Beyond the surface Internet: Understanding the dark web
We are all used to the Internet. One way or the other, it impacts our lives; be it professional, social or even religious. Beneath the Internet, however, is the dark web. The visible Internet is just the surface and beyond what you can see lies the dark and deep web.
Advertisement
The deep web is simply too large and/or too obscure to be indexed due to the limitation of search engines, it is accessible and not necessarily malicious. However, the dark web is the non-indexed and restricted part of the Internet (the deep web) where control is key either due to illegal acts or a strong desire for privacy.
What is the deep web?
The deep web can be described as a subset of the Internet which has no classifications i.e. not indexed and thus unavailable on most Internet search engines.This means when you are surfing the Internet, your reach is narrowed to the open Internet but your tentacles will not normally reach the deep web. So for deep web, you must be in the possession of a specific address to reach content it holds.
Examples of deep web could be commercial databases and subscription sites such as Lexis Nexis, CQ Critical Mention etc. Another popular example of deep web is the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine which provides you with access to websites that owners have pulled down or are no longer maintaining. The Deep Web exists because the Internet is too large for search engines to cover completely. Invariably, there is a lot of content out there which is left out by such engines. The deep web is called the deep web because of its massive size. It’s literally ‘deep’. Interestingly, big search engines such like Google, Yahoo, and Bing combined only actually access a tiny fraction, 0.03%, of the Internet (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet/) and the rest constitute the deep web. The deep web is beyond the surface of the Internet and you can only get there if you have the tools and mechanism to get beneath this surface.
Understanding the Dark web
On the other hand, the dark web, also known as Darknet is not only non-indexed but requires special code to access it, this could be through the use of authentication, proxy software. In terms of web architecture, dark web often sits on a layer of additional sub-networks, such as Freenet (https://freenetproject.org), TOR (https://www.torproject.org/) and I2P ( https://geti2p.net/ ). Dark web has a bad name as it is associated with numerous criminal activities such as child pornography, sharing of viruses, criminal contacts, drug transactions, illicit gambling, purchasing of illegal goods and services. etc.
Nevertheless, it is important to point out that, there is a number of legitimate uses for Dark Web as well. Dark web resource types are organised around peculiar interests and exchanges where a user is required to contribute before using and thereby keeping this resource fresh with new content, and more importantly ensures, especially for illegal content sites, that users share a common bond of mutual guilt to reduce the odds of anyone reporting the sites to legal authorities.
How do I access the deep web?
To access the deep web you need something beyond your Internet browser. That is you need a special deep web browser to enable you access its content. A very popular example is TOR.
One key characteristic of deep web browsing is that you are truly anonymous and your location can’t be known and neither would you experience monitoring.
Most deep web websites run on .onion domains which connotes the fact that both end user and providers are nearly impossible to trace. Some examples of .onion sites are listed here: http://pastebin.com/ADTynHbX (WARNING: Some of these links contain disturbing content, adult content and plain illegal stuff). Once you install a deep web browser in order to access content, you simply type out the deep web address and click on the ‘enter’ key as you would with a normal browser.
What makes up the deep web?
Given the level of anonymity deep web offers, you are right to assume it will be full of illegal content and you are correct in this assertion. The deep web is full of the good, bad and ugly. But this does not discount professional and legal applications of deep web especially in giving you access to content you will never find on the public Internet.
Conclusion
We cannot continue burying our heads in the sand and pretend dark and deep web does not exist because they are not normally visible to use in contrast to surface web. We must redouble our efforts to protect one of the most valuable assets of any individual, company or country: information and knowledge. We are all at risk when cyber criminals can have unfretted access to such information and knowledge on dark web giving them options to compromise organisations and even countries. We must be proactive by continuously monitoring the dark web so that we preempt such attacks before they happen.
The writer is the Executive Director of Penplusbytes.org - you can follow him on twitter at www.twitter.com/kwamigh; WhatsApp : 0241995737.