At the recent 成人VR视频 Institute event titled “Those Darkest Hours鈥�: The Future of American Security, many of these key issues were discussed, including:

• • • The differences between individuals connected with foreign terrorist organizations and domestic violent extremists.
    • The role of professional money launderers and trusted networks in funding domestic terrorism, how domestic extremist financial transactions differ from those of foreign terrorist organizations, and how financial institutions and law enforcement can best follow the money.
    • How social media and other tech platforms play a role in recruitment, radicalization, and retention of domestic violent extremists.
    • Identifying key allies for curtailing fringe behavior and mitigating its risks.
    • The role Corporate America plays in identifying extremist behavior and helping to mitigate it.

In the fight against domestic violent extremists, data and technology are key. However, you need more than data 鈥� you need the human experience as well. Analysts are experts in providing answers to many of these questions and performing in-depth, due diligence research on clients鈥� business partners and customers to ensure that they do not have ties to terrorism 鈥� whether domestic or foreign 鈥� and that they are in compliance with US sanctions and other laws.

This work helps clients mitigate reputational risks by providing background and history, identifying any known links to extremist organizations and possible connections to questionable groups, conducting research on leadership and corporate ownership and control structures, as well as offering glances around the corner 鈥� strategic looks 鈥� at upcoming designations, regulations, and restrictions.

These assessments are more important than ever today as the world relies ever more heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to perform not only compliance and due diligence tasks, but content moderation. Human-driven analysis 鈥� assessing tone, language, colloquialisms, and possible intent 鈥� is critical to challenge the individual perceptions of persecution and marginalization that may set many individuals on a path to violence.

Social media monitoring & analysis

Domestic violent extremists tend to meet and recruit in . These people 鈥� who often feel disenchanted with the current national climate and disenfranchised, isolated, and targeted by Big Tech 鈥� find one another online, fostering feelings of camaraderie among individuals with similar views. They are embraced as family, because of their extremist views, which is often a dynamic they lack in their real life.

Individuals who hold extremist views may never embark on the path to violence, but censoring their ideas, regardless of how extreme they may sound, only reinforces their perception that they are being targeted and oppressed. Challenging those notions requires a human touch.

The White House鈥檚 , published in mid-2021, says that people should not be targeted based on their political views. However, then the challenge lies in how to determine whether unsavory talk is on its way to becoming a violent act. It is critical that we condemn and confront domestic terrorism regardless of the particular ideology that motivates individuals to violence. The definition of 鈥渄omestic terrorism鈥� in our law makes no distinction based on political views 鈥� left, right, or center 鈥� and neither should we.

Just as messaging needs to be cautiously crafted to ensure it does not punish ideas and label them as 鈥渄omestic terrorism,鈥� so too should content moderation be carefully performed to ensure that those individuals who already feel marginalized are not pushed into further isolation. Censorship will confirm their biases and perceptions of suppression, and AI 鈥� while a useful tool 鈥� cannot glean satire, understand cultural norms and references, comprehend colloquialisms, or assess language nuance.

Human-driven analysis can.

Making sense out of reams of data

Expert analysts can help assess content to ensure that legitimate views 鈥� no matter how much they seem out of the mainstream 鈥� are not censored based on words detected by an algorithm. They can examine content, its source, tone, and subtleties. They are regional experts who understand context and culture and can help tech platforms determine whether posted content is simply satire or bluster or may possibly be more than that. They can help platforms ensure that they are not contributing to the further marginalization of individuals who may simply need a way to return to their community, instead of confirming their perception that the entire world is seeking to silence them.

Members of NGOs such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), that facilitates information-sharing and technical collaboration between platforms, will also find human-driven analysis critical when examining hashes 鈥� digital signatures for images or videos that allow members to identify visually similar content 鈥� or other shared information. GIFCT members review content identified by the hashes and share their assessments with other members of the organization, facilitating dialogue between tech platforms and collaboration to ensure that terrorist content is removed from platforms, while working to preserve freedom of expression online.

On a more basic level, human-driven analysis can help make sense of the reams of data generated by tech tools. Whether it鈥檚 conflicting sanctions information, multiple adverse media articles, or contradictory ownership and control information, analysts can help make sense of the data, find the So what? and help companies avoid reputational, regulatory, and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) risk.

Further, human-driven linguistic analysis can identify name variations in multiple languages and transliterations, regional experts can help detect jurisdictional risk, and policy specialists can help companies and financial institutions be proactive in ensuring they stay ahead of the game when regulations change and new policies are implemented.

The criminal aspects of the Dark Web capture the lurid headlines, but such activity accounts for only a small fraction of all Dark Web interactions. And while it is true that criminals operate in the Dark Web, these same tools can also be useful to legal researchers for legitimate purposes. There are times when the ability to browse the Web and track down information without giving away your own identity is important, even necessary.

What makes the Dark Web 鈥渄ark,鈥� are not the nefarious things that sometimes occur there; rather, it is the anonymity it offers. Most search engines keep a very close eye on who you are and what you are searching for. Plenty of ad trackers also want to eavesdrop on your Web life. Websites and e-mail communications have auditable chains between sender and receiver. Indeed, almost all of your online life is conducted and tracked by someone, but it doesn鈥檛 have to be.

