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| Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash |
The dark web is stereotypically thought of as a dangerous and illegal place only criminals go to. This stereotype could not be further from the truth. Most people on the dark web are just normal people looking for anonymity, privacy, or just a place they can explore.
The anonymity the dark web provides naturally also draws in criminals. For example, any forum like Dread (a Reddit-like platform on the dark web) also has a large number of people talking about buying and selling drugs. Dark web search engines also commonly have ads for things like fake ids, stolen credit cards, hackers for hire, and most commonly drugs.
Even if not everything on the dark web is illegal you might ask why would anyone go there instead of just sticking with the clear web. The answer to that is different for everyone for me personally I like exploring dark web pages and reading the forums. There's a certain thrill to it when you find a creepy story and because of the shady nature of the dark web, you are not quite sure if it might have been real.
Another thing that makes the dark web interesting is the technology behind it, Tor. Tor is an open-source project that is also largely funded by the U.S. military. Each time you connect with the Tor network you first connect to an entry node. An entry node is a Tor server in a random country that only knows who you are and not where you are going. After your connection has passed through the entry node it goes to a Tor Relay in a random country that doesn’t know anything about who you are and where your going and just passes on the connection. Finally, your connection goes through the exit node which only knows your destination URL. if your destination URL is an onion site the same process happens on the server's side.
Now that you know all that you might be asking how does each node not know both where you are going and who you are and the simplest answer to that is that the whole process uses three-layer of encryption and that's also why the dark web sites are called onion services.
To conclude, the dark web is not a bad place on the internet and it also isn't a separate internet for criminals. It can be what you want it to be just like the clear web. I hope this article explained the basic concepts of the dark web clearly and if it did then, please press the applaud button, and if it didn't then let me know in the comments.
