What Is The Dark Web?
The Internet is a much, much bigger place than you probably realise. You know about Facebook, Google, BBC iPlayer and Amazon, but do you really know what's lurking beyond those user-friendly and respectable websites?
This is but a tiny corner of the Internet, and the Dark Web and the Deep Web loom in much shadier corners. Using Tor, you can access them, but should you even want to visit the Dark Web or the Deep Web?
The Dark Web is a term that refers specifically to a collection of websites that exist on an encrypted network and cannot be found by using traditional search engines or visited by using traditional browsers.
It is a network of websites and servers that use encryption to obscure traffic. Almost all sites on the so-called Dark Web hide their identity using the Tor encryption tool. You may know Tor for its ability to hide your identity and activity. You can use Tor to spoof your location so it appears you're in a different country to where you're really located, making it much like using a VPN service.
When a website is run through Tor it has much the same effect.Indeed, it multiplies the effect. To visit a site on the Dark Web that is using Tor encryption, the web user needs to be using Tor. Just as the end user's IP address is bounced through several layers of encryption to appear to be at another IP address on the Tor network, so is that of the website.
Dark Web sites use non-memorable URL strings, and can be accessed only by using the open source, security-focused Tor browser. Because the tools required to access Dark Web sites help protect user, and server, anonymity, in the past decade the Dark Web has become a magnet for criminal activity.
Bitcoin is the singular currency used on the Dark Web and is favored by users for its anonymity. The crypto-currency is often used for gambling and other similarly illicit activities, and bitcoins are widely used today amongsr crimial organisations
The Silk Road, an eBay-like market for drugs and weapons, famously helped establish the market for peer-to-peer anonymous criminal commerce.
Today, the Dark Web markets sell drugs, weapons, malicious software, and piles of consumer and sensitive corporate data.
And so the Dark Web remains incredibly attractive to Internet users for a wide range of reasons.
The enshrouded nature and complex methodology required to access this world have effectively made it a secret world, full of salacious activity, black markets, sights, and perks limited to a select few.
Listed below is a sampling of the many things to be found using Dark Web links:
Credit card numbers: Stolen credit card numbers are a big business on the Dark Web. Typically sold in bulk lots of a hundred or more, credit card numbers can be had at low prices and ready for the most illicit of uses.
Fake passports: Popular Dark Website “Fake Documents” specialises in selling top-notch replica documents from every nation in the world. A United States passport can be had for as little as 1,000 dollars.
Marijuana: Every strain, potency, and type of Marijuana can be found on the Dark Web. Meanwhile, prices are often lower than those typically found in the “regular” market.
Stolen/Hacked Accounts: On the Dark Web, it is very easy to procure stolen/hacked accounts to popular websites and services such as Netflix, Spotify, Uber and PayPal.
Fake Coupons: Fake coupons offering savings ranging from fifty cents to substantial discounts exceeding twenty percent off are a booming business on the Dark Web.
Fake College Degrees: Any name and any institution are for sale on the Dark Web. Whether you are interested in purchasing a degree in your name from Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, these official looking documents can be quickly and cheaply had.
Murder for hire/Assassination: Murder for hire is perhaps the most famed notion associated with the Dark Web. According to reports, there are legions of contract killers available for hire hiding within the murky depths of the Dark Web.
However, there is a large collective insisting that hitmen do not truly exist on the Dark Web and that anyone foolish enough to employ the services of these types of individuals is merely setting themselves up in a trap to be arrested for conspiracy to murder.
Drugs/Narcotics: Drugs are a booming market on the Dark Web. Home to every drug imaginable, the Dark Web offers consumers marijuana, heroin, ecstasy, shrooms, LSD, cocaine, crack, meth and more. And much more like Weapons, Hacked Government Data an so on.
But the Dark Web is not all Bad News
ProPublica, a well-respected investigative news organisation, has a Dark Web site to help the company securely communicate with sources. The United Nations law enforcement department, the Office on Drugs and Crime, monitors the Dark Web and shares data with the public and global police organisations.
This article is intended as a guide to what is the Dark Web - not an endorsement or encouragement for you to start using the Dark Web… Be careful.
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Video contributed by VPNOverview: What is The Dark Web and How to Access it Safely?
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