memories to savor at the end of a weary day. rob mcbride, al jazeera, hong kong. much more news for you anytime on our website. that's aljazeera.com, and details there of turkey's nato meeting that will be held on tuesday to discuss the air strikes. i'm david shuster in for ali threat. we take a deep dive into the darkest corners of the web where no one knows your name and anything i don't say. the trade. . >> the hacking last week of ashley madison, a website that helps married people cheat on their spouses sparked a hand ringing of jokes.

you can't help but see the irony of a website .2 billion credit, debit and prepaid cards. the nielsen reports says it cost the united states $6.2 billion in 2014. once they steal your credit card or number or worse for social

security number hackers pose an invisible threat to privacy and turns to something called the dark web or deep web. a world most of us have not entered. mary snow took a tour. welcome to the underground chat room on the web. not only do have you a person's name, date of birth, you have the email addresses, their passwords, their ip address. their facebook. >> credit card, bank account. you could take over their financial life. >> how much is that worth. >> in this case $8. >> for all that information.

it works with the deal of wall street, selling of banking credit cards, paypal and social security, driver's licences and ip addresses. >> there's reviews. data. >> like a bazar. >> that's what it is. >> with a few key strokes, they are traded like at home depot and others. worth. >> it can be ass little as a couple of dollars. >> couple of dollars. >> $5. >> a credit card alone is worth a dollar, less than a dollar. >> reporter: former black hat hacker, this man made thousands buying credit card numbers and spending their money before he

was caught. >> how easy was it to do it? >> it was very easy. anybody with a computer and limited knowledge on how to use a web browser can do it. >> reporter: that's not good news for 15 million americans that had their credit or bank account information stolen in 2012. total losses are nearly $25 billion a year, $10 billion more than the losses from all other property crime combined making i.d. theft america's fastest growing crime, a crime seen trolling. >> he's saying it's $5 for a dump. i'd use that to encode cards and go to the store and buy things. we'll find out what banks he has and bang accounts. >> within seconds we netted with viking, selling bank of america, express.

>> he's saying $500 for a $20,000ing. that's a good reason. >> reporter: within six minutes you found out you can buy $500 for a $20,000 bank account. just lost it. >> that's right. payment? >> he takes bitcoin. >> and if he uses that it can't be traced. it is faster than cash. there are ways to name transactions anonymous. making it a preferred payment. >> with anonymous payments, chat rooms and websites. it's really tough to know who you are dealing with. >> the data we collect shows that most of the major cyber crime activity comes from russia. the russians tolerate it. >> james lewis worked for the

department of state and commerce and worked with the current administration on cyber policy. he says consumer protection is a foreign policy issue. >> the only russian hackers caught are the ones dumb enough to take vacations outside of russia. if he's smart he'll go to sochi, home free. >> reporter: case in form, carter.su focuses on buying and selling personal information. the u.s. secret service arrested the american head of the site, carter.su, boasting 10,000 members continues trading personal information, allegedly under the eye of the site's founder, russian roman zolatola. for bike shop owner it can be devastating. his shop lost $45,000 in bikes and gear when this man and two others used stolen yessed it

card numbersism. >> the transaction that we did with the three gentlemen in question is no different than anything that we have done in the past. we have probably done 1,000 transactions like that where we swiped the card and it wouldn't go through, so we manually entered it. once it was approved. we received payment. >> in this case the trio used a stolen credit card number and forged credit cards with new i.d. cards. >> it's interesting when something like this happens. it sucks that it happened to me. >> it turned out taylor was not alone. the trio used stolen account information at several stores up denver. >> i believe it was things they could get cash for at pawn shops with little effort. >> it's the same crime our former hacker admitted when he bought credits online. >> i can print out my own card.

go to the store buy a laptop. i made $2,000 in a quick trip to the store. >> in one day. >> in one day. >> it doesn't count. consumers who had their credit cards stolen are not the only ones victimized. scott taylor lost his money. because employees entered account numbers on the phoney credit cards, he said visa told them they will not reimburse them for stolen merchandise. >> what we did wrong was a tiny minor slip-up that koust us several 10,000 dollars. >> we contacted several credit card companies, including visa about the buying and trading of credit cards on the dark web and asked about taylor's case. they said they couldn't comment, but appointed to new technologies called the chip and pin expected to roll out in the upcoming years. they believe it will make the

credit card harder to do. they don't see the protections have been an effect on the black market. it takes time. while. >> when we thought we had seen it all. we were taken deeper. >> they can sell access to its computer so someone can use the computer you own to order things with your information. >> most people know it has been taken over. >> hackers are a step ahead. there's so much funny to be made doing this. they'll find a new way. >> it is enticing to had beeningers facing lit the rivers making the kinds of crime a way of life. >> you are not going to be mugged or shot. they are not going to steal your it's a different crime. they'll state in st. petersburg,

go into your bank account and take money. mary snow joins us. it may be nonviolent, but it's devastating. what was the moment striking thing to you about this peace? >> what was startling is the volume of information available. as you saw when we went on the dark web. how quickly we could communicate with people selling that information, information to valuable sold for dollars. it's been years since the hackers are able to do it. they are not just taking information, but taking over the computer. ordering things, taking over your identity and we don't know f it. >> up next for years the best and brightest hackers were members of an online crime bizarre. it took a global effort to shut it done.

