Dark Web

The web could be theoretically divided into 3 segments, the "Surface Web", the "Deep Web" and the "Dark Web".

-The Surface Web is everything we, as users of the internet, typically access. This would be sites like Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube.
-The Deep Web is what we cannot realistically access. This may be databases or other sorts of data storage which should not be accessible to the public. These websites would only be accessible by entering their URL in your browser since they are not indexed by typical search engines, like Google.
-The Dark Web is the least accessible part of the web. It is a subset of the Deep Web and can only be accessed by special browsers like Tor (The Onion Router) and I2P (Invisible Internet Project) , the former of which I have personally used in the past. This segment of the web has become infamous due to media coverage as the Dark Web is used by hackers, criminals and such to communicate.

So, you are interested in accessing the dark web. How would you do that? I mentioned previously the use of Tor and I2P but I will only cover Tor here because I have no experience with I2P. Tor, as far as I know, is available on Windows, Linux, iOS desktop and Android. I do not know about iOS mobile support. On PC, Tor can be downloaded from here. Android version is available on the Google Play Store here.

Their objective is as follows: "We believe everyone should be able to explore the internet with privacy. We are the Tor Project, a 501(c)3 US nonprofit. We advance human rights and defend your privacy online through free software and open networks. "

All you need to do is install the browser and configure it. I chose safer as setting when prompted. This provides relatively good security but it is not the best. However, the safest option will block certain aspects of webpages which may cause them to break. At this point, you are free to browse whatever you want. Tor can of course also be used to browse the surface web but I have personally had problems connecting to Google services (YouTube). That is not a problem for me, I use Firefox for Google websites and where I may need to login.
Do yourself a favour and never login to any websites as that defeats the anonymity of Tor as it offers something from which you can be tracked.

Tor stands for The Onion Router. This peculiar name extends to the Dark Web websites which do not end with .com or .co.uk but use .onion . An example would be xyz.onion where xyz is a typically long string of random looking characters, such as zw3crggtadila2sg. You cannot just look up a particular website, like you may search on Google for answers to the Computer Science homework. Thus, .onion websites are called unindexed and do not appear, even on the search engine used by Tor. You would need to know the exact character string to access a particular website.

Tor has an integrated VPN which reroutes your connection via three nodes. This is more than the measly two nodes used by typical VPN services eg Nord VPN. The nodes on Tor are independently owned (a VPN company owns both nodes) so it is unlikely for any node to converse with any other nodes. Hence, it becomes impossible to associate your device with the website you are visiting. Also, Tor gives complete anonymity in respect to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) as then, they cannot see which website you are connecting to. Your ISP will only see you as connecting to some random computer, somewhere in Ukraine or Mexico or Germany, thus rendering government censorship impossible. Finally, your connection pathway is changed every 15 minutes so, even if one node is owned by the FBI, they will not have sufficient time to trace you or build a data profile on you.

Even if you do not want to buy drugs or weapons, Tor can be rather useful to maintain internet privacy and security as I wrote here .

Bitcoin (BTC) has gained huge popularity thanks to the Dark Web. In return, the Dark Web has flourished thanks to BTC which offers a method of untraceable and completely anonymous payment. Hence, BTC is the most widely accepted currency on the Dark Web. If you were to pay with bank transfer or credit card, there is too much information which can be used to track down both the seller and vendor and hence, it is absolutely never used for payments.

Well, most of this was mentioned in the poster. Drugs, weapons, hacking forums, fake ID purchases, stolen phones, hit-men, DDoS services, ransomware hackers for hire and graphic content. I do not encourage anyone trying to view any webpages offering these sorts of goods or services. People always make mistakes. The government, internationally, is waiting for yours. Also, at least 50% of all webpages hosted exclusively on the Dark Web contain illicit material.

I might as well say though that not everything is wrong on the Dark Web. This network may also be used by people for freedom of speech in denouncing certain aspects of a country or government which, if said openly, may lead to imprisonment or assassination. In this case, I am looking towards China especially since it does try to censor the content which the population can upload to the web. China does also censor what the population can see and hence, Tor offers a portal through which the entirety of the internet can be viewed.

Not entirely. As I mentioned in the last section, there are many genuine and positive aspects to the Dark Web. This may prove to be useful eventually since we are rapidly approaching a future with little to no privacy on the internet.