The internet's dark side - The dark web

Internet is a modern day miracle. It is a maze of connections transmitting data at light speeds. Almost every home, every business is connected to the internet, faster communication is just a click away. But did you know that this technological marvel has its dark side ?? Which is called the dark web.

Consider the world wide Web as an ocean. The surface of the ocean is the surface web, which is the known internet and everything below the surface is the deep web or hidden web. In simple terms, surface web is nothing but the websites which can be accessed by an ordinary browsers like internet explorer, safari, firefox and chrome. The best example for surface web is social networking sites, news websites, shopping website  etc. Deep web cannot be accessed through normal search engines. The best example for deep web is net banking, web mail, government records. The subset of deep web is the dark web. Statistics say that only 30%of internet is surface web and 70% is deep web.

How do we access the deep web ? Well, deep web requires a special browser and a special network like TOR. TOR is both a browser and a network, it uses a routing feature called onion routing where the user requests are encapsulated into different layers of encryption, just like an onion. This ensures that sender’ s location is untraceable.

Coming to the content. Deep web is home to variety of content. You can access a variety of forums on various topics where privacy is ensured. You wouldn't believe there is a deep web  version of Facebook and Wikipedia. Have you ever wondered how wikileaks unearths conspiracies and unworthy policies? It's through deep web.

The deep web’s darkest place - dark web hosts a lot of illegal content. Child pornography forms the major chunk of the dark web content. Human traffickers, terrorists, criminals, drug dealers, hackers use deep web to carry out illegal activities and all the transactions are done through Bitcoins. You would be surprised to know that FBI has shutdown a deep web website called silk road where users can shop for illegal drugs just like Amazon or ebay. What's more surprising is there are websites where you can hire assassins to have someone assasinated.

Imagine a psychopath killer , kidnapped a victim and webcasts his torture session through his own deep web site where users can pay and watch and even sadistically cheer him to kill the victim in a way they wanted. Blood curdling right??  these websites are called red rooms. Some of them believe that it is a myth. Some believe that these are used as a bait by fraudsters or hackers to gain access and do their dirty work, there are some who believe that these red rooms are limited to animal torture. Anyways the existence of red rooms cannot be brushed off easily.

Is it really illegal to access deep web? No!!  not all!!, It's totally ok if you are using deep web for a private chat but when you access child pornography or visit a paedophile forum, it's illegal and you might end up in jail. The first word of caution when accessing deep web is not to venture into unknown websites, who knows you might become a victim to a hacker. It's his highly recommended that security softwares and anti virus be installed before accessing the deep web.

It is important that government monitors deep web and at it is also in the hands of citizens that internet be used responsibily.Luckily in countries like india, deep web is totally unknown, who knows when the monster comes out from the dark. Its better to be safe than sorry.

DISCLAIMER: My intention of writing this blog is to let people know about deep web and the dangers associated in misusing deep web. I never used the deep web or never will in future, all the information was obtained from various tech websites and various websites and YouTube channels. It's highly illegal to access banned content. Let us make a move towards healthy internet.