SJO girls set to open tonight, boys squad is equally excited

Home from school, Taylor Wells sat refreshing her Twitter feed non-stop. She was overcome with excitement and exuberance learning that Governor Pritzker would allow high schools around the state to play basketball. She read tweet after tweet with the news.

St. Joseph-Ogden Evan Ingram takes a shot in the Spartans' home game against Williamsville last January. The SJO boys open their season on February 12. Photo: PhotoNews/Clark Brooks

"I was over the moon and couldn’t have been happier," the St. Joseph-Ogden junior said. Wells and the Spartans' varsity girls team open their season tonight at home against Villa Grove. "I know my teammates are all just as excited as I am. We have all been waiting for answers on whether or not our season would happen since November."

While there won't be many fans, a Maroon Platoon to cheer them on or a postseason tournament, she is happy to be playing with her teammates.

"This school year has been full of ups and downs, from having hope in being able to play in November to being told to wait for answers to come," Wells said. "I’m grateful that we are finally being given the chance to play, even if it’s a shortened season.

Basketball is a huge part of my life and so I’m excited to get back on the court."

High school hoops is not only a huge part of Ty Pence's life, but intricate part of his future. Just a sophomore, Pence already has an offer from Western Illinois University and he is likely to have more as his stock rises with the more opportunities he has to showcase his skills in actual competition. He echoed Wells' sense of relief, excitement and the importance of the game in his life.

"We are all excited. This is what we have been praying and working for since October. We are all happy to have this (opportunity)," he said. "It is very important to us. Even though we aren’t able to have a post season, we are still going to work hard because we have had hope to play for a very long time."

Last week Pence said he could not wait to start working out and practicing with his teammates again.

"I want to develop as a player as much as I am able to," he said with earnest. "Whether that is being a better leader or working on my game as a whole."

Though the pair won't graduate this coming May, both Pence and Wells underscored the importance of the season, although not very long, to St. Joseph-Ogden seniors.

I’m glad that our seniors will have a chance to have their season and hopefully we can be the best we can be," Pence said about a season already shortened by a couple of games after Cissna Park had to cancel tomorrow night's trip to The Joe due to Covid quarantine protocols.

Next Tuesday night's home game against St. Thomas More was also postponed for the same reason possible cutting the season from 11 to nine games. No word if the games will be rescheduled at this time.

Wells pointed out the season is significant for players who won't be able to suit up as Spartans after May.

"This season is very important for our seniors. This will be the last time they get to play basketball as Spartans," she explained. "Some of my teammates, along with myself, are looking to be recruited to play at the next level. This is our opportunity for colleges to come out and be able to watch us play."

Tonight's game as well as all Spartan home basketball games will be available via live stream on NFHS at a subscription cost of $10.99 per month. Fans can save almost half of a year's monthly fee by purchasing an annual subscription at $69.99.

Photo of the Day - February 4, 2021

Micah Freeman dribbles the ball down the field during Unity's road game at St. Joseph-Ogden on September 26, 2017, during first half action. After two scoreless halves, the Rockets prevailed with a 3-2 victory in a tense shoot-out to end the contest. Freeman scored one of three goals to secure the win for Unity.

Photo of the Day - February 3, 2021

SJO's Gabe Lyons runs at the OVC meet in May — St. Joseph-Ogden middle distance runner Gabe Lyons runs his leg of the 4x800-meter relay at the 2016 Okaw Valley Conference track & field meet. Lyons along with Austin Earp, Ross Smetzer and Justin Phillips won the event crossing the finish line at 8:36.8. The Spartans finished the meet in second place in the team standings on May 10. Later that day at the meet, Lyons set a new personal record in the 400-meter run at 52.25.

College Notebook | Knudsen posts 29 point performance for Millikan

Knudsen making early impact at Millikan

Unity's all-time leading scorer Elyce Knudsen is at it again. Now a member of the Millikan women basketball program, the freshman baller has tallied 57 points in just three games for the Big Blue.

In the second game of her college career, Knudsen dropped a team-high 29 points against Wheaton College. Despite her extraordinary effort, Millikan fell by seven at King Arena in Wheaton, 90-83.

Two days later when the two team squared off again, the Unity alumna led her team to victory with a game-high 17 points in the Big Blue's 85-60 win at home last Saturday.

Knudsen is back in action again tomorrow at 7pm when her team faces Augustana College and again at 2pm on Saturday with the Vikings.

