The dark web turns 20 this month. From black market hotspots to facilitating the Arab Spring, here's how it changed the world.

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2017–2020: Law enforcement embarks on a more successful crackdown on dark-web crime, leading threat actors to abandon the service in favor of encrypted messaging apps.

2017–2020: Law enforcement embarks on a more successful crackdown on dark-web crime, leading threat actors to abandon the service in favor of encrypted messaging apps.

In 2017, the FBI successfully took down AlphaBay, a dark-web trading site that had grown to roughly 10 times the size of Silk Road at its peak.

As law enforcement increasingly cracks down on dark web providers, hackers and traders of contraband are moving to encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, which promise end-to-end encryption and include tools for forwarding messages to larger groups of people while remaining anonymous.

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