Women Fragrances

 You may have heard that the dark web is a place for drug dealers and hired killers. That's right, but there is more to it. In this article, find out what the dark web is, how to access it, and what you might find there.

 

The dark web links is a part of the Internet that requires special software to access it and is not indexed by search engines. It offers much greater privacy protection than the widely accessible parts of the World Wide Web.

The protection of privacy also makes the Dark Web a framework for illegal activity, scams and offensive content. The ups and downs of the Silk Road market for illicit drugs are the best known example. But despite the sensational media coverage, few people really understand what the dark web is or how it works. For example, it might surprise some people to learn that the New York Times and Facebook both maintain websites on the dark web.

The dark web links are not “dark” because it's bad; it's dark because it's the only place on the internet that offers some privacy. In this article, we'll walk you through how it works, what's really happening on the dark web, and how you can check it out for yourself.

 

What is the dark web?

Think of the internet as being divided into three parts: the light web, the deep web, and the dark web.

The clear web is the internet that most of us are familiar with. Its pages can be searched in Google, but it only makes up a small percentage of all content on the Internet. The deep web makes up the majority of the Internet, but it is not indexed by search engines, it is often password protected, and therefore not accessible to everyone. The deep web contains things like web archives, financial databases and password protected pages.

 

The dark web is a minor part of the deep web. It works on the existing Internet infrastructure, but it is a parallel web that cannot be accessed without special tools. For this reason, the dark web is occasionally referred to as the hidden web.

Generally websites on the Dark Web have domains’ name that end in “.onion” and are occasionally known as onion sites. They are called onion sites because of the type of encryption technology they use to hide the IP address of the servers that host them. Websites on the Dark Web hide their data behind multiple layers of encryption (like the layers of an onion), and can only be accessed through the Tor network, which is a network of computers across the world maintained by volunteers. Because the routing is generally random and the data is encrypted one, it is very difficult for anyone to find it back to its source.

 

How to access the dark web

Tor is the most popular dark web interface, with millions of users. There are several ways to access the Tor network, including through the Tor browser, the Tails operating system, or by installing Tor on your computer. ProtonVPN also offers one-click Tor access through the Tor over VPN feature. From there you can browse the web normally and access some very private and secure sites.

Unlike the regular web, however, even after logging into the Dark Web, it is not that easy to find websites. Dark Web Links’ sites use randomly generated domains which are not easy to remember. The dark web is also difficult to index, which means search engines are inefficient. There are a number of link directories, such as The Hidden Wiki, which attempt to catalog the dark web. But because dark web sites change domains frequently, you will find a lot of dead links. A typical onion site URL looks something like this:

http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/

 

Some special onion sites, however, have easy-to-remember domain names as well as SSL encryption (URLs that start with “https” instead of “http”). For example, ProtonMail's Tor encrypted messaging site is at https://protonirockerxow.onion while Facebook's onion site is at https://facebookcorewwwi.onion .

 

What can you find on the Dark Web?

Illicit uses of the dark web links are well documented: assassination services, e-commerce sites for the purchase of weapons and drugs, etc. It's best to stay away from anything that might look suspicious while browsing. However, there are a lot of 100% legal things you can do on the dark web. You can read ProPublica or The New York Times, check your emails in ProtonMail, or browse your Facebook wall. All of these mainstream websites offer Dark Web access because of the privacy and access to information benefits they offer.

One of the biggest advantages of the dark web is the difficulty of blocking it. Common forms of censorship, which block traffic to websites at specific bottleneck points in the Internet hierarchy, do not work with encrypted overlay networks.

Whistleblowers, journalists, and other professionals at risk of targeted surveillance use the dark web to communicate sensitive information. And organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation support the use of and access to the dark web.

One of the only downsides of the dark web is its speed. For example, because Tor bounces your traffic to multiple servers around the world, it necessarily slows down your connection. But when you want it, the dark web can be extremely important: when Turkey limited and blocked ProtonMail for some users, the onion site was one of the only ways people could get access to email.

There is therefore no reason to be afraid of the dark web links. On the contrary, the dark web is an essential tool for protecting privacy. As governments strive to weaken encryption through backdoors and businesses gain better access to everything we do, privacy and security technologies like the Dark Web must be vigorously defended.  And it starts with understanding them beyond the sensational headlines.