We have been reported from time to time Deep Web and we recently published to close several websites at Dark Web. It Wired, with its established Hacker Lexicon column, tries to clarify the concepts of Deep Web and Dark Web.
According to article writer Andy Greenberg, Dark Web represents 0.01% of the Web and not 90% as often reported by blogs and Media. Continuing says:
The Dark Web is not very large, it is not the 90% of the Internet, and it is not particularly secret. In fact, the Dark Web is a collection of websites that are visible to the public but they hide the IP addresses of the servers running them. This means that everyone can visit the Dark Web, but it can be very difficult to understand where they are hosted, or by whom.
The majority of Dark Web sites use Tor anonymous software, although a smaller number uses a similar tool called I2P. Both of these systems encrypt web traffic in layers and throw it into randomly selected computers around the world. Each of these servers removes one of the layers of the single encryption before passing the data to the next server. In theory, this is what prevents any spy, even those who control one of these servers sharing the encrypted data, to understand the origin of the traffic and its destination.
So the IP addresses of these websites are kept secret, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are secret. Hidden services on Tor, such as drug sites Silk Road, Silk Road 2, Agora and Evolution, had hundreds of thousands of regular users. So the address was secret. Anyone who runs Tor and knows the url of a site (ending in ".onion") can easily visit illegal online shopping.
It should not be confused with the Deep Web
The Dark Web is not the Deep Web and does not represent 90% of the Internet. There is a confusion between the so-called Deep Web and the Dark Web.
The Deep Web is a huge collection of all internet sites that are not accessible by search engines. These unindexed websites include huge volumes of content such as forums that require registration, dynamic websites, services like Gmail and more. The real Dark Web, on the other hand, probably accounts for less than 0,01% of the web, says security researcher Nik Cubrilovic, who counted fewer than 10.000 hidden Tor services in a recent Dark Internet crawl. The number 10.000 is very small, compared to the hundreds of millions of regular websites on the Deep Web.
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Although the Dark Web is often associated with the sale of drugs, weapons, forged documents and child pornography, all websites use the service Tor και δεν περιέχει μόνο τόσο “σκοτεινές” ιστοσελίδες όσο το θέλει η ονομασία. Την ίδια υπηρεσία χρησιμοποιεί και μια από τις πρώτες σελίδες υψηλού προφίλ του Dark Web, το Tor WikiLeaks, μια κρυφή υπηρεσία που δημιουργήθηκε για να δεχτεί διαρροές από ανώνυμες πηγές. Αυτή η ιδέα έχει προσαρμοστεί από τότε σε ένα εργαλείο που ονομάζεται SecureDrop, ένα λογισμικό που ενσωματώνει τις κρυφές υπηρεσίες του Tor με οποιοδήποτε ειδησεογραφικό οργανισμό λαμβάνει ανώνυμες υποβολές. Ακόμα και το Facebook as we reported last week, a Dark Web site was launched with the goal of better protecting (!) users who visit the site with Tor to avoid surveillance and censorship.
Of course, as is often heard, it is not known whether the network Tor can avoid surveillance by authorities and secret services. The question remains open. In early November, a coordinated action by the FBI and Europol seized dozens of Tor services, including three of the six most popular drug markets on the Dark Web. Now, exactly how the feds managed to discover these websites remains a mystery.
The question is: why is the Tor network not hackable? There is something in Internet that cannot be hacked?