>> brittany menard's decision to take her own life last year. sparked a national debate. >> brittany didn't wan't to die, the brain tumor was killing her, she simply took control over how that process would go. >> now see what her husband is doing to keep his promise to change "right to die" laws nationwide. america tonight only on al jazeera america.

cracking down on cyber crime is not easy, hackers are spread across the world in countries often that will not cooperate with u.s. law enforcement. our next guest says it's no excuse. david from pennsylvania - making headlines announcing that the feds dismanled dark code. prosecutors say it was a mark place selling malicious software, stolen databases and other technology to steal information. the efforts span several countries, targetting 70 people, 12 roasts in the united states. united states. we asked how much of a difference will it make. >> i don't think we can expect the hackers to give up. it's folly to say we should let them have their way. these prosecutions like silk road and dark road are critical. what about the art that it may be a waste of resources.

the office took the unprecedented step of filing charges against people in china, five members of the liberation army, accused of stealing property. but with no extradition treaty, it's a futile effort. what about the argument that may be it should be spent on other people. >> i disagree. i'm an advocate of criminal law. we have been active in pittsburgh, bringing a series of cases. you mentioned one. one announced last may. we indicted five members of the chinese p.l.a. i think it's vital that we bring cases like that one. we brought one two weeks later last june, the most notorious cyber hacker and put a bounty on him, $3 million for his capture in conjunction with the state department and the f.b.i.

bringing these law enforcement actions is critical if we are to stem the tide of this cyber threat that we face. . >> is it a symbolic exercise, everyone would love them to be arrested, but without an symbolic. >> i disagree. the argument was made with regard to drug cartels terrorizing the united states 20 years ago. some of those criminals in central and south america are in american prisons. we are dealing with a new threat in a dynamic environment. we must reverse the default decision of allowing the crimes to be committed. the fact that it's difficult to bring them to justice is no reason not to. i expect that i said we'll bring the five individuals from the p la to justice.

i hope to bring them to justice in pittsburgh. the progress over the last year where we had 12 countries cooperating and 20 last week in the darko case reflects momentum that many countries recognise that their citizens are victims and there is no argument that i can accept, that would suggest we can do nothing about it. >> fair point. as a country looking at this, seeing that they may need to be china? >> we asked china publicly. the attorney-general eric holder said at the press conference that we have asked for china's help. difficult. we do it not because it's easy, but because it's hard. the problem of cyber intrusions, whether you are talking about stealing intellectual property of the company, taking the private data of individual

citizens, threatens the public we'll gar and livelihood of -- welfare and livelihood of citizens. law enforcement and criminal indictments is a tool in the toolbox. i'm happy that we have been part of opening up that avenue of attack. >> next - digital crime scenes don't have yellow tape. law enforcement is hard at work finding criminals. >> investigating a dark side of the law >> they don't have the money to puchace their freedom... >> for some...crime does pay... >> the bail bond industry has been good to me.... i'll make a chunk of change off the crime... >> fault lines, al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning investigative series... chaising bail only on al jazeera america

>> i'll have two or three puffs and i'll already have a nicotine buzz. >> a popular smoking alternative.

from ebay to amazon and alibaba, the internet revolution eyed how we shop. global retail e-commerce sales are projected to double from

$840 billion last year to more than 1.5 trillion in 2018. the we are's concleans and speed made it intention for a business to reach consumers and their wallets, and that includes businesses run by criminals like ros ulbricht, the founder of silk road. it helped buyers purchase heroin, cocaine, l.s.d. and other jobs. prosecutors said it generated more than $200 million in before it was shut down. the privacy and annom imity came to something called tore, the door that opens the dark web. it's the onion router and software includes features that resemble the layers of an monnion, making the dark web a place where people and groups operate outside the war. mary snow took a tour of the online world where anything goes and everything is for

