DARK/DEEP WEB
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DARK/DEEP WEB
Curiosity may well have killed the cat, but I remain fascinated by the potential of the dark web, a/k/a deep web. Apparently the internet as I know it, including this fine site, represents a mere 4% of search engine accessible ip addresses: the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The other 96% resides in a Tor-browsable dangerous realm.
I am fairly techno-savvy and still, after all my years on this planet, remain insatiably curious. (It'll kill me yet!) Have any of you, my PPRuNe brethren, an opinion regarding the wisdom of taking a dive into this black unexplored realm?
You have my thanks in advance for your expertise!
I am fairly techno-savvy and still, after all my years on this planet, remain insatiably curious. (It'll kill me yet!) Have any of you, my PPRuNe brethren, an opinion regarding the wisdom of taking a dive into this black unexplored realm?
You have my thanks in advance for your expertise!
Last edited by cavuman1; 13th Nov 2021 at 14:15. Reason: Top Secret
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The dark web is mostly made up of many autonomous devices such as wifi controlled switches and security camera feeds. Then there are the user groups that have basically clung on or evolved from the earliest days of networking with dial up modems. You had to know the name of the group, the number to dial, the modem settings and a password to log into the site. Mostly these sites were populated by computer game enthusiasts swapping hacks to bypass the game protection software, or methods of making free long distance phone calls. As more computer networks came online, it became a popular pastime to try and gain access to university systems and other sites, mostly just for fun, but occasionally to use the extra computing power to run through some problem.
The user groups have devolved into market places for trading drugs, stolen goods, lists of credit card details, pornography, pirated movies, games, and so on. The standard currency is bitcoin, used in belief that it is untraceable. It isn't, but the effort required to link it to an individual is not worthwhile pursuing except by intel agencies.
Enter at your own risk, but I sincerely hope that you don't find anything that piques your interest on the dark web, it will probably be illegal, expensive, or bad for you. Probably a combination of all three.
The one weakness with Tor and the dark web is that every session has to be entered by a legitimate gateway address. Messages and data get bounced around various servers so there is no direct link or contact between the sending and receiving site, but at each end of the connection there is a physical computer connected to an open address. All that rerouting across multiple servers slows your internet connection to a crawl.
It takes time, sometimes as long as 30 seconds to trace a connection between a couple of computers using Tor, but it is fairly trivial to do given the right software and a knowledge of at least one end of the connection. So if you want to attract the attention of the security agencies, feel free to dive in. Just be aware that your activities will not be as anonymous as you might expect given the claims of the hacking fraternity.
Of course, it simply isn't possible to monitor every internet address and connection in real time, so unless you are involved in something really bad, you will probably think you have a remarkably secure connection. Don't forget to have firewalls set and the latest antivirus software installed on your computer. Use Linux if you want anyone on the dark web to take you seriously. Windows will betray you as a noob immediately and probably see your computer overwhelmed with malware in seconds rather than minutes.
Last time I visited my computer was bombarded with 43 malware attacks in under a minute. All of them were blocked, but I spent so much time acknowledging and cancelling the warning messages that kept popping up, it was virtually impossible to actually achieve anything worthwhile. I was looking for an unlock code for an outdated piece of software that I wanted to try out. As it happened the software wasn't of any use, but the dark web was the only source for the code, the program not being supported anymore. So good for that kind of stuff, but beware of the dangers, they are not exaggerated.
The user groups have devolved into market places for trading drugs, stolen goods, lists of credit card details, pornography, pirated movies, games, and so on. The standard currency is bitcoin, used in belief that it is untraceable. It isn't, but the effort required to link it to an individual is not worthwhile pursuing except by intel agencies.
Enter at your own risk, but I sincerely hope that you don't find anything that piques your interest on the dark web, it will probably be illegal, expensive, or bad for you. Probably a combination of all three.
The one weakness with Tor and the dark web is that every session has to be entered by a legitimate gateway address. Messages and data get bounced around various servers so there is no direct link or contact between the sending and receiving site, but at each end of the connection there is a physical computer connected to an open address. All that rerouting across multiple servers slows your internet connection to a crawl.
It takes time, sometimes as long as 30 seconds to trace a connection between a couple of computers using Tor, but it is fairly trivial to do given the right software and a knowledge of at least one end of the connection. So if you want to attract the attention of the security agencies, feel free to dive in. Just be aware that your activities will not be as anonymous as you might expect given the claims of the hacking fraternity.
