The appaling truth behind the dark web raises red flags for child abuse

A recent study of the web, designed to dissect traffic to hidden websites, revealed a shocking reality that most of hidden-site traffic goes to sites dealing with child pornography and abuse.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Onion Router, commonly known as Tor, is an online system that allows people to use the web anonymously. This anonymity encouraged people to set up hidden ".onion" sites.

The hidden sites offer a way to sell content that is illegal in the open. The sites most popular by volume go to the sale of illegal drugs.

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Leader of the study, Dr. Gareth Owen from the University of Portsmouth, set up servers to join the hidden networking software. During his six month research, he found "that more than four-in-five visits to dark websites were for the purpose of viewing child pornography, accounting for more than fives times as much traffic as any other category received," making up more than 75% of traffic.

"When we found this out we were stunned," he said. "This is not what we expected at all."

While the results are horrific, the study has many faults.

Many of the hidden websites created using Tor rarely stay up for more than a week. Owen's study doesn't take into account the length of a website's existence. Owen's traffic-detecting software also does not recognize which percentage of the traffic comes from an actual person, and which comes from "crawlers" ran by law enforcement policing abuse sites.

Regardless of the actual amount of traffic going to the sites, the truth remains, the child pornography sites are being created and viewed through the dark web.

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The startling statistics of child pornography on Tor takes away from those using the network positively. Going through Tor allows human rights activists and journalists anonymity and security, but that's overshadowed by the true darkness of hidden sites on Tor.

"Before we did this study, it was certainly my view that the dark net is a good thing," said Owen. But it's hampering the rights of children and creating a place where pedophiles can act with impunity."

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