. The opportunity to trade on that information to those who could be made available and sold to anyone on the dark web, has become a sad reality.

It is a market allowing predators access to confidential information previously unavailable.

Children are now susceptible to phishing and malware attacks because their information can be hacked and the intent by individuals that harbour within the dark web are using that information for personal gain.

The risk of Australian children falling foul to lurking predators, sees them at greater risk than ever before to harm, whether it be physical, emotional or mental abuse. 

Their exposure and what lies behind the insidious side of the web, means controlling captured and traded information and who is accessing it becomes an increasingly difficult task and the vulnerability of children continues to grow daily at an exponential rate.

Security In depth’s State of Cyber Security In Australia Report, 2018, recently released, shows 23% of Australian children under 18 are accessing games online, while 97% under 18, access both social media and online games.

Eight million Australian children now use online games and social media applications.

The Report also shows when children sign up to on line games and social media services, each application or service requests a child accepts the terms and conditions of use.

It’s hard to conceive how any child has the legal capacity to accept and understand terms and conditions put before them, especially when adults themselves fail to comprehend them.

The State of Cyber Security In Australia 2018 Report reveals a harrowing picture of despair. It shows a canvass on the horizon now littered with 45% of 8-11year old’s in Australia using social networking sites unchecked.

Social media applications capture personal identifiable information like name, date of birth, email address and password, and if that isn’t enough to create concern, those very same sites are also capable of secretly recording our conversations, likes, dislikes, where we go, where we live and who we visit.

The net is no longer a place of information for research and knowledge, it has become a place designed for ill-intention and racked with mechanisms and capabilities that still leave us incapable of coherently understanding the true insidious nature of what lies within.

The net is not a bad place if used correctly and the right approaches and strategies are adopted to manage and control its use and it is the children who now at risk and are most vulnerable to the pitfalls and darkness of what the web can and has to offer.

Social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Skype are the favourites amongst Australian children and teens and their exposure to the perils raise at alarming rates.

The statistics around the security of social media sites is a damning insight into how vulnerable we all are, especially children. The statistics reinforce why we should be alarmed and vigilant around security and privacy.

Snapchat has experienced a number of data breaches where 55k of its user account details were hacked in 2017, an employee data breach in 2016 with a further 4.6 million users information breached in 2014.

Facebook isn’t without its issues, and only this year, saw the private information of 87 million users world-wide, hacked.

In 2017, 6 million of Instagram’s users had their accounts breached while Skype continues to have massive security issues and vulnerabilities.

The web is a far more dangerous place than what Tim Birners-Lee had ever intended, if left unchecked without any strategies developed to protect those most vulnerable, then we have failed to safeguard their safety.