The dark web

[Humpfour]

I'm 39 years old and today have just learnt from DBIL that there's such a thing as the 'Dark web'

I feel as though I've been living under a rock! Has anyone ever been on there before? Can you really hire a hitman and things or is DBIL exaggerating?

I asked about DuckDuckGo-does that not give enough privacy for people who are not up to anything dodgy??

Yes. If you're not breaking any laws and are mostly worried about ads, data collection and tracking by huge corporations, then DuckDuckGo is good enough.

For people worried about state surveillance, it's not.

OK. .but are people in the West who are not doing anything illegal worried about state surveillance? Do you mean like activists or politicians?

OK. .but are people in the West who are not doing anything illegal worried about state surveillance? Do you mean like activists or politicians?

The government, mostly, I guess. I wasn't saying you should be, by the way. I was just saying who it's useful for and who it's not. Whether you are concerned about that or not is up to you!

Yy I get it. No I'm not concerned for me! My web searching is about as boring as it gets!

As things currently stand, the usage of the darkweb is low enough that it's relatively easy for the security services to keep a weather eye on it, and hopefully catch the worst of the worst.

If everybody (+ dog) started using