DARPA officials estimate that only 1 to 5 percent of the “surface” Internet is seen by most people. But criminal syndicates – such as human traffickers – operate in the “dark net,” which is any part of the Web not indexed by commercial services.
Now DARPA is developing “the next generation of search technologies,” called Memex, to “revolutionize” search engines.
DARPA plans to use Memex to fight human trafficking, which uses hidden services to attract customers and enables “a growing industry of modern slavery,” DARPA officials say. Fundamentally changing the way search engines work, they add, would help defeat the traffickers.
