Dark web explained
The internet is arguably the greatest innovation of Man. it has literally affected everything about our life, the way we talk and also do things.
There is always this part of the internet that relates to everyone and you will always see people with similar interest no matter how weird your opinion of things are.
The internet has built relationships and connected us to people from different races, and nations in ways we can never imagine.
There is a lot on the internet, most of which we don't know even know exists. whatever you need on the internet, whether a service, a product, or anything whatsoever, it can be legal, illegal, healthy, and unhealthy, the internet has it.
The internet is divided into layers: surface web, deep web, and dark web.
The surface web is majorly the part of the internet that is visible to everyone. The surface web is simply accessible through a search engine such as Bing, Google, yahoo.com, etc.
The surface web is the part of the internet we use every day, even this article that you are reading right now is made available to read because it is on the surface web and one amazing fact is that the surface web is just 4% of the entire internet!
The deep web is the invisible, underground web that cannot be accessed normally. This is because it contains data that is not indexed by the search engine. The deep web can only be accessed if you have the authorization or login details to do so.
if you've logged in to your email before to access information, then you have browsed the deep web technically. it's pretty simple just like the surface web but with a little bit of secrecy.
The data stored in the deep web ranges from classified military information, medical reports, government records, etc.
so with all of this explained, let's move to the third layer of the internet which is the dark web.
What is the dark web?
The dark web is the part of the internet that is made up of hidden sites that can't be accessible ordinarily. it contains websites that are encrypted to hide their existence. To access the dark web, you must rely on special software, and browsers to access the hidden sites.
On the dark web, anything and everything goes with anonymity.
How does the dark web work?
For an average person, all you do on the surface web, and a little bit of the deep web can be tracked. The internet was not made to be anonymous, but some people see the internet as an invasion of their privacy.
Some years ago, the united state of America government thought of creating a system that will protect their communication and information while on the internet. In the mid-1990s, researchers at the USA laboratory begin to work on something called Onion routing.
This development was done by a group called the Advance Research Projects Agency which is better known as ARPA. An onion router is a free software that allows users to browse through the web anonymously.
The onion router protects any data sent by wrapping it with multiple layers of encryption, with the inner layer containing the original message, with the onion router, messages can be transferred from one place to another without an interception, no one else can see it, except those who are meant to see it.
Because of the onion routing, software like the TOR application exists. Tor stands for the onion router. it is just like any other web browser but through TOR you can visit any websites that are not available to the general public.
On the dark web, links to a website do not look like normal website links. it does have.org, .com. They look like random strings of different characters and it is in .onions.
what exactly is on the dark web?
1. child pornography
2. illegal drugs
3. government classified information
4. firearms
5. password and usernames for streaming platforms
6. credit cards and debit card numbers and lots more.
Just like on the surface web, marketplaces are extremely popular on the dark web, you can easily get things that are difficult to get on the normal web, like a rocket launcher.
A traditional form of payment is not acceptable on the dark web, since the dark web intent is to protect the identity of the user, so using things such as debit cards can be tracked, so this is where cryptocurrency comes in and in particular bitcoin, due to its anonymity it is used to purchase things on the dark web.
In 2011, a dark web market called Silk Road opened for business. The founder was able to use the tor browser and bitcoin as payment to make it all anonymous. Here you can buy any kind of illegal drugs you can think of. sellers from all over the world sold things like weed, cocaine, etc, but after two years in operation, the site was ceased and taken down by the FBI
Is it illegal to visit the dark web?
Browsing through the dark web isn't illegal but buying stuff, like drugs and watching children's porn on the dark web, is illegal. I believe the Dark web has its useful contribution, so it is left for us to find out.
How to access the dark web?
download the tor application and visit http://thehiddenwiki.org/ to get lists of dark websites available. just be careful when clicking on that link. Don't divulge any information about your life and use a VPN to hide your IP address which will boost your privacy when surfing the dark web.
In conclusion, there are things, the average person would obviously not like to see, if you don't want to fall victim to this, I will stay away from the dark web.