THE DEEP WEB
The Deep Web represents a hidden portion of the available web accessible only through ananonymizing tool called the "Tor Network". Defined by complete anonymity, the Deep Web acts as a hosting platform free from any legal controls, allowing journalists to research and share sensitive informatio, law enforcement to covertly access web addresses, and even hosting entirely illegal black markets who offer anything from drugs to counterfeit currencies and firearms, all from around the world.
DEFINING THE DEEP WEB
The Deep Web (or Invisible web) is the set of information resources on the World Wide Web not reported by normal search engines. The traditional web represents only a small portion of the overall web content with the remaining part being unknown to the majority of web users.
The Deep Web is a privileged channel used by governments to exchange documents secretly, for journalists to bypass censorship of several states and also dissidents to avoid the control of authoritarian regimes.
ACCESSING THE DEEP WEB
In order to even access the Deep Web, You first have to install what is called “TOR” or “The Onion Router”, a system implemented to enable online anonymity as part of a project sponsored the US Naval Research Laboratory from 2004 to 2005 and successively supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
What is TOR?
Tor is a censorship circumvention tool, allowing its users to reach otherwise blocked destinations or content.
Tor can also be used as a building block for software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features.
How does TOR work?
Tor's users access the network by connecting through a random series of nodes rather than making a direct connection
During Tor routing, in each connection, the Tor node is randomly chosen and the same node cannot be used twice in the same path.
To ensure anonymity the connections have a fixed duration.
Every ten minutes to avoid statistical analysis that could compromise the user’s privacy, the client software changes the entry node
Who Uses TOR?
Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.
Groups such as Indymedia recommend Tor for safeguarding their members' online privacy and security. Activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recommend Tor as a mechanism for maintaining civil liberties online. Corporations use Tor as a safe way to conduct competitive analysis, and to protect sensitive procurement patterns from eavesdroppers.
A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.
The variety of people who use Tor is actually part of what makes it so secure. Tor hides you among the other users on the network, so the more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, the more your anonymity will be protected.
NAVIGATING THE DEEP WEB
The Hidden Wiki
In order to access the many “.onion” sites that are hosted through the Tor network, domains like the “Hidden Wiki” serve as a database linking people to certain sections of the Deep Web
Links lead to money laundering, contract killing, cyber-attacks for hire, contraband chemicals, and bomb making, message boards, community blogs
Online Markets
The hidden web is a wide market covered by anonymity, making it attractive for the cybercrime industry that is moving its business into regions of cyber space difficult to trace sellers and the goods they exchange.
This introduces the possibility to acquire weapons, malware and drugs in total security, avoiding the control of law enforcement. One of these marketplaces that have gained a notable amount of publicity is the “Silk Road”.
The Silk Road
Silkroad was an anonymous online black market created by Ross William Ulbricht. It was a well-known platform for the sale of illegal and contraband items. Silkroad users interact through anonymous browsers, encrypted email messages and make exchanges using crypto currencies like Bitcoin.
Silkroad was launched in February 2011 and hosted on the Tor network. Within a short time, the site had many vendors and buyers and a ranking system that organized vendors and helped buyers to screen out vendors with bad feedback.
From February 2011 to July 2013, over 1.2 million transactions took place on the site. Total revenue obtained from these transactions was over 9.5 million Bitcoins with a total commission of over 600,000 Bitcoins. This provided Ulbricht with a commission of about 80 million dollars.
After the Silk Road website was made public in 2011, Senator Charles Schumer requested for it to be shut down by the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In May 2013, Silkroad was taken down temporarily by a Department of Defense Online Security (DDOS) attack. In October 2013, Ross Ulbricht was arrested at the Glen Park library in San Francisco.
THE FUTURE
Ongoing trends in law, policy, and technology threaten anonymity, undermining our ability to speak and read freely online. These trends also undermine national security and critical infrastructure by making communication among individuals, organizations, corporations, and governments more vulnerable to analysis.
Each new user and relay provides additional diversity, enhancing Tor's ability to put control over your security and privacy back into your hands.
Conversely, the anonymity provided by the Tor network within the Deep Web encourages crime and the establishment of online markets like the Silkroad.
From an economical standpoint, these markets also help fuel crypto currencies such as Bitcoin and can lead to a rise in the number of users we find on these marketplaces and the volume of transactions that take place.