Darknet Marketplace ‘Alphabay’ is Shutdown… for now

Have you ever been on the deep web? It’s a pretty scary place. For those of you who prefer the more sensible (and legal) parts of the internet, the deep web is often just best avoided. Even more terrifying is the Darknet, which is, generally speaking, the especially illegal parts of the deep web. Well, it’s slightly less scary… for now, as one of the major market places on the dark web, Alphabay, has been shutdown by the FBI.

How does the Darknet work?

A little difficult to explain, but put simply, your average internet search engine, such as google or yahoo tends to filter out a lot of content. Why? well because some of it is rubbish, some of it is virus ridden, some of it is immoral and some of it is outright illegal. The common analagy to this is using the following icerberg diagram.

Searching on the Deep Web, although a bit dodgy, is simply the removal of these protective filters. It is access to literally everything on the internet, whether you should be looking at it or not. At the risk of uproar in the comments, I am not suggesting using the Deep Web makes you a criminal. Doing that would be like accusing all Kodi users of piracy (a subject that gets the blood pumping in some groups and individuals). The real issue here, aside from the whole illegal pornography side, which, one again, I’m not getting into here, is the Dark Net.

What can you do on the Dark Net?

On the Dark Net you can pretty much, buy anything, a hitman, drugs, fake/forged documents, guns etc. Clearly not a nice place to visit for the mostly sane among us. We reported earlier in the year how, for example, stolen Uber account information was being sold on the Dark Net. Therefore the shutdown of one of the major ‘marketplaces’, Alphabay, is a clear step in the right direction, there is just one problem… how long will this last?

The report of the shutdown of Alphabay, via NextPowerUp, is good news for those of us who prefer illegal products out of people’s hands. The problem is, however, how long will this last? If the internet has proven anything, it’s that its hard to keep a popular website down. The Pirate Bay, years after officially being shut, continues to operate. It has managed this by using proxy websites. In addition, Torrentz, a major illegal download search engine continues to operate. These Devils continue to get new disguises.

I daresay that by the time you read this, Alphabay will likely be active again. That is the nature of the beast. However, at least the shutdown of this Darknet site, for a time, gave the internet a tiny bit of sanity. Just telling you about this place makes me feel like this guy…