Reflection from 4th Week

Reflection from 4th Week

     So we didn't have Dr. Kinghorn with us at all this past week! However, on Tuesday we had the opportunity to meet with out groups, which was very beneficial. When we met in our group, we were really able to have a good discussion about Facebook. Facebook is the topic our group was assigned to present. I never realized how effective class could be without a teacher! Sorry Dr. Kinghorn! IT was just interesting to see how we all have different knowledge and can teach one another--after all, we each have experience with both Psychology and especially with social media. We were also able to just get a bunch of technical stuff done, like assigning specific parts to individuals. That way we can each have an area of focus when we present.


     On Thursday, we had a guest lecturer. That was actually a really interesting lecture, because we learned a lot about Darknet. I had never heard the term "darknet" before.

A darknet is a private network that is intentionally hidden and inaccessible without specific software, configurations or authorization. These can be F2F networks (usually for file-sharing) where connections are made only between trusted peers (sometimes called "friends")^[2] or anonymity networks such as Tor. The Dark Web is the most commonly known subsection of the Darknet which is also part of the Deep web — the part of theWeb that is not indexed in standard search engines.^[3]

Darknets for F2F file-sharing are distinct from other distributed peer-to-peer networks as sharing is anonymous (that is, the IP addresses of peers are not publicly shared).^[4]

Even though I had never heard the term "darknet" before, I realized something. I was familiar with a darknet. I have a "techie" younger brother who seems to know everything about computers. He has a whole network of friends he's met online through World of Warcraft and a whole host of other things I'm sure I'm not aware of. When I was younger, my brother invited me into a file sharing system. He told me that you can only get in if you are invited, and you can literally get anything you want from this file sharing net--movies, expensive software...anything! It sounded great to me. He taught me about the peer-to-peer file sharing. My brother said that you need to upload as much as you download, so you always have a ratio of "1". On your profile it shows your seeding to downloading ratio, and anything less than 1 is a really disgraceful thing. So my brother was always "seeding", or uploading. Anything he downloaded, he would seed right back into the system. Of course I do not use this because it is illegal, but it is interesting to have been on the other side. I've been to the dark side!