Traveling The Silk Road to the Deep Web’s Darkest Corner
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Via a popular online service, cocaine, prescription pills and heroin may just be a mouse click away from reaching your child
There is a scene in Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 film Traffic in which a teenage girl says something that has become, for the most part, a generally recognized truth about high school. “For someone my age,” the character says, “it’s a lot easier to get drugs than it is to get alcohol.”
Indeed, typing the term “easier to get drugs than alcohol” into a Google search box returns more than 12,000 pages, with thousands upon thousands of Internet users stating what many parents fear - that for their children, obtaining illegal drugs is anything but a challenge. What most parents are unaware of, however, is how the Internet is potentially making it even easier for youth to obtain drugs. In the 21st century, teens do not necessarily have to seek out dealers to procure marijuana or cocaine; in fact, scoring illicit substances these days could be as simple as turning on a monitor and making a few mouse clicks. At first glance, the Silk Road - a popular online marketplace - looks like any other website; just passing by, one likely wouldn’t be able to distinguish the service from eBay, Craigslist or any of the myriad other electronic bazaars on the Internet.