What is Dark Web
A part of the World Wide Web is the Dark Web. It is inaccessible to normal users. From cyber attackers to hackers, roaming here is high. Information from common people to institutions including famous people is traded here. Criminal activity and crime are claimed to thrive on the dark web. Traditional browsers and search engines have no access to the dark web. For this, there are different search engines and browsers. Using the dark web is prohibited and a punishable offense in most countries around the world.
How the Dark Web was Created
Since long ago, people from different parts of the world wanted to start a process to manage their online activities with privacy. Militaries, revolutionaries, businessmen, hackers, and even the administration of many countries have sought to create an Internet system through which information can be secretly exchanged among themselves.
The dark web originated from that idea. Internet service providers usually have access to monitor our every move online. They can provide information to law enforcement or anyone else if needed. In this way, the dark web was created so that no one could easily trace the information. Later, criminals started getting involved with it.
Accessing the Dark Web is Illegal
A special browser called Tor is used to access the dark web. Anyone who wants can enter the dark web by installing a browser like Mozilla or Google Chrome on the computer. However, accessing the dark web is completely illegal. Again, if you enter it out of curiosity, your computer may get a virus attack. Also, they ask to install all such software, which is very harmful to the computer.
All your personal information may even be copied to an unspecified server. You should browse the dark web entirely at your own risk. In many cases, unknown users and hackers are gaining access. So, it is better not to enter the dark web out of curiosity.
World Wide Web
We use the World Wide Web (WWW) for website addresses on the Internet. It is a repository, where information resides. And these can be accessed through the internet The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee.
This is the first step to accessing the internet. Websites on the World Wide Web are connected with hypertext links. Three layers of the World Wide Web. 1. Surface Web, 2. Deep Web, 3. The dark web. Users and website owners can maintain their anonymity by using the dark web.
Surface Web
The only portion of the Internet that is visible is the Surface Web. The surface web is the part of the internet that we usually visit. All websites on the Surface Web can be found on a simple search engine. The Surface Web is a small part of the World Wide Web that is the only part accessible to the general public.
Websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. belong to Surface Web. Surface websites usually use domains such as dot com, dot org, dot in, dot this, etc. No special configuration is required to access these websites.
The Deep Web
A secret section of the World Wide Web is called the Deep Web. This part is hidden from search engines like Google. Search engines index different websites. However, if a website does not allow search engines to index it, it will not be found by search engines. This is the deep web. Everything in the back end of a website is part of the deep web.
The general public cannot access the Deep Web. The deep web is commonly used for banking, cloud storage, government information, webmail other payment services, etc. An IP address or a direct URL is required to access the Deep Web. In many cases, there is other security with passwords.
The Dark Web
A further hidden section of the deep web is called the dark web. When someone visits a shared website, their IP address can be used to track them down. But that is not possible in the dark web. Comparing the two, the dark web is substantially smaller. The dark web is primarily utilized for illicit and forbidden purposes. A separate configuration software is required for this web access.
Tor Browser is the most popular dark web access software. Dark web websites can be accessed through this. Like dot com dot net on the surface web, the dark web domain is dot onion. Although Surface Web sites can be visited in Tor Browser or Dark Web, Dark Web sites do not open in normal browsers. From cyber attackers to hackers, roaming here is high.
The dark web is full of bad activities like illegal activities, gambling, drugs, child pornography, weapons, etc. From professional hackers to criminals for hire there. Common online currencies are not traded on the dark web. There are cryptocurrencies utilized there, like Bitcoin.
The largest part of the underground marketplace is on the dark web. Online money theft, website hacking, theft of personal information, government secret documents, forgery of documents, smuggling, etc. are regular occurrences of the dark web.
Now the question is why the search engine cannot search the Deep Web
This is because search engines monitor their searches with a kind of virtual robot called a crawler. These crawlers see the HTML tag of the website and register the website. Also, some sites request to be registered in the search engine. Now site admins who don’t want their site to be found by search engines use Robot Exclusion Protocol which prevents crawlers from finding or indexing the sites.
Some sites are dynamic, that is, it is possible to find the existence of such sites subject to certain conditions, and it is not possible for the crawler to do this. There are some sites that do not have links from other sites. These are isolated sites; they also don’t come up in search. Search engines cannot find webpages in formats other than text (such as flash format)!
The information contained in this deep web is significantly ahead of the information in the surface web. They are very well-designed and relevant. Then understand what the search engines are doing!
Now let’s come to the most interesting part, the Dark Web
You can’t access all these sites with your traditional web browser. They stand outside all the conventions of the Internet and do not accept any rules. And their addresses are so strange that it is very difficult for ordinary people to remember them. This part is the real invisible part of the internet. You cannot access this network without special knowledge (e.g. programming, networking, proxies).
Another feature of this segment is that they use a “Pseudo Top Level Domain” instead of a top-level domain (e.g., Com) like sites on the World Wide Web, which are under a second network instead of the main World Wide Web. Such domains include Bitnet, Onion, Freenet, etc.
This world is the most different! Here you will find what you have never imagined in your life. Maybe you have never imagined that it is possible to enter the site without a password, you will see that it is happening here. You’ll find things that can blow your mind too.
WikiLeaks has announced that they will be releasing more new data this year, but you might be surprised to see all this WikiLeaks data has been on the dark web for years. The latest edition of any book that is not on the surface web due to copyright laws is being shared here.
