TED Talks - Jamie Bartlett: How the mysterious dark net is going mainstream

There’s a parallel Internet you may not have run across yet — accessed by a special browser and home to a freewheeling collection of sites for everything from anonymous activism to illicit activities. Jamie Bartlett reports from the dark net.

Best of TED - Marc Goodman: A vision of crimes in the future

The world is becoming increasingly open, and that has implications both bright and dangerous. Marc Goodman paints a portrait of a grave future, in which technology's rapid development could allow crime to take a turn for the worse.

Hellhole cities on the rise in America

The tax base in many areas of United States has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left the country.  Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. 
Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent.  That was the fifth year in a row with a decline. 
So what are cities doing to make ends meet?  Well, one big trend is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid of huge numbers of employees. 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workers off this year.  Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut back in many areas of the country.

Below an incredible collection of stories from the hellholes:

Street lights get repossessed because of unpaid electric bills
Police does no longer prosecute domestic violence cases in order to save money.
Municipality stops sending out pension checks to retired workers.
City rips up asphalt roads and replaces them with gravel because gravel is cheaper to maintain.
City eliminates the entire public bus system.
Nearly half of all the people in Detroit can't read.
One out of every ten homes sells for under $10,000.
You can literally buy a house for one dollar.
Hundreds of people living in the tunnels underneath the streets.

Nearly half of the public schools in the city shut down because of a lack of money.

10 most dangerous cities in the world.
Prostitution and drug dealing are two of the only viable businesses that remain.
Police chief announces that the police department will no longer respond to calls about burglary and identity theft due to very deep budget cuts.

Best of TED: Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers!

Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.

Global illicit trades 2011

If you thought the most profitable illicit trade was drugs or weapons well think again:

Rough estimated market size of illicit
goods based on public sources
(in USD billion)

Counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs: 200
Prostitution: 190
Marijuana: 140
Counterfeit electronics: 100
Cocaine: 80
Opium and heroin: 60
Web video piracy: 60
Software piracy: 50
Cigarette smuggling: 50
Human trafficking: 30
Environmental crimes and natural resources trade: 20
Logging: 5
Art and cultural artefacts: 5
Small arms: 1

Source: Havocscope and experts