+ WEEK FOUR REFLECTION POST

I really enjoyed our guest lecturer, Paul Wilson, for class yesterday. I had never even heard of The Dark Web prior to this class, so the lecture was not only informative, but also pretty eye opening.

I have been aware of the rather awful things you can find on the Internet for a while. I guess I am specifically referring to pornography. And honestly, learning about the dark web, and the fact that the surface web that I access on a daily basis is literally only the tip of the iceberg in what can be found on this little thing we call the world wide web is rather remarkable and horrifying all at the same time. All that is out there is hard to fathom, especially the filth that is out there. I don't really feel that there is much good to the TOR but I will list a couple of things that can be beneficially from this sort of network:

+ Spreading news that the government is trying to keep covered, especially in places like China.

+ The FBI having access to this network and being able to possible catch criminals, though based on our discussion it doesn't seem that this is a big thing they do, though they use it often.

+ And maybe, it is good for all the "bad guys" (not saying everything on the TOR is bad, but majority of it is...I am little biased) to have a place where they can all hang out. 

Paul Wilson brought up an interesting point about the dark web by referring to it as a honey pot. People using TOR often create things that "are too good to resist" and end up catching exactly who they were after in the first place. I think that a lot of the "bad" people on the Internet are pretty smart and know exactly how to get what they are after. When young people go out looking for porn or even stumble upon it, it tends to have that stickiness effect similar to honey. They become trapped even by an initial encounter, and the further they go, the more sticky they get. We also learned that most children access pornography in their grandparents homes because of the lack of filters. I think that one of the articles a classmate was assigned to read on our FB group also mentioned that they first see it at a friends house. Filters are always a good practice, but I also think that as parents (or as a future parent) that we must be vigilant and aware of what are children are doing on the web and with their friends. 

I also think it is interesting the perspective of the Church and some modern science is adding to the dangers of pornography and its addictive nature. It will be interesting to see if our views on the dangers of pornography change in the next 20 years. It will also be interesting to see if use of the TOR expands over this time. I really liked our guest lecturer and I think we could have a really great class discussion about this!