Skip to main content

The dark side of the World Wide Web

In this post, I will write about the hidden side of the Internet, more specifically about the Dark Web. The so-called surface web, which is what most of us are familiar with and can easily access takes in fact only 4% of the Internet. The Deep Web refers to the content that is not indexed by search engines and requires special access - it can be such things as medical records, government documents, and academic information. However, the Dark Web is the deepest layer of the Deep Web and the content on it has mostly illegal nature.

Dark Net (1)

How does the Dark Web work?
The Dark Web requires special access through a software and the most popular one is called "Tor". It allows accessing sites anonymously by routing web requests through a series of proxy servers held by thousands of volunteers, which results in rendering the IP address untraceable. It is not easy to navigate in this hidden part of the world wide web. There are some search engines to use, but they are most of the time messy and often do not give the wanted search results. The Dark Web websites use special domain suffix ".onion" instead of ending with for example ".com". Also, the hostname consists of randomly generated characters.

Dark Web Content
The dark Web Content infographics 

A big part of the Dark Web is still undiscovered, despite the efforts to index it. But it is known that the Dark Web is used to perform illegal activities and sell illegal products. It is possible to buy drugs, weapons and other illegal products. There are also a number of services available, such as hiring hitmen or hackers, buy credit card numbers, stolen passwords and unlimited accesses to paid online services and access to illegal pornography. As for example, it is possible to buy seven prepaid debit cards with $2500 balance only for $500. Or a “lifetime” Netflix premium account for $6. For $50 and up, one can buy medical records and only for $1 to purchase a social security number. To hire a hitman to target an "ordinary person" it costs $20k and for someone "important" it is $100k. It is believed that the Silk Road, which was one of the biggest black market sites processed $1.2B transactions whilst active. There are a lot of sites dedicated to scamming and false content. The Dark Web is also a place for terrorist groups and it is estimated that there are around 50 000 of them. However, not all the content of the Dark Web has criminal nature. It was in fact created for a purpose of free communication with anonymity. There are a variety of encrypted email services and advanced tips for cybersecurity. You can also find hardly available books and political news and discuss current events anonymously. So even though the Dark Web is filled with illegal content, it is a safe place of free speech and anonymity.

The Dark Web is growing at a faster rate than the Surface Web and more people become aware of things that can be achieved on it. I do believe that staying anonymous on the Internet is beneficial at times and even necessary, but with it also comes the evolution of easily accessible crime for anyone and anywhere in the world.



Used for inspiration:
Nick Routley. The Dark Side of the Internet.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/dark-web/
Darren Guccione. What is the dark web? How to access it and what you'll find.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3249765/data-breach/what-is-the-dark-web-how-to-access-it-and-what-youll-find.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence analysis

In this post, I will do a textual analysis of Disturbed metal band's song The Sound Of Silence. I chose this song because it is one of those songs, which gives me emotional chills every time I listen to it. This song is only a cover by Disturbed but is quite different from the original one. But before heading to the analysis, here is the song's video: The genre of this song falls under the rock, however, it is quite different in the sense of what we usually perceive as rock music. There is no presence of electric guitar, bass, and drums as it is usual in rock music, but instead, there is piano, acoustic guitar and timpani. In some cases, it is classified also as a piano rock, which I completely agree with. I would not classify this song just as a rock genre as the sound and the feeling of it does not represent rock music in my eyes. The singer (David Draiman) is represented as the storyteller in the music video. At the beginning of the video, the artist seems to be vu...
Post a Comment
Read more

How did Cartoon Network shows evolve in time

Probably most of us remember or have heard about Cartoon Network animated TV series channel, which was particularly popular among 90's kids. In my case, it was a huge entertainment part of my childhood and I have seen it rapidly reforming from 2000 up until 2011 by the old shows being replaced by new ones. My main question in this blog post is: Is CN still something worth watching or did it diminish to please the newest generations? Now when asking someone else from my generation (mostly generation Z) about whether Cartoon Network has become something greater, the usual answer is: ''No, the old CN is gone and nothing can replace it''. Even though I do believe in that myself, I assume that there is that piece of our childhood that is irreplaceable so we do not want to cope with the fact that our favorite childhood cartoons can be replaced in any way. This is why in this blog post I will try to compare the new CN with the old one with an unbiased opinion of mine. E...
3 comments
Read more

Cartoons that predicted future

I have heard more and more cases where cartoons predicted the future and some of them have done it in quite a significant scale. It is somewhat creepy but intriguing enough for me to go digging up on which cartoons have done that. I know that there are quite a lot of cases so I will not cover many of them in this post and will go through a couple of examples. On top of the list will be of course The Simpsons , because I think that it has the most discussed cases in predicting the future. In one episode there was a frame with a brochure saying "New York at $9" and behind are the twin towers, which form together 9/11. The episode came out in 1997. The creators say that it was just a bizarre coincidence. "New York at $9" brochure (Image source:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/arts/television/simpsons-prediction-future.html ) Another prediction from The Simpsons was that Trump became president of US and Theresa May the prime minister of UK. 'The Regi...
Post a Comment
Read more