What is the Dark Web? • AxiomQ

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November 22, 2020 Business

If you are an Internet user, you surely have already heard about some parts of it that are not generally accesibile. They are referred to as ‘black internet’, ‘darknet’, or ‘dark web’. These names grow the curiosity even more. Everyone likes the feeling of breaking the rules and getting into a secret.

There can be way too many questions when you first come across this phenomenon. Why is it called dark? Is the dark web that bad? Why do you need to use the deep web? How do you get access to it? Let’s cover some of them.

A short disclaimer before we start. We will describe the dark part of the internet, where people enjoy anonymity. They may do some quite immoral things. Breaking the laws is bad, and the criminals should be punished.

Besides, it is quite useful to know about their markets and ways to use the dark web. There are quite good benefits of it too. And curiosity is never a crime. .

Areas of the Internet

It is generally agreed that the Internet is divided into three parts.

Visible internet, or the clearweb. It is the part of the web that we use everyday, everyone has access to it. All the pages are searchable easily. For example social networks, news websites, forums, etc. Yet it contains the smallest amount of the Internet content.
Deep web. The websites that are not searchable in Google. For example: services used by the government, closed databases, and other tools for special needs. They are completely legal, and everyone who has permission can access them. A good example is the Moodle platforms that need you to be enrolled in a course to get the access to the content.
Dark web. A hidden network within the Internet that uses a lot of the anonymity tools. To access it you will have to use special services: browser called Tor, operating system Tails or various VPN features. The websites here are protected from the censorship and instruments of legal control. The whole point of the darknet is in anonymity, although it is never guaranteed. The users are free to leave their personal data here, but it is strongly recommended not to do it.

What can you find in the Dark Web?

If you are interested enough, you can try to download Tor and access the dark web. But you will be shocked when the simple Google search of darknet websites would not work. Darknet operates with encrypted protocols.

Usually, darknet websites end with .onion, with the random letters and numbers in the domain. Onion sites are usually hosted on shared hostings, which is easy to set up or just to change if needed. For the same reason, some of the links do not work on the darknet. It is because the hostings where these sites were located have closed or moved to a new address. Thus, link catalogues are popular on the dark web – special thematic collections of sites from which users choose the right ones.

They exist also due to the reason that our usual search engines, like Google or Yahoo, do not work as well as in the clearweb. There are some special dark web search engines, like TORCH or Seeks. But most of the services are accessible only via the direct link.

The most known catalogue of the darknet services is The Hidden Wiki. It is a completely legal website. It contains the information about available and existing websites operating in the dark web.

Generally, the Dark Web consists of:

Forums without any censorship. And we mean that – there are a various amount of illegal topics discussed there. Although not all of them are harmful. For example, you can find the websites with honest reviews, struggling people discussing their problems and many more. But remember that they hide in the darknet for a reason – government ban or general illegality of their discussions. You can always find good reviews websites like essaysadvisor in the clearweb;
Services. Assasination, drug dealing, hacking, stalking, and many more things that you can’t order from the first page of Google search. You can find everything you desire, but you have to be quite careful with your personal data and the money. The main currency in the darknet is of course various forms of cryptocurrency. Although not all the services are illicit. You can, for example, buy the access to library archives, or abandoned Netflix accounts.
E-commerce. Websites that sell everything from used pants and drugs to the rare collections of vinyl records. Also surprise boxes are really popular: you pay the fixed amount and the delivery, and find wild and random things in a box. But remember to never give out your personal address or any other data: it will remain in the dark web forever, and you surely don’t want that.
General website browsing. A lot of the visible internet services allow access to their websites also from the Tor browser because of the respect to users’ privacy. Darknet was originally the idea of the completely safe place. Protected from the government tracking and personal data selling to huge commercial companies. So if you want to enjoy anonymity while reading a newspaper or scrolling through Facebook – you can use the dark web as long as you want.

Is it safe to use the dark web?

So, in the end, the question of the safety and legality of the dark web inevitably arises.

The cautions you must follow are:

Avoid sketchy services. If you have any doubts, it is better to leave;
Don’t give out your personal data. Even the name of your first pet or something that might not seem important – it is better to be safe;
Remember about the laws. Everything done on the darknet is as punishable as in the general web. There are no laws that restrict the responsibility solely because it was done in the dark web. Plus, there are a lot of police searching for the criminals there, so you don’t want to risk it.

Stick to these simple rules and you can enjoy the complete privacy in the web as much as you want!