Thanks to some clever software and heavy-duty encryption, the Dark Web empowers users to search and communicate without detection by either the authorities or the ever-snooping search engines and trackers that report back to online ad agencies. Undetectable Web activity is obviously valuable to a criminal, but it is equally valuable for many 鈥渘ormal鈥� users. Think of how important keeping one鈥檚 identity and e-mails secret can be for:

1. 1. 1. journalists working with whistleblowers;
      2. citizens in nations that censor the Internet;
      3. businesses that want to keep their legal conduct secret; and
      4. businesses that want to keep tabs on their competitors.

All of this secrecy makes the Dark Web a handy tool for legal researchers. Anonymous browsing is terrific for such everyday research tasks as conducting competitive intelligence gathering, tracking down infringement of copyright or trademarks without tipping off the target, or locating sensitive subjects without revealing your identity. Anonymity also is very helpful for gathering information on individuals or looking around for clues to identity theft. Putting on a disguise before searching the Web is just another way legal researchers can locate useful information effectively yet secretly. The question is: How do you travel these virtual back alleys safely and legally?

Finding Your Way in the Dark

Let鈥檚 demonstrate this through an example. Say your client, Swanky Watches, wants you to track down websites that sell counterfeit Swanky Watches. In the real world, Swanky Watches would report the sale of knock-offs to the police and ask them to chase away the sellers. On the Web, however, bootleggers can set up shop to sell spurious goods or fakes of famous labels. As a legal researcher you want to locate these illegal sites and then monitor their activity to obtain a body of evidence against these pirates before you go to court to stop them.

But these online sellers are not stupid. They know they are a target for law enforcement and maybe even lawyers. They will be watching for any activity that hints that authorities are looking in. Your job is to find these sites and browse them without leaving a trail of electronic breadcrumbs that lead back to your door.

To use the Dark Web without getting burned, start by only ever using a computer that is not connected to your network. The Dark Web seethes with malware, bots, and other nefarious software. You don鈥檛 want to inadvertently compromise the security of your firm鈥檚 network by revealing the IP address of your network or e-mail servers. Chances are excellent that your IT security standards dictate taking great pains to secure the network, often in a way that inconveniences a researcher. This might include tactics like disabling USB ports for flash drives, disallowing access to certain sites and domains, or requiring any downloads from the Internet to be quarantined in a special archive. There is nothing a bad guy would love better than to find a backdoor to a firm鈥檚 network. Respect these security restrictions; use a non-networked computer that connects directly to an ISP.

Building the Tools & Tactics

Your next move is installing a Tor browser (or an Onion browser for iOS users, from the same developers). Tor is a critical component of the Dark Web, essentially the Google of the underground. It is an acronym of The Onion Router, which refers to the many layers of encryption and servers through which Tor-enabled traffic travels. Tor was originally invented to provide web access and secure communications to users in repressive countries with an elaborate technical architecture in order to circumvent censorship. (For a rather technical but detailed explanation of how Tor works, see the 2015 white paper 鈥溾�� by Gareth Owen and Nick Savage, from the Global Commission on Internet Governance. The authors are professors of computing at the University of Portsmouth.)

In fact, Tor and the Dark Web still serve this purpose, especially as governments around the world slide away from liberal democracy, and as free speech rights are threatened. The same architecture admittedly serves as the building blocks of criminal enterprises even as it helps dissidents by allowing Web hosts and users to fly under the radar of the legal authorities. For the researcher, a Tor browser is the safest way to look around the Internet with tipping off who you are to the sites you visit. (You can download online. And while Tor should be enough for most, there are other good Dark Web browsers, such as I2P from the and .)

In addition to the Tor browser, you鈥檒l need an e-mail address that is completely different from your personal account or from your business domain 鈥� as in, don鈥檛 use JaneDoe@BigLawFirm.com. There are any number of sites willing to host your secure generic e-mail, such as and ; just be sure not to connect the account to any of your other e-mail clients or programs.

Now, with your Tor browser, secure e-mail address, and non-network computer, you have the basic technical set-up for access to the Dark Web, However, common sense advice still applies before venturing out to the Dark Web:

• • • cover your computer鈥檚 camera with a piece of opaque tape. It鈥檚 that easy for a site to hijack your camera and spy on
    • Don鈥檛 download anything.
    • Scan for viruses regularly.
    • Be very careful what you click on! Malware, ransomware and other software that could damage your computer and files are common there.

What about locating particular Web sites on the Dark Web? Is there an alternative Google for that? In a sense, yes. Of course, by its very nature, the Dark Web tries to stay out of website directories or catalogs. With the understanding that any links posted there can be quickly out of date, refer to ; or, consider , a Google-accessible Web site that tracks news about the Dark Web. And of course, Tor can also help you locate sites of interest. A simple Google search can turn up Dark Web directories, but these are often obsolete by the time they appear on the public Web.

With some thoughtful planning and by observing some commonsense precautions, the Dark Web can open doors to genuinely private online research and secure communications. Yes, it does have some unsavory aspects 鈥� respect the dangers of accessing sites in this online Wild West.

But when you protect your identity and look out for the security of the computer and networks you use, you can walk through the shadows of the Dark Web safely and productively, opening up a new avenue for finding useful business and legal data in this most unlikely of virtual places.