The Internet has changed our lives profoundly, the way we work, learn, play or socialize have been
changed forever.
It connected us in ways that we've never imagined before
and it opened new worlds and opportunities.
There are millions of emails sent every one second,
hundreds of thousands of Google searches or YouTube videos opened every second.
There is so much information on the Internet that no matter what your search for (a legal or illegal product
or service), the Internet will provided for you. Though we are unique in our beliefs and feelings,
chances are that there might be someone, somewhere out there, that will match us.
However, the visible part of the web, the one that we usually search on Google or browse freely, represents
no more than 4 or 5% of the total web.
The remaining 95 percent is hidden.
An image worths a thousand words!
So just to understand it more clearly, we'll use the iceberg analogy that was first presented by a
data scientist.
We can break down the Web into 3 categories!
The Surface Web is only the tip of the iceberg and is composed of pages indexed by search engines like
Google and can be accessed freely.
Wikipedia, Google, CNN, YouTube or a product page on Amazon are all examples of web pages that belong
to the surface web.
Most of us use it on a daily basis! Besides at the surface web
there's the deep web, which refers to all the pages which are not indexed, which means that most search
engines won't return them
to you
after a search.
They are protected by a password or by any other means.
The deep web consists of e-mail accounts, medical or financial records, governmental reports, legal
documents or even parts of the legitimate mainstream web like Netflix or Amazon pages, simply because
they're personalized for users and are available to you only after you've logged in.
So when you log in into your e-mail or online banking application, you access in fact, a part
of the deep web.
So the deep web is not so cool as it sounds.
It's similar to the surface web only with an extra layer of protection.
However, the deep web is a massive part of the Internet,
approximately 96% being on it.
Let's move on and see what is the Dark web.
It's the unseen part of the Internet and it's technically a part of the deep web,
even a layer deeper. It consists of onion services that run in the Tor network and can be accessed
only with the Tor browser.
The name of such a website
looks like some random characters and .onion at the end.
It doesn't look familiar at all.
There is no .com, .org or . and your country code.
There's kind of address can be accessed only with the Tor browser.
If you try to access such a service using a traditional Web browser, it definitely won't work.
It's not working! Let's try to access these onion service using Tor.
This is Thor and I'm pasting it.
And it's working.
These services don't have an IP address like the websites are familiar with and are unrecognizable.
If the user's identity and behavior can be easily tracked by governments and corporations
on the surface web,
what happens on the dark web is highly secret.
Both the users and the website's identity are completely anonymous.
Before continuing, I have a warning for you!
This video is part of a series that's for educational purposes only.
Please DO NOT enter the Dark Web unless you know what you are doing! And be aware you are fully and solely
responsible for your actions.
Let's take this example!
Using the Tor browser, I've connected to this onion hidden service,
so to the dark Web.
This is the onion address of the DuckDuckGo search engine.
You know it because you see its logo.
But no one can ever find out that I'm connected to this website,
what is my identity,
what is the website's identity or where is it located.
I, the website, our locations and the way we are communicating are completely hidden and secret.
And we are not even communicating directly, but through many Tor relays and the rendezvous point.
Now, at the end, I want to tell you something very important.
If the Tor browser is used mainly for illegal activities like browsing the Web anonymously and circumvent
censorship in countries with a low level of democracy, the Dark Web is focused mainly on illegal activities
and services.
Note that according to some statistics, less than 8% of the total users access the Dark
Web. On the Dark Web
you can buy a valid Social Security number at the cost of a few dollars and then with a few hundreds,
even a fake I.D. card and steal someone's identity. Or for a few dollars an hour you can buy a Botnet
and perform a DDoS attack to take down any service or site.
There are also stolen credit cards.
It's the criminals' heaven.
Some people call it the place where humanity's darkest sight surfaces.
It's even worse that you could ever imagine.
It's the place where criminals, drug dealers, predators or human traffickers lie.
The lack of rules here allow anything and anyone to exist!