This is the age of the Internet and everyone who wants to be informed needs to
be online. The Internet is a giant web of information and content is used for a
variety of purposes nowadays. However, there are many things that the Internet
cannot provide. One of these things is privacy. Internet privacy is a thing of the
bygone era. Any device that is on the network is unsafe, and nothing is private.
A devastating but universal fact!
The FBI, the NSA and third-party sophisticated hackers can track and monitor
what you do. Though not many of us are concerned with the fact that our data,
our files, our location, etc. are not private, a significant chunk of society is
wary of it. If you were not protected, it’s not too late, keep on reading to find
out how you can prevent this from happening.
If you aren’t worried about your privacy, you might be curious about what
exactly the dark web is and how you can benefit from it. Or maybe you want to
access certain products that are not accessible over regular Internet or offline.
Well, you will find a complete guide in this book to help you.
If you follow the instructions given in this book correctly, no one will be able
to track you, and you will be safe and secure. Thus, this book is a complete and
foolproof guide to Dark Web and TOR, and will help you access the world of
the Dark Web without any problems.
Introduction to Tor
In simple words, TOR is the short form of The Onion Router. It is a free of cost
software that enables the user to communicate anonymously. It can channel
Internet traffic through a worldwide network of seven thousand plus free
relays, which can keep the location, as well as usage of the user, anonymous. It
can keep you safe and can make it difficult to trace you or your Internet
activity.
So, TOR is a service that allows its users to browse the Internet, send IMs,
chat and socialize but anonymously. What makes it different than other forms of
the Internet is that it delivers what it promises. The primary purpose of TOR is
to keep the personal privacy of the users secure and allow them a free space to
conduct their affairs without any form of monitoring or surveillance. It is thus a
mode of confidential communication.
You must have noticed the icon of the logo of TOR - it is an onion. This is no
coincidence. The onion portrays the system correctly; as the form of routing
that is done by TOR is called onion routing. It is the encryption of
communication protocol stack in the application layer, one under another, thus,
forming an onion-like structure. Tor can encrypt almost all major types of data
such as IP address, and forward it through a circuit of various randomly
selected relays where each relay decrypts only one layer and forwards the
remaining ahead. The final layer is decoded at the destination, and thus the
information received is concealed and so is the sender's IP address.
In general terms, Tor is also called a browser that is used to browse Dark
Web. In the next section of this chapter let us have a look at what is Dark Web
or Dark Net and how is it different from Surface Web as well as Deep Web.
What is the Dark Web?
Tor is used to access locations
on the Dark Web. However, to understand the nature of the Dark Web, it is
necessary to figure out what is Surface Web and what is Deep Web. So, let us
have a look at these two terms first.
Surface Web:
Surface Web is basically whatever your notions of the Web are. It includes
social networking sites, shopping sites, search engines, news media, etc.
Almost every site that you can access without any additional settings except a
regular web browser and active Internet connection is on Surface Web.
A basic definition of Surface Web is as follows - It is a web made of various
fixed and static pages. These pages are not dependent on a database for
content. However, some sites like amazon.com do have connections with the
deep web in the form of database. The pages on static web stay on a server
waiting for users to retrieve them. Thus, these pages are nothing but HTML
files that are static and whose content never change. To update the pages, it is
necessary to replace the HTMLfile of the page.
All websites with domains such as. .com, .in, .uk, .org, co.in, .net, etc are
Surface Website sites.
You must have seen various pictures on the Internet representing Surface web
and Deep web. One of the most commonly used pictures to represent the above
equation is the picture of an iceberg- where the iceberg above the surface of
water represents the surface web while the iceberg below the surface
represents deep/dark web. Let us now have a look at what Deep Web is.
Deep Web :
A simple definition of the Deep Web is all the pages that a search engine
cannot find. i.e. these pages are not indexed by the databases of the search
engines. There exist a variety of reasons why a search engine cannot access the
Deep Web pages. But before we go there, let us first have a close look at Deep
Web.
Deep Web is the online database and dynamic web pages that a standard
search engine like Google or Yahoo cannot access. It is the content and data
behind HTML forms. Like Surface web, the Deep web too has many
applications such as email, online banking, chat rooms, etc. There are also
services such as video chat rooms, various paid services, video on demand,
etc.
It is estimated that the Deep Web is almost 400 to 500 times larger than the
Surface Web. This means it has more than eight petabytes. Compare this with
the nineteen terabytes of data present on the Surface Web, and you will realize
how huge the Deep Web is.
Certain search engines can access Deep Webs. Some of them include Intent,
DeepPeep, Deep Web Technologies, Ahmia.fi, and Scirus, etc. Invisible Web
or Deep Web is often confused with Dark Web; however, both these terms are
different and refer to different things. While it is legal to access information off
Deep Web almost all the time, it is not the case with Dark Web. In the next
section let us have a look at the Dark Web.
Dark Web:
As said earlier, the Dark Web is often confused with Deep Web thanks to the
hidden nature of both the Webs. However, Deep Web and Dark Web are two
different things.
It is possible to say that the Dark Web is a part of Deep Web, as standard
search engines cannot access it as well. However, it is different than Deep
Web as the content on Dark Web is often hidden deliberately. It is a network of
sites that can be accessed but are hosted anonymously. These sites are
inaccessible to standard browsers and browser techniques and often require
special software.
The Dark Web is an almost untraceable worldwide network that has many
uses, which may or may not be legal. The sites on Dark Web are accessible to
only those who know what they are looking f0r.