Former Spartans on hold

Lacey Kaiser, Rylee Stahl and Rylee Walsh, all former SJO volleyball players now suiting up for Heartland College, are in holding pattern. The Hawks first five matches have postponed. The trio could see action next on February 17 when the squad travels to Springfield for a two-match evening starting with Lincoln Land Community College at 4pm and a nightcap facing Frontier Community College at 6pm.

Kaiser dominates at the net

Katie Kaiser was credited with six of the ten blocks tallied by No. 1 ranked Parkland College after their 3-0 win over Southwestern Illinois College at the Southwestern Illinois College Tri in Belleville last Friday. The nationally ranked Cobras rolled SWIC, 25-20, 25-15, 25-17, to pick up their third win of the season. The former Unity star also had 5 digs in the effort.

Trimble, Crowe duo score 30

Bree Trimble scored 17 points and Peyton Crowe 13 in the Parkland College basketball team's 78-68 win over Olney Community College last Saturday. Thanks to the two starters, the Cobras continue their four-game undefeated streak.

The PC squad is back in action again tomorrow night in their first road contest of the season against Kankakee Community College.

Know a Unity or St. Joseph-Ogden graduate playing at the collegiate level? Let us know their name, sport(s) and where they are playing. An email or a link to their social media account for interviews is a big help, too. Send The Sentinel a message to us at sports@oursentinel.com.

Photo of the Day - February 2, 2021

Graduation out of the way, Cassidy Williams [right] takes a quick photo with friend Lenny Bolton. The pair were members of St. Joseph-Ogden High School 106 seniors graduating in 2007. Williams, a member of the Spartans' first competitive cheerleading squad, will continue both her athletic and academic career at Parkland College in Champaign.

A casual stroll by the mysterious deep web

Guest Commentary by Lakhijyoti Deka

The "dark web" - sounds like mysterious! Doesn't it?

Yes, I think your gut feeling says it is, but here I will make you aware how it works, what really happens on the dark web, and how you can check it out for yourself.

As you know, the internet comprises of servers, computers, and other devices connected together form networks inside of larger networks. It is divided into two parts, namely the clear web or surface web and the deep web.

The surface web is that portion of the Internet most people are familiar with. The surface web pages are searchable in Google. While the deep web comprises the majority of the web, the surface web makes up a tiny portion of all the content on the web that accessible through a standard web browser.

The Deep Web is the full body of the iceberg and the surface web is just like the tip of the iceberg. And finally the dark web is a very small and hard-to-access section of the Deep Web.

The dark web is a piece of the internet that isn't indexed by conventional search engines. The dark web is decentralized network of websites make users as mysterious as possible by routing all their communications through multiple servers. It is used for keeping internet activity anonymous and personal, which may be helpful in both legal and illegal applications. Like, anyone can buy master card numbers; counterfeit money, online market place of various drugs, guns, stolen subscription credentials, hacked accounts, password and software that help anyone forced an entry into other people’s computers.

Dark web browser:

You may think that navigating the dark net is very easy. But it isn’t. To accessing the dark net it requires a browser known as Tor (“The Onion Routing” project) browser.

If you have a legitimate need to access the dark web, make sure that you stay safe using it.

Tor browser provides users access to reach the websites with the “.onion” registry operator. Browsers with the appropriate proxy can reach dark web sites, but others can’t. These web sites use a scrambled naming structure that creates URLs that are impossible to remember often.

This browser was originally developed by the United States Naval research laboratory. An early version of Tor was created to cover spy communications. Sooner or later, the framework was repurposed and has since been made public just like the other browser we all know today. Anyone can download it free of cost. Tor browser uses a random path of encrypted servers referred to as "nodes" which enables users to connect to the deep web without worrying of their actions being tracked.

Dark web versus deep web:

The dark web and the deep web are also often mistakenly used interchangeably. At first glance, the dark web and the deep web seem similar as both are difficult to get to through the web search and require either clicking a direct link to the page or to typing the address into the browser you want to access.

The deep web refers all the pages or content that you cannot find with a search engine. Deep web content requires sign-in credentials, such as online banking, medical records, pay sites, membership websites, and confidential corporate web pages etc. The dark web is one small portion of the deep web.

The deep web is so large that it is impossible to discover exactly how many pages or websites are active at one point of time. While comparing the deep web with dark web, deep web consisting of mostly harmless and digitized data and the dark web is better known for illegal and sometimes disturbing content. But, not all the dark web is used for illicit purposes. The websites in the Dark Web are categorized by their use of encryption software that makes their users and their locations unsigned.

