The Dark Web Explained

The dark web refers to the part of the internet that does not get indexed by the search engines. It is a small part of the deep web. The deep web is a bigger layer and the dark web is its subset. However, often at times, people mistakenly use the term deep web to actually refer to the dark web.

The dark web constitutes all the content that exist on the world wide web but exist on some overlay networks that require the use of some specific configuration and software, in order to access it. The websites that exist on the dark web can only be accessed through the Tor browser, which grants a degree of anonymity to the user.

Now, there have been quite a lot of interesting stories about the dark web. Since everyone on the dark web is anonymous, it is considered to be a hub of criminal activities. Well, that is not wrong at all. There are plenty of criminal activity that exists on the dark web. It has been surveyed that around 57% of the websites on the dark web host material that is illicit, and are potentially involved in illegal activities.

On the dark web, there are a big number of services available. For instance, it allows users to buy drugs, guns, and counterfeit money, subscription credentials that are stolen, hacked accounts, shady software, and credit card numbers. For instance, a login credential for a bank of America account may come for around $50,000.

Similarly, you can find all sorts of otherwise illegal content on the dark web. Apparently, there are some highly organized drug stores that sell medicines and other drugs in black, along with all sorts of guns and weaponry.

It is said that the dark web is what terrorists and organized criminals in the world use in order to communicate their plans with each other.

However, being involved in activities on the dark web does not mean that the authorities cannot necessarily track you down. There are a number of different techniques that the police uses in order to identify shady people on the dark web.

The first and most preferred method is to go undercover. For instance, a cop may act like a weapons seller on the black market in the dark web for a number of months. Anyone who would want the weapons will have to put in his/her address making it easier for the cops to track the person down. Similar operations get carried out against people who try to buy drugs, identities, and poisons on the dark web.

Another way for authorities to track down criminal activities is to make use of the open source information. This is how Silk Road, a famous black market on the dark web was brought down. It turned out that Gary Alford, who was a tax manager, ended up linking Ross Ulbricht to the website as he had advertised it on a well-known Bitcoin Forum.

Hence, it is not necessary that any person on the dark web is fully invincible. Although it is difficult, authorities still employ various methods to find out the real identity of criminals on the dark web.