Of course, it simply isn't possible to monitor every internet address and connection in real time, so unless you are involved in something really bad, you will probably think you have a remarkably secure connection. Don't forget to have firewalls set and the latest antivirus software installed on your computer. Use Linux if you want anyone on the dark web to take you seriously. Windows will betray you as a noob immediately and probably see your computer overwhelmed with malware in seconds rather than minutes.
Last time I visited my computer was bombarded with 43 malware attacks in under a minute. All of them were blocked, but I spent so much time acknowledging and cancelling the warning messages that kept popping up, it was virtually impossible to actually achieve anything worthwhile. I was looking for an unlock code for an outdated piece of software that I wanted to try out. As it happened the software wasn't of any use, but the dark web was the only source for the code, the program not being supported anymore. So good for that kind of stuff, but beware of the dangers, they are not exaggerated.
Thread Starter
I appreciate your responses, GOULI and TangoAlphad! You have convinced me that it's too much trouble just to get in trouble. I'll stick with the interwebby that I've known since 1987...
Thread Starter
Holy Thread Revival, Spiderman! After nearly four years of fear-induced procrastination, I have, at the invitation of my VPN provider, finally taken the plunge into the DARK WEB!
Utilizing the latest TOR (the onion router) browser set on "safe" behind expressVPN, I have spent several days surfing the vast underbelly of the internet with no problems, touch wood! There are a huge number of interesting sites; I stay away from those featuring porn, drugs, murder for hire, and easy money schemes. I have not noticed any significant degradation in connection speeds nor an eruption of spy/malware attempts.
If other Pruners have suggestions regarding methodology or worthwhile Dark Web sites to visit, I would be most interested! Thank you.
Utilizing the latest TOR (the onion router) browser set on "safe" behind expressVPN, I have spent several days surfing the vast underbelly of the internet with no problems, touch wood! There are a huge number of interesting sites; I stay away from those featuring porn, drugs, murder for hire, and easy money schemes. I have not noticed any significant degradation in connection speeds nor an eruption of spy/malware attempts.
If other Pruners have suggestions regarding methodology or worthwhile Dark Web sites to visit, I would be most interested! Thank you.
I can't offer any dark web pointers, never having 'gone there' knowingly, but on reading your OP the statistic that the normal WWW comprises only 4% of the total tally of sites. I heard (3rd hand) from an IT security expert much the same, though around 10% was their estimate. I find these figures to be crazy, simply because if we think of all the websites from the largest to the smallest in the WWW have people behind them as a backstop, even if only one individual. Using logical reasoning, that would necessitate there to be either a whole order more humans on the planet currently unaccounted for, or every internet site proprietor having a great many dark web sites as a side hustle. Simply put the numbers don't seem to match up with the purported facts. Even if a great many dark web sites are bot sites controlled by some master site, it just seems to not make sense to me.
Not done it myself, but on an IT course I went on a few years ago the instructor showed us part of the dark web, basically a catalogue of stolen credit cards, $15 each. WIth PIN and CCR code. Hundreds of them. Not something for the unititiated to be messing with!
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This thread topic made me do some research into the deep/dark web and I learn't a few things.
- There is a lot of fakeness on the dark web by scammers and gloaters galore. Chances are if you pay for something then they will take your money and that would be the end of it.
- Many stories of hitmen for hire and "red rooms" (live murders) have been shown to be fake.
- Onion ring networking is not as anonymous as people think and can usually be traced to the source IP in about 30 seconds.
- There are many other network protocols that TCP/IP can operate on, e.g ATM, that care not one iota how many onion rings you use.
- The place is just full of a lot of pedophiles and w@nkers, many of them technically smart but socially inept.
I wouldn't bother.
- There is a lot of fakeness on the dark web by scammers and gloaters galore. Chances are if you pay for something then they will take your money and that would be the end of it.
- Many stories of hitmen for hire and "red rooms" (live murders) have been shown to be fake.
- Onion ring networking is not as anonymous as people think and can usually be traced to the source IP in about 30 seconds.
- There are many other network protocols that TCP/IP can operate on, e.g ATM, that care not one iota how many onion rings you use.
- The place is just full of a lot of pedophiles and w@nkers, many of them technically smart but socially inept.
I wouldn't bother.
