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Sometimes it's easy to take for granted how big the internet really is. What was described as simply a passing fad in 1995 has now become arguably the most important piece of infrastructure in the world. The internet is home to everything from art and entertainment, to personal and medical records, not to mention the vast majority of communication between people around the world. What few people consider, however, is what lies underneath.
Below the shallow surface of the internet that we see and interact with every day is a massive ocean of message boards, information, and marketplaces that no one stumbles upon by accident. These portions of the internet have their purposes, but they are also the home of some of the most sinister happenings in our world.
Read on for a crash course on the dark web, and what secrets are hiding just under the surface of our digital world.
The internet is much larger than you might think. Depending on who you ask, there are anywhere from three to seven layers of the internet, including the surface web, the deep web, and the dark web.
The level of the internet that most people use and are most familiar with is known as the surface web. The surface web includes all websites that are indexed, can be found using a search engine like Google, and is accessible to anyone.
The deep web is the second main level of the internet, and despite its ominous name, consists mostly of webpages that are password protected, paywalled, or pages that are part of private networks.
This means the deep web covers everything from streaming links on Netflix, corporate virtual back offices, cloud services and Google drives, or a hospital's internal information network, for instance.
As the internet has become such an integral part of everyday life and countless paid services and storage methods have moved online, the deep web has grown exponentially, and now makes up more than 90% of the internet.
As of 2020, the internet as a whole was estimated to contain around 40 zettabytes of data. One zettabyte consists of one trillion gigabytes. So, if 90% of the data on the internet is taken up by the deep web, the deep web would be 36 zettabytes, or 36 trillion gigabytes. Surely, that number is only bound to grow.
Beneath Netflix, email, and everything else, in the deepest corners of the internet, lies the dark net. While technically still a part of the deep web, the dark net has been intentionally hidden from prying eyes and can only be accessed with the right tools.
While some claim that the dark web is meant as a safe space for individuals to practice their right to privacy away from the eyes of the government, the dark web is mostly seen as a shady respite for the criminal online underworld.
The dark web can't be accessed using a normal web browser, and dark websites won't appear on regular search engines. No sites on the dark web are indexed or contain links to any indexed sites, and since search engines like Google built their databases mostly by following one link to another, and searches for dark websites will draw a blank.
Additionally, all sites on the dark web end with the domain suffix ".onion," instead of ".com" or something similar. This means they can only be accessed through a special web browser known as the Tor Browser, which sends user requests through numerous proxy servers, adding layers upon layers of anonymity, forming an anonymous "onion," before reaching the desired site.
Considering its many nefarious uses, it might come as a surprise that "onion routing," the fundamental process behind the Tor Browser, was developed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory in the 1990s. The Tor Project group that runs and maintains the browser still receives occasional government funding.
While the right to privacy is the core principle of the well-meaning creators of Tor, it is routinely exploited by criminals, illegal traders, and fraudsters of all sorts.
Scammers have taken full advantage of the confusion that comes with navigating the dark net. With no way to verify who is on the other end of a transaction you might make on one of the various anonymous dark web marketplaces, many users will simply take your money and run.
One of the darkest activities that takes place on the dark web is the rampant and uninhibited industry of human trafficking and child exploitation, the purveyors of which abuse the anonymity granted by the Tor Browser. While agencies around the world like the FBI are working to locate and shut down these despicable marketplaces, it is estimated that, solely in the United States, 50,000 people use the Tor Browser and the dark net for activities related to child exploitation and trafficking.
There are numerous virtual libraries on the dark web that include digital versions of all sorts of literature and handbooks, some that have been banned for various reasons. These libraries can contain things as innocent as a free copy of 'The Great Gatsby,' to something as sinister as recipes for explosives.
The anonymity of the Tor Browser also makes the dark web a prime recruitment area for extremist groups all around the world. Copious amounts of propaganda from terrorist organizations hiding beneath the surface web have been found on deep websites and message boards.
The web page URLs used to access dark net websites usually look like long, incomprehensible lines of code, which makes it difficult to know if the link you're about to click on is safe or not. Oftentimes, links won't lead users anywhere except into the traps of malware and ransomware viruses.
Long before Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies took the world by storm and became a global obsession, cryptocurrency was quietly dominating dark web marketplaces. Cryptocurrency's digital structure and emphasis on anonymity made it the perfect financial system on which to build a global online black market.
While there are close to 8,500 active sites on the dark web, some are more infamous than others. One such website is known as the Hidden Wiki. Once accessed, users can find a directory of dark net websites with the appropriate links, which can otherwise be nearly impossible to find. However, the dark net is always changing, and many of these links go dark or get taken over by malware on a frequent basis.
By far the most infamous website on the dark web was the Silk Road. The Silk Road was started by a young American named Ross Ulbricht in 2011, and was the first anonymous marketplace of its kind. Any product or service under the sun could be found and paid for on the Silk Road.
At its height, the Silk Road was estimated to have around 100,000 users and saw US$9 million worth of transactions during its two years of operation. In 2013, Ulbricht, who had been using the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, was tracked to a San Francisco library, where he was arrested. Eventually, Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences in prison without the chance of parole.
Counterfeit certificates of all sorts can be found on dark web marketplaces like the Silk Road. The Silk Road had a huge demand for fake IDs, and some sellers also sold fake passports and even counterfeit college degrees.
The Silk Road and other similar marketplaces profit mostly off of the illicit sales of drugs and weapons. A 2021 study estimated that the online drug market generates around US$315 million each year.
Credit card scammers also go to the dark web to make their profits. Digital bank account information can be bought at surprisingly low prices, and other sellers sell physical counterfeit credit cards with the stolen information embedded into their RFID tags.
People's entire identities can be bought and sold on the dark web as well. Hackers who break into medical records, court databases, and other databases of private information sell everything from home addresses to social security numbers.
Not every site on the dark web is concerned with immoral and illegal dealings. One website and message board, known as the Strategic Intelligence Network, was built as a resource tool to help individuals survive in all sorts of crisis situations, from abductions to the end of the world.
It is rumored that on certain sites deep within the dark web, there are vendors claiming to sell the spirits of deceased children, sometimes for less than US$200.
There is a legend, shared on various message boards on the surface web and in the deep web, of a fourth layer of the internet, known as Mariana's web, named after the Mariana Trench.
Legend has it that Mariana's web can only be accessed with a quantum computer, something very few governments or scientific organizations, not to mention laypeople, have access to. Once accessed, Mariana's web is said to hold the location of Atlantis, secret documents from the Vatican, and other secrets of humanity and beyond. One theory even claims that Mariana's web is the internet itself, or at least the sentient AI program that keeps it running.
For every drug dealer, soul vendor, or passport maker, there are a hundred more people who simply use the Tor system to browse the internet in private. Of the nearly 8,500 .onion websites in existence, only around 40 concern themselves with illicit activities.
Sources: (Biometrica Systems) (Ranker) (DataProt)
See also: Smishing vs. phishing: why you need to know the difference
The dark web: the hidden side of the internet
What lies under the surface?
LIFESTYLE Online
Sometimes it's easy to take for granted how big the internet really is. What was described as simply a passing fad in 1995 has now become arguably the most important piece of infrastructure in the world. The internet is home to everything from art and entertainment, to personal and medical records, not to mention the vast majority of communication between people around the world. What few people consider, however, is what lies underneath.
Below the shallow surface of the internet that we see and interact with every day is a massive ocean of message boards, information, and marketplaces that no one stumbles upon by accident. These portions of the internet have their purposes, but they are also the home of some of the most sinister happenings in our world.
Read on for a crash course on the dark web, and what secrets are hiding just under the surface of our digital world.