The main motive of the Dark Web is anonymity and privacy. This anonymity is
Dark Web's boon as well as a curse. The anonymous veil of the Dark Web is
often used to conduct a variety of illicit and illegal activities, which is why the
Dark Web is so notorious. This notoriety is often carried forward to Deep
Web, making it a stigmatized concept as well. However, as made clear above,
both the Webs are two different entities. The Deep Web is a simple collection
of databases that is not indexed by standard search engines, while the Dark
Web is an encrypted network among TOR servers and users. It is just a tiny,
albeit very famous part of the Deep Web. In a single line- all Dark Web is
Deep Web, however not all Deep Web is Dark Web.
The Dark Web is a minuscule part of the Deep Web; it is estimated that it does
not even form 0.5% of the Deep Web. However, it is highly popular thanks to
its various anonymous and private markets that often trade in illegal products.
Now that you know what Deep Web and Dark Web are, you must be wondering
why they exist and whether they are needed
Why does the Deep Web exist?
A simple answer to the above question is because we need to hide certain
things. For instance, if you have an Internet Banking account, your account
details are on the Internet. However, they cannot be accessed by a simple
Google search. Thus, your account pages are secure and safe in the Deep Web.
Without the Deep Web, it is safe to assume that the Internet would have been
much less useful. We would not be able to have social networks, Internet
Banking, E-shopping, etc. as these sites store your sensitive data on Deep Web
to make them secure.
It also exists to store a large amount of data of the corporate world. For
instance, many large corporations store their business-related data on Deep
Web. This provides them with safety and security.
You might be surprised to know that you access Deep Web almost every day.
Yes, as said earlier, your social networking accounts, your email, etc. store
your personal data on Deep Web, hence whenever you access your email, your
bank statement, Twitter DMs, your office intranet, etc. are all a part of Deep
Web. However, all of the above things are not always secure, and you are not
anonymous on the Surface Web, even if it is connected to Deep Web. This
constant need for anonymity and privacy from the governmental surveillance
led to the formation of Dark Web.
History of TOR and why it was created ?
TOR is one of the most commonly used software to access the Dark Web. It is
almost a fail-proof way of being anonymous. The history of Tor is quite
interesting, and it can help people to understand why the need of Tor arose and
why it is still relevant.
It will come as a surprise that the roots of Tor can be traced back to the United
States Naval Research Lab. Employees of the above organization viz.
Syverson, Reed and Goldschlag researched ways to protect the intelligence
communication in the mid-90s. This was the beginning of Onion routing. Onion
routing then moved on to DARPA, and it was enhanced there in the late 90s.
Syverson along with Mathewson and Dingledine launched the alpha version of
Tor on 20th September 2002. It was then known as The Onion Routing project.
A public version was released the next year.
A turning point in the history of Tor was when Mathewson, Dingledine, and
others created Tor Project in 2006. A non-profit organization runs and
maintains Tor. It is a surprising fact that some of the early financiers of the
project were Internews, Google, and University of Cambridge, US.
International Broadcasting Bureau etc. It also received monetary support from
Human Rights Watch. Nowadays, the US government supports the Tor Project
financially.
So, the Navy created Tor, to hide/protect governmental communications. The
purpose has not changed a lot since then, however, the user circle has
expanded and now common people like us can use it to safeguard our privacy
as well.
Legality of Dark Web ?
One of the most frequently asked questions regarding the Dark Web is its
legality, and to be honest, the issue is rather muddled. In this section, I have
tried to shed ample light on this topic to clear any confusion associated with it.
Before moving on to the topic, please remember that the Deep web does not
equal to Dark web. The deep web is anything that is not indexed by any
popular search engine and is thus hidden. However, it can be accessed with
regular browsers, unlike the Dark web that needs a particular browser or
software. The sites on Dark web are built on the public Internet as well;
however, they cannot be accessed easily.
Browsing the deep web and dark web is not illegal, technically. Unless you are
trying to find content that is inherently illegal like child pornography, you are
not doing anything illegal.
For instance, there exist many websites on the Dark web that proclaim to sell
drugs, fake IDs, guns, and weapons. Some also sell stolen goods etc. Browsing
such sites is not illegal, you can browse all you want, however, if you buy
something from these sites then it is illegal. As the products available on these
sites are stolen, you are practically committing theft by buying these goods.
Some of the most popular stolen goods available on Dark Web are guns,
weapons, drugs, meth, hacked PayPal Cards, fake ID, stolen iPhones, grenades,
etc.
Dark Web is not inherently illegal. For instance, there are many harmless sites
available on the Dark Web like social networking sites, email services,
message boards, etc. These sites are not illegal per se, however, if you
discuss illicit content over them then your activities can be counted as illegal
or problematic.
The legality of the Dark Web also depends upon your area and nation. For
instance, Dark Web is allowed in the US, however, accessing it in North Korea
is illegal. If your nation has an intrusive and regressive government, then the
Dark Web can be illegal in your country.
In recent times the FBI and other such organizations have blocked many
websites on the Dark Web. Most of these sites dealt with illegal and illicit
activities such as illegal guns, weapons, drugs, human trafficking, etc. It is not
clear whether just visiting these sites is illegal or not; however, it is safe to
assume if you do not own one of such sites or do not buy goods from them
regularly, you won’t be prosecuted.
So, I hope I have answered your question about the legality of Dark Web. Yes,
it is not illegal to access the Dark Web, however, it is necessary to understand
that the nature and content of the sites that you visit can jeopardize your
anonymity and security. I do not recommend purchasing/ selling anything on the
Dark Web; neither do I recommend downloading anything from the network.
As a safety measure, it is recommended that you avoid all the links that are
unlabeled. These unlabeled links are often without any description and can
lead you to some honestly horrifying and disturbing content.
Thank You !! In the next blog let us have a look at the variety of uses of TOR and how it
can benefit you.
