Chapter 2 (1/2)

Chapter 2: Galactic Dark Net

“DNA verified, Dark Web Entry Sequence activating.”

“Connection successful, accessing Galactic High Speed Internet. Initializing…”

“Setting initialized, accessing the Galactic Dark Net”

“Login success, welcome to the Galactic Dark Net”

The whole screen suddenly changed and opened a strange website shrouded by a dark atmosphere. There was a skull icon on the top of the page, with both sides showing the current connection speed and a slew of unknown numbers. In the center of the page, Galactic Dark Net was displayed in a large luminescent font, with an “Enter” button below it.

The Galactic Dark Net?!

Han was shocked. He was well versed in computers, so he had heard about the dark net.

……

In simple words, the dark net comprises a deeper level of the internet, and contains all the hidden websites and data within the internet. Just like an iceberg, the tip represents the websites that you can find through a traditional search engine, whereas the rest below the water is where the dark net is. Normal people can’t access them and most don’t even know the existence of the dark net. Even if they do, without the proper software, authorization, and help of expert hackers, it is almost impossible to access them.

And that is not all. The most fascinating part about the dark net is that it has no regulations. Things like drugs, firearms, bioweapons and everything else that are prohibited by law are all traded openly on the dark net. No search engine can pick up the data hosted on them, and not even the undercover police can do anything about it because every post is anonymous due to software that can change the IP addresses up to hundreds of times every second. So, if someone wants to track a dark net site in the long term, they will require a lot of resources and labor. Even then, all efforts are most likely in vain.

Last year, there was a case involving the dark net that gathered the world’s attention. A dark web site called the Greyscale Grid had sent location and security details of all the cash carrying armored vans of major cities to the criminals with super powers. These outlaws then proceeded to rob these armored vans and it was reported that they paid a portion of the loot to the host of Greyscale Grid.

Furthermore, it wasn’t just money they robbed, but also women, art, jewellery, anything valuable or fun. There was another incident instigated by Greyscale Grid where a female Hollywood celebrity was kidnapped by these people, and she was forced to shoot sex tapes which were then sold on the dark net. Then, a rich old psycho found these people, paid them a ton of money and demanded to see this celebrity killed on tape. The celebrity was raped and murdered on camera, with the video broadcasted live. This murder was truly an example of the lawless and unethical nature of the dark net.

Of course this horrible incident enraged the world, but the United Government does not have the ability to monitor or investigate anything that happens in the dark net. Instead, they set a bounty of $1,000,000,000 UC and hired a team of elite hackers, some who were among the top in the world. The case was finally solved but with only two criminals being arrested, and the rest disappearing into thin air.

After the case, Han had heard that the hackers that helped the police only did because they had grudges against the founder of Greyscale Grid. The hackers also run a similar website as Greyscale Grid but lost a lot of its business to it, so if it wasn’t because of the conflicts between the two criminal groups, the police wouldn’t have been even close to solving the case.