What is the deep web and what is it used for?
The deep web goes by a handful of different names, invisible web, deep web, hidden web and the list goes on. The deep web is essentially the part of the internet that you won’t find just by searched for it through a search engine, you need to know where to look to find it. The opposite of the deep web would be the ‘surface web’, everything that you can find on the surface or simply by using a search engine. To put things into perspective, the big three search engines only access a tiny fraction of a percentage of the internet (0.03%). Though this is a 2013 statistic and the internet does continue to grow exponentially, you should begin to grow an appreciation for the relative size of the deep web. (http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/invisible-web/)
The deep web began expanding because the US government needed to communicate with their intelligence in a discreet and undetectable way in the 90s. They also created TOR, which is the most popular browser used to access the dark web, which I will get into later on. Due to the nature of the content on the dark web it is highly recommended that anyone browsing the dark web use a browser that keeps you anonymous, otherwise you’ll probably get caught and end up in jail. I don’t know from experience but apparently to access most of the websites in the dark web you have to be using a browser like TOR because the websites are TOR encrypted!
Alright so how does it work? How does so much content stay off the search engines? There are a bunch of different reasons why that is.
I’ll just post the list of examples below, from: http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/invisible-web/
- Data that needs to be accessed by a search interface
- Results of database queries
- Subscription-only information and other password-protected data
- Pages that are not linked to by any other page
- Technically limited content, such as that requiring CAPTCHA technology
- Text content that exists outside of conventional http:// or https:// protocols
As you can see some of these things aren’t that obvious to everyone that they are a part of the deep web, such as content behind a paywall or subscription. Yet at the same time you can also see how ‘easy’ it is to make a website that won’t be discovered by a simple search online.
Now of course because the websites that exist in the deep web aren’t so easy to find people are bound to abuse this by conducting business or posting things that won’t be actively under the public eye. Normally when a website contains illegal material it can and usually will be taken down within a reasonable time frame. However, when your website is only available to the people who know it’s there then you can conduct business with less risk of being discovered. One business in particular that profits well on the deep web is drug dealing.
There is somewhat of a distinction however with these illegal activities, most people would refer to this as not just the deep web but more specifically the dark net or dark web. The deep web is very general and covers just about anything, the dark net is more specific to ‘dark/shady’ dealings and activities.
Most likely one of the most common uses of the dark net is buying and selling drugs.
According to this website, the market is huge and makes buying drugs easier than it has ever been, there’s no more need to find some sketchy dealer at the street corner. Instead, you can buy the product online where you know you’ll consistently be getting the same quality stuff. Not only that but it will get delivered right to your door and you can pretty much be assured it will come because of the scale of the website, they want to make as much money as possible and the best way to do that is to operate a ‘legitimate business’. One of the most popular dark web resources for buying and selling drugs was known as “Silk Road” and only recently it was shut down and it’s creator is spending life in prison.
There are a handful of other things that go on in the dark web such as, child pornography, fake documents such as passports, purchasing of copied credit cards and the list goes on, you’ll never really know what you’ll find unless you check yourself because every article about it will tell you a personalized experience.
Source: http://www.deepwebtech.com/
This picture accurately depicts exactly what I’ve been going on about, the web is analogous to an iceberg in that you can only see the tip of it and everything else is deep below the ocean level.
Hopefully I made understanding the deep and dark web as simple as possible for you!
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