Enabling mechanisms of the dark web:

Apart from the tor there are two key elements that serve practical purposes in enabling the dark web. Those two are the Hidden Wiki and Bitcoin, which provide a solution that enables the dark web to be accessible and usable.

Though the hidden Wiki offers some assistance to content on the dark web, but it also includes some illegal websites.

Hidden wiki site contains a listing of all the Dark internet sites that are presently operating, user feedback on those sites, and knowledge about what are often accessed through each site. Bitcoin is the crypto-currency which enables two parties to conduct a trusted transaction without knowing each other’s identity. The dark web has been a big factor in the expansion of bit coin and vice versa.

Advantages of the dark web:

The legality of dark web is based on how a user engages with it. Some might fall to the edge of legal lines for many reasons and some may act in ways that are illegal for the safety and security of others. Using of the dark web usually means you're attempting to interact in activity that you simply couldn't perform within the limelight.

Not everything is illegitimate in the dark web. It has a legitimate side also. Privacy is much more concern for many people threatened by stalkers and other criminals. In this case dark web helps people to take care of privacy and freely express their views.

On the dark web, users can seek out the benefits of the user anonymity, ability to take illegal actions for both users and providers and the virtually untraceable services and sites. In fact, a lot of people use it in countries where internet access is criminalized. As an anonymous communications channel the Tor network serves an important function in helping individuals communicate in environments which are hostile to free speech.

One of the foremost advantages of the dark web is the difficulty of blocking it. Common forms of censorship do not work with encrypted overlay networks. The dark web is more challenging to surveillance by governments and Internet service providers. Many organizations including journalists, political dissidents, abuse and persecution victims, human Rights and other professionals support the use of and access to the dark web to communicate sensitive information.

Disadvantages of the dark web:

The dark web is the den to the criminal activities.

The most important portion of dark web traffic is child abuse. The vast of traffic to hidden dark sites via Tor is for screening and distributing images of child abuse, illicit pornography and buying illegal drugs. Using the dark web one can make it easier to commit a number of of the worst crimes.

The grouping of the dark web and crypto currencies supposedly makes it much easier to hire someone to commit a murder or some other illegal activities. While some uses the dark web for their privacy concern and for others it may be the violation to their privacy as the private photos, documents, financial records have been stolen from the dark web.

The subject that is most commonly associated with the dark web is drug trafficking which is an integral and largest part of dark web marketplaces. Silk Road was one of the largest and most infamous dark web marketplaces till 2013. But the shutdown of Silk Road was not the end of dark web marketplaces. Replacements have sprung up to fill the vacuum selling anything that traders want to put online.

By nature, the dark web is anonymous and incompetent of discriminating between criminals and common users. There are many dark web sites set up by scammers to avoid the rage of their victims. Many e-commerce sites even exist for a while and suddenly disappear with the money they are holding on behalf of customers.

Enforcement officials must address this issue by campaigning that maintains the privacy of the typical user while unmasking the criminal. They are getting better at finding and prosecuting owners of sites that sell illegal goods and services. User can easily utilize the Tor in an attempt to pirate copyrighted content from the dark web and share illegal pornography, or engage in cyber terrorism.

The two specific grey areas of dark Web activity are whistleblowing and hacktivism. Those are not categorized as entirely beneficial, but have some commendable characteristics.

Photo: Sajjad Hussain M/Burst

If you have a legitimate need to access the dark web, make sure that you stay safe using it. For safe access to the dark net you have to trust your intuition. You have to separate your online role from real life, employ active monitoring of identify and financial theft and you have to avoid downloads of dark web files. You should consider using a secondary non-admin local user account for all daily activities and always restrict access to your Tor-enabled device.

Be sure to educate yourself on the risks of the dark web before you get mislaid in the dark underbelly. It is smart to be selective about the websites you access if you willing to venture to the dark web. Rather than finding the illegal users one has to find the illegal sites.

The debate on the dark web is by no means over.

There are many things in the dark web yet to be known. It is still in progress. As policy-makers move forward, they need to monitor vigilantly the evolution of the dark Web and make sure that enforcement agencies have the resources and legal support to police successfully the dark web. Dark web policy must be thoughtful to strike the balance between the requirements of privacy-minded users and the government’s responsibility to prevent criminality.

It is always preferable to practice safe internet habits with necessary precautions to protect yourself from the illicit world.

Lakhijyoti Deka is computer engineer in New Delhi, the capitol city of India. In her free time she likes recite poetry, sing and gathering information latest technology.