In The Dark

By Nathaniel Milliken APRIL 27, 2021 3:29PM (UTC)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You use the world wide web every day. It’s how you’re reading this article. In fact, many of you would probably call yourselves a ‘web expert.’ What you probably didn’t know, is there are actually three layers to the world wide web.

 

(1) The Surface Web

 

The surface web accounts for about five percent of the world wide web. This is what you access when you launch a simple google search or read an article in the Science & Health section of Salon.

 

(2) The Deep Web

The deep web accounts for the other ninety-five percent of the internet. The deepweb is anything that requires authentication to access, such as your personal Facebook account or your private medical records.

 

(3) The Dark Web

 

Lastly, accounting for far less than one percent of the world wide web is the darknet. This mysterious section of the web is devoted to keeping its users anonymous. To access the darkweb you need a special browser called TOR, or The Onion Router.

 

Anyone can use the darknet. TOR can be downloaded with xa simple google search. You probably aren’t the typical darknet user. Typical darknet users fall into a few categories, however. First, what most people think of when they hear about the darknet is drug trade. A large portion of the darknet is devoted to black markets, where you can buy guns, drugs, and stolen digital goods at the press of a button. Another common use case for the darknet is beginner and expert hackers. Often, expert hackers will complete contract work for beginners, and beginners will attempt to hone their skills by frequenting hacking forums.

 

The last common use case is a person like you or me, who wants to keep their browsing private, from their ISP, their government, or anyone else who wants to stick their nose in their browsing activity. This is the only case where I would recommend using TOR.

 

TOR isn’t a normal browser. When you use a normal browser, a unique identifier called an IP address is sent to a web server, and the web server returns a response. For example, you click a Salon article, and the server returns the page. The main goal with TOR is to keep web traffic private. Instead of sending your IP address directly to the server, TOR routes your address through three different locations, or nodes. For example, a simple TOR circuit could consist of Germany, South Africa, and Ireland. These nodes are all volunteers who allow TOR to route traffic through their computers. You can see the allure of TOR now, as your location is completely shrouded.

 

Another feature of TOR is the ability to access onion sites. Onion sites are the darknet sites that can only be accessed through TOR. Instead of .com, these domains end in .onion. Usually, onion sites have a lengthy domain name that is impossible to remember. This is why sites like dark.fail or darkeye collect all the reputable onion domains they can in a single page for the user to pull from.

 

One interesting onion is called Darknetlive. The website provides both a directory for other onions, and reports on darknet news. Any major arrest will appear on this site. I highly recommend reading through some of the crime log ticker. One of my favorite busts chronicled on Darknetlive was the head of SilkRoad v1 getting exposed by law enforcement because he had used his last name on a darknet site for his username.

 

Even though TOR does an excellent job of hiding your location, there are a few important loopholes to note. Since TOR nodes are volunteers, it is pretty simple for law enforcement or any other malicious party to compromise a node and view all the traffic that passes through it. Usually this is not a big danger, because if your node is intercepted between Germany and Ireland, nobody will be able to figure out your location anyway. Where it gets risky is at the last node of the circuit. Since all encryption has been stripped away by the last node, your IP address is vulnerable. This is why experts recommend using what’s called a VPN.

 

A VPN, or virtual private network is a simple tool that changes your IP address. You can download free and pricy VPNs as another layer of protection when accessing the darknet. The biggest thing to look for when using a VPN is whether they store logs of your searches or not. Many of the most reputable VPN’s have unfortunately been exposed for keeping logs of user searches. Some trustworthy VPNs are PIA and ProtonMail vpn. Nord is popular, but they probably store logs.

 

So, you want to access the darknet. The process is simple. Download TOR, pick your favorite VPN, and start digging for onions. Now that you know about the darknet, you probably realize it’s not as mysterious and dangerous as it sounds.

 

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