The Deep Web contains shockingly valuable information. Can you imagine how cancer research would blossom if every researcher had instant access to every research paper done by every single university and research lab in the world?
John McAfee
Think about what do you want most in this world? What if I told you that your every demand that you can think of in this world, no matter how much inappropriate will be met here. What if I told you that you can become the bad guy you fantasize to be and doesn’t want his hand dirty? What if you want something badly but the government of your nation does not allow it and I told you that thing would be delivered to your doorsteps. Countless issues like these can be easily solved here. By the way, I am the curator of the CodesMyth, an online platform for simplifying codes & Breaking Myths. So, what exactly is dark web?
Don’t believe me?
Let me welcome you to the deepest and darkest region of the internet, Dark web. The area, where normal people with no awareness will be destroyed completely just because of a small mistake. The only thing that matters here is money. You get the service if you have completed the payment. There is no need for your identity and no connections will be tracked back to you. All the loose ends will be tied and work will be strictly professional. Such is the culture of the Dark Web. Can you imagine about the dark web now?
Image sources: Google Images
Think of the dark web as an Iceberg. The small portion of the iceberg that is visible above the surface of the ocean is called the surface web or clearnet. The major part which remains hidden deep down the surface of the ocean from the rest of the world is known as Dark Web.
If What I am saying makes sense and you feel that your life may fill with excitement, once you are aware about the dark web, then you are unbelievably wrong. Most these things that are happening on the Dark web is Illegal in nearly all the countries of the world. It was originally nurtured by the department of defense, USA isolated from ARPANET, which become so large that even department of defense wasn’t able to control it. It was then given to another Organization, Tor which now manages the dark web. Is it bigger than Google, Facebook or You tube?
The Clearnet is huge but it is nothing when compared to dark web. Clearnet is the regular web or surface web that we open in our regular browser like Chrome. To give you the idea about how large the Clearnet is, you have to add up all the data that are listed below:
1 — Complete data from Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Reddit and whatever data is present on this website that you can open.
2- Complete videos from YouTube and other media channels.
3- All data from the adult website.
4- Data from shopping websites and banks.
5- Data from Play Store, Appstore, Extensions, Add-ons, WebApps.
Basically, the data that is present in the server or any systems anywhere in the world which can be obtained by opening the respective surface web or www website. If you think about it Facebook dumps nearly 50–100 TB data per day. Just thinking of how large the Clearnet is itself can be a mind-boggling process. So, compared to surface web, how large is dark web?
How large exactly, is Dark Web?
If you have a pie, then only 4–5% of the pie is the Clearnet, that is the internet on the surface which all of us uses nearly every day. The remaining space that is 95–96 % of that pie is used by the Dark web. Such is the size of this hidden network.
What can dark web do?
Despite this big a size, a very less number of people actually know about it.
The dark web is very challenging. You can go from purchasing the drugs from several places to destroying the identity of the person. From social fraud to Bitcoin managing. From false currency printing to invalid American citizenship. From university grade fraud to red rooms to child abuses. From kidnapping to killing to calling on a hitman for someone else. From releasing the online classified top secret government documents to releasing all the banned and pirated movies and TV series on lost and hidden causes. From online blogs by experts to technical discussions. From Dark web’s own, personal social websites to Tor mail to Tor’s Pastebin. From heavy Jailbait to big scandals to celebrity gossips. From virus information’s to XSS worms scripting to FOIE archives, there is still a ton of things that we don’t know about the dark web. Dark web is full of wonders.
image sources: Google Images
Let’s begin, shall we?
To know about Dark web, we must know about Tor. A Tor network is a network that is completely hidden and provides the capability of anonymity. It also provides access to the dark web which are the unindexed pages which the surface web search engines like google cannot open. These unindexed onion websites on the deep web are known as Tor websites and may be used for legal/not legal purposes. Tor websites are so secure because each hidden service website has a public key and a corresponding private key. The onion address is generated by hashing the public key and taking half of it. Nobody can impersonate the hidden service because you need the private key for it which is known to you only.
To add on to this: If your private key is compromised, your domain is gone forever, and you basically have to get a new domain.
Image sources: Google Images
So, there is a need to always disable the scripts on the Tor or other browsers. There is a need for this because the scripts are able to detect our computer’s configuration, our personal data, accessing our search history and may end up creating a backdoor on our system, just with the help of our few clicks on their websites or merely opening their website. This is the level of evil in the dark web.
If you need to travel to darknet pages, then you can do so with the help of DuckDuckGo Search engine which also lists the unindexed pages which other search engines don’t have the power to do so. DuckDuckGo helps you in complete privacy by not tracking and storing your search history and other activities.
Image Source: Google Images
If you truly want to know about the dark web, then we must go through the hidden wiki. The dark web has its own Wikipedia. The dark web consists of clones of everything the surface net has. The HiddenWiki consists of all the popular and least harmful links to the website_. For instance, if you will open the hidden wiki, then you can find out that they sell weed, Kush and all types of drugs freely. They have their own radio and own technical forums where hackers can connect. From guns, online hosting, email, messaging everything happens here_. So, should I visit it here?
But First, let us learn about the levels of the web. The web is classified into mainly 8 levels
Level 0 — The level 0 consists of the common web. The things that everyone can access with the help of just internet like search engines.
Level 1- The level 1 consists of surface web. These things require the help of some online services but are not dangerous. Today, they too are included in the common web. These include the discussion forums like Reddit, Temporary email services, websites like Newgrounds, dig. Along with Social Networks and cultural websites like VampireFreaks, The Human Intel tasks are also included in this level. Apart from this, web hosting, MYSQL website, and college campus website also comes in this level 1 category.
Level 2 — The level 2 is commonly called as Bergie web. These webs include FTP servers, Google Locked result, Honeypots and Loaded Web Servers. Basically, data of all those things, who want to keep themselves hidden and does not want other to reach them. These also include data from RSC and FeeHive.
Level 3- This level 3 is commonly called as Dark web and proxy is required after this point. This web is opened with the help of Tor Network. It includes Virus Information, VIP gossips, supercomputing, Scandals etc. which are already mentioned above. We mainly want to learn about this level
Level -4: Mariana Web is generally considered to be a myth. We haven’t witnessed a single person who has reached such a level or accessed such a sensitive level. It is claimed to have the location of lost city of Atlanta, basically, all the things which have been removed from the clearnet.
If you have reached the levels below Mariana Web, then you are just in the cold war or cyber war and if you continue to struggle in the dark web, then you may end up becoming the Internet’s own God.
For now, we don’t know the authenticity of the dark web but a picture which summarizes it can be seen below. However, there have been claims that the lowermost levels are not possible. But, we don’t know the complete extent of darknet, hence anything is possible.
So, the question comes out to be is that is dark web worth the effect to risk ourselves and our family? It depends upon person to person.
Some of us go out to settle the curiosity that they have for the dark web. Some others go out to speak against some powerful entity from the shadows knowing they are safe from prosecution & other things which only the dark web can provide. Other just go for the illegal activities and to satisfy their unnatural desires anonymously which the dark web can offer for the money.
Thus, it is up to us to how to use the dark web. But awareness of dark web is also important so that we may not be in the dark if someone is planning something against us. In my view, you should definitely use Tor Browser in place of Chrome and Firefox to do your regular stuff to maintain anonymity.
Just don’t try to give out your identity by saying something related to you and your family or doing anything silly which might expose you, for we don’t know how dangerous are the ones hiding in the shadows of dark web.
Stay safe and Stay Anonymous. Happy surfing.