The deep dark net

This week we had a guest teacher as our Professor was away on business with all the other Psychology Professors. Our guest teacher taught me something I never knew truly existed. Since that lecture, I have been shocked to the core with this new discovery and has even sparked curiosity as it would many people but my fear of what I might find is greater than my want to research so I won't even try.

So he taught us about TOR which previously was shortened for The Onion Router but now it's just T.O.R. Pretty much what it is is a free software that enables online anonymity and censorship resistance. Anyone who uses it will be very difficult to trace down their internet activities, websites they visited etc. It is not impossible, but it is very difficult. Then he goes on to say that TOR is truly the deep deep dark of the internet. You can if you want to, order someone to kill an enemy if you have the resources. It was frightening for me to find that out because although the world is not very friendly I was ignorant toward the fact that what I once saw on movies actually happens in real life. I have always loved action and thrillers and when the teacher was talking about assassins, human trafficking, mafia etc I thought of some of my favorite action movies such as Taken,  Kill Bill, Hitman, Shooter and the list goes on.

The lecture also took me back to my mission where my companion and I came face to face with a member of the mafia gang. That was also a shocking experience. I don't know if it seems that I have been living under a rock but before that encounter I truly believed Mafia only existed in movies. Man was I wrong.

So far we have been talking about the good social media does and it sure does a lot of good. I am convinced that the internet in and of itself is good, matter fact I believe it is a gift to enhance our learning. The 'bad' really comes from those behind the internet, 'us'. The internet is a tool to be acted upon not the other way around. When we allow what it out there to control our lives, that's when its bad. TOR simply provides a way for us to remain anonymous in all our online activities but at the end of the day, it is our choice to search for whatever it is we search for.

I am thankful that modern day prophets and apostles touch on this issue conference after conference because it is a real danger when we allow ourselves to be acted upon by the internet.