sale. >> on the dark web sites advertising everything from heroin to hit men, sex to automatic rifles, are hidden behind layers of anonymity. taking me on a tour, former black hack hacker, dan. >> so they are selling tasers, knives - something they have at oozy for $9 or $10. >> reporter: is this typical of the weapons you see . >> i think so. >> no bag ground threat. >> yes. >> so anyone could buy this machine-gun, as long as they had money. >> that's right. >> created by the u.s. navy, the mission of the dark web was to protect confidential military secret and have open source intelligence, using a programme called tore, a labyrinth of virtual tunnels, by avoiding a direct connection, tore allows individuals to share public networks without compromising

privacy. it was adopted by journalists and activists in foreign countries like iran and syria, where information is censored. it was not long before nefarious characters found marketplace they could operate without beak -- being discovered. we saw sites where drugs, guns were for sale. stolen identification. no one is going to come and police us. how is this able to happen? because people can't police you. because the way that you find a computer is through the ip address. when you go in through tor, there's no ip address. you could enter from anywhere in the world. how will anyone find you. >> and tor created by the navy, never envisioning the dark side of what they were creating. this is a problem of a lot of

policies, that we never imagined and done what we called crime proofing, where we thought about how what we developed could be misused and abused by non-state actors. it's like pandora's box. it can't be shut back in. dr louise shelly is a founder of terrorism transnational crime and corruption center, and leads a team of researchers monitoring cyber crime and the dark web. at george mairch university. >> tor takes your ip address and sends it around through a software and spits out a different ip address on the other side, making it difficult for people to find out where you are from or who your. >> they showed us how easy it is to get set up on the dark web. in a matter of minutes he changing our ip address from virginia to new york. >> i can say we are from seattle.

switzerland, i can say what i want. now we are dark, you know, we don't know where we are coming from. >> now we can slip into another world. to operate in this world we need to set up an encrypted email. we'll need crypto currency bitcoin so purchases can't be traced. the first stop is the hidden wicky, a guide to sites and products. on of ever-growing dark web. this is the most up-to-date collection. >> so these websites, the links change often. and that's because they are shut down or busted. >> case in point, the infamous silk road. the comers site boasted that it was the largest marketplace on the dark web at the time it was seized and founder ross ulbricht was arrested. ross ulbricht in 2013. days later. a new commerce site 2.5 went up

and the buying and selling of illicit its continued. >> they can hire a hacker, experienced hacker, never had a real job. had the time to get good of hacking. and made a good amount of money. this time last year, it was believed there was 18,000 products on the dark web. today there was 9,000 listed across the black market. two-thirds of the in vent ris are drugs. the rest include weapons, stolen credit cards. malware and hitman for higher. solutions to common problems. we are an organised criminal group, former soldiers and mercenaries from the fsl. high ranking political. someone missing in access, $240,000, death by accident. $300,000. to paralyse them, as much as $120,000. we don't know if it's real. >> we don't. what they say on here, how do we know you are not scammers, we

don't take prepayments. >> hard to believe this can't be policed. >> very difficult. the dark web is a good place to engage in this criminal trait. james wrote the best selling cyber space, and said many of those running the site are in foreign countries where the u.s. does not have extradition treaties or a foreign policy in place. >> the dark web is largely invisible to law enforcement. that means that all of the illegal activities kind of moved to the dark web and human trafficking, n.a.r.c.o.t., counterfeiting, illicit arms trade. >> teens, young naked girls, real rape - do you find a lot of those? >> when it comes to sex sites you can find just about anything. >> there are 50,000 of these

human trafficking sites on the dark web with the traffickers spending $250 million posting 60 million advertisements. between encryption, bitcoins and the dark web, prosecuting crimes linked to the sites is difficult. unlike a crime scene which has tape surrounding a street corner, the internet is the 21st century crime scene. the evidence that we need to find is found historically. >> being able to track the digital footprint was nearly impossible until recently. the u.s. defense advance research projects agency built a programme called number of emex. right now, it is only in the hands of a few agencies. manhattan district attorney sex trafficking unit was among them.

what memex does is trawl the entire web, not just the crust. as it crawls the web, it's alt look for with specialised technology, things like photographs or match phone numbers that are embedded in different photographs and to pull them up and put them in a manageable database, when we can access review. the technology lead to two convctions and eight indictments in new york city. >> i heard law enforcement refer to this as waca mole. is that how you describe it in terms of trying to shut one side down. >> yes . and the problem is that many of the people working in government are not as flexible as the criminals. we are dealing with a nimble opponent. >> and we are losing.

>> yes. that is the show for today. i'm david shuster in for ali velshi. >> hi bae. in my school, no one gives a (bleep) if i'm gay or not. but at home, it's just harder to be myself. >> i really want my father to just tell me. i support you and i love my gay son. >> i go to lubbock high school, which is really intense and rigorous. first, i wanted to pursue maybe science or law, but i can't imagine my life without dance. >> not only do i have to apply for the colleges academically, i also have to audition.