What is Dark Web? Why People use Dark Web?
The Dark Web is a collection of thousands of websites. All websites here use anonymous tools such as Tor and I2P to hide their IP address.
Once upon a time, the Dark Web was known as a deep and secret cyber underground world. Where 90 percent of the world’s Internet was said to be hidden. But today, it is time to change that definition.
In fact, the Dark Web is not so deep and 90 percent of the Internet is not hidden here. It is not so secret. In fact, the Dark Web is a collection of websites that can be seen in public.
But the IP address of the server that runs Yin is hidden there. This means that anyone within the Dark Web can visit. However, it is not known who hosts that site and how.
Most dark websites use the secret software ‘Tor’. But few sites use the same kind of secret tool I to P. Both systems encrypt web traffic in layers and bounce it from randomly selected computers around the world.
Each of these computers removes a single layer of encryption before passing data to another hope on the network. This is the method used to prevent surveillance when examining the theory of the Dark Web.
These are randomly selected computers from around the world, used in encrypted chains. The person using or controlling the computer cannot identify or locate the place where the P-traffic originated.
When any web user uses Tor, any site they visit can easily see their IP address. However, only Tor users can visit websites that run Tor itself, called Tor Hidden Service.
In order to randomly select a meet-up point on the Tor network, the traffic coming from the user’s computer and web server have to complete three hops.
Hiding the IP addresses of sites does not mean that they are confidential. There are hundreds of regular users on Silk Road, Silk Road Two, Agora and Evolution, drug selling sites like Tor Hidden Services.
Anyone who runs Tor and knows the URL of the site can easily visit those illegal online marketplaces.
Don’t confuse with Deep Web
While the news media is spreading false rumors on the Dark Web that 90 percent of the internet world is hidden, they are mistaken for the so-called ‘Deep Web’.
Deep Web is actually a collection of websites that cannot be reached by search engines. Those indexed sites also include the Dark Web. But it contains very interesting content.
The actual dark web is less than 0.01 percent of the overall web world. According to web security researcher Nick Kubrilovic, there are now less than 10,000 Tor Hidden services on the Dark Web.
The world’s first high-profile dark website was Tor Hidden Service WikiLeaks. Who used to keep secret information leaked from various secret sources? Later the same idea was used in a tool called SecureDrop.
SecureDrop is software that provides confidential information from confidential sources to any news organization in collaboration with Tor Hidden Services.
Not only this, but Facebook has also launched its own Dark Website with the aim of providing better service to the users who visit Facebook using Tor to evade surveillance and censorship.
How Tor can completely deceive large resource-friendly regulatory bodies and intelligence agencies remains an open question.
Last November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Europe’s Joint Force Operation Onyx seized dozens of Tor Hidden Services, including three of the six most popular drug markets on the Dark Web.
How the authorities found those secret sites remains a mystery. But some security researchers have speculated that government hackers may be using so-called “denial of service” attacks.
In this type of attack, the Tor relays are filled with junk data, forcing the target sites to use the Tor relays they control and thus trace their IP address.
They use traditional research techniques where they send reports to administrators or detect vulnerabilities in targeted sites.
It conveys the message that the secret world of the Dark Web can be penetrated by any means, no matter what the means.