![]() ![]() Much like the Cold War era depiction of a clandestine agent meeting his/her source at a “safe spot” or communicating with agents via dead drops, the Dark Web in many ways can be thought of as the cyber means through which two intelligence professionals can safely meet and exchange information in neutral grounds. Whereas from an intelligence operations perspective, the Dark Web can also be viewed as neutral grounds for two parties who wish to anonymously engage in the exchange of information, weapons, and national security secrets. The ability to understand illicit trade on the Dark Web as it applies to national security requires us to consider concepts such as supply, demand, vendor reputation, etc. From an economic perspective, we should consider that the primary application of the Dark Web, thus far, has been as a marketplace used by those wishing to engage in illicit trade. There is, of course, the underlying national security perspective that should drive our foundational understanding – however, of equal importance are both the economic and intelligence operations perspectives. Understanding the Dark Web’s application to the future of cyberwarfare requires us to view the problem from multiple perspectives. We are aware that there is not necessarily a clean split between issues of law enforcement and national security concern again, our intent here is to narrow our focus onto those threats that have unique national security implications. – these are issues that this paper defines as falling into the realm of national security. Weapons proliferation, terrorism, intelligence gathering & extortion, malicious services-for-hire, etc. – these are issues that this paper defines as falling into the realm of law enforcement. Drug trafficking, financial fraud, counterfeit goods, illegal pornography, etc. ![]() This paper will narrow its scope by focusing solely on the national security considerations of the Dark Web, and not those issues that delve into the realm of domestic law enforcement. We will then build upon this framework of viewing the Dark Web as a landscape so that we may illustrate its applications to both the kinetic and digital aspects of human warfare. Accordingly, this paper will seek to establish a conceptual framework of the Dark Web as a sort of landscape characterized by a series of threat issues and threat actors that national security professionals should be aware of. We use quotations in our initial introduction of Dark Web because it is known by many names and is often conflated with similar terms that characterize other related concepts (such as the Deep Web). A recent evolution that this paper will focus on is the “Dark Web”, to include how this aspect of the Internet has affected national security over the last decade as well as how it may affect national security in the years to come. The primary takeaway of the above is that warfare has always and will always continue to evolve. Most recently, humanity engineered a capability to share information almost instantaneously throughout the globe via the Internet we then subsequently found ways to use that same global connectivity to hold each other’s critical infrastructure at risk. We launched satellites into space, and then we created anti-satellite weapons to destroy those same satellites that we had put into space. We fought each other first over land, then the sea, and then the air. As warfare expands, so do the domains in which it is fought. ![]() ![]() From the moment that early hunters crafted the first spear, from the first war to occur between two tribes, to the modern warfare dynamics of today’s world – war has evolved in parallel with mankind. Warfare is an ever-changing discipline that has evolved alongside human civilization for nearly all of recorded history. The Role of the Dark Web in Future Cyber Wars to Come ![]()
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