Despite the fact that it is in the news for hacking, drug selling, and other things, the dark web has been around since 2000 and was first mentioned in a research paper entitled White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value.
The hidden portion of the internet that is not indexed or searchable on the surface web is known as the ‘dark web.’ The dark web’s true size on the internet is unknown yet. However, a guess suggests that it makes up roughly 5% of total Internet traffic.
Many of us who spend time online have heard about the dark web as a center for unlawful and criminal acts, and it’s no surprise that it’s also linked to illicit activities due to the alleged secrecy provided by browsers like TOR and Tails.
The dark web is a hidden internet where illicit goods and criminal activities are traded. According to statistics published by King’s College London in 2015, 75% of the dark web content is based on illegal material and criminal activities.
Yet, it isn’t all that bad, because organizations like the New York Times, the BBC, Facebook, and even the CIA have a presence on the dark web.
Still, the dark net has a reputation for a reason. Buying and selling of stolen credit cards, transactions for prescriptions of all sorts, weapons sales, hacked social media accounts, services that aid hacking into someone’s personal email, fake currency, and so on are just a few examples of illegal and criminal activities found on the dark web.
Another study, “Into The Web of Profit,” published by the University of Surrey in 2019, under the direction of Dr. Michael McGuire, not only confirms previous statistics but also reveals that dark web criminal activities and illegal acts have risen roughly 20% over the period measured. As a result, most dark web users employ dishonest and skilled hackers to break into and damage national and international online systems.
Deep Web VS Dark Web?
The words “dark web” and “deep web” are sometimes used interchangeably, although they refer to different things. When we say deep web, we’re talking about anything that isn’t indexed on the surface network. In other words, it’s simply not searchable via Chrome or Bing. The owners of deep web sites are intentionally hiding their content from the surface internet and have no desire for world wide web crawlers to list it.
Users must download TOR or Tails and search on Duck Duck Go (or other specialist browsers like Torch) to access the deep web material. Visitors must pay or submit their passwords to enter some dark websites.
Mature content membership websites, illicit goods and services, and even private personal data are just a few of the deep web’s many offerings. Because these sites are impossible to find on the internet we’re all familiar with, they go largely unvisited.
However, the size of the deep web on the internet is 96% greater than that of surface internet websites known as ‘the clear web.’ The proportion of online searches for information which lead to non-public commercial sites (such as blogs), in comparison to other types of content like videos or images is unknown.
The vast majority (96 percent) of all online searches for knowledge ultimately direct consumers back to non-public commercial sites such as blogs. In comparison to other sorts of material such as films or photographs, this indicates that
The dark web is a subcategory of the deep web, with its contents intentionally obscured from the surface internet. Users must use specific search engines to access dark web marketplaces, or sites like darkwebmarket.net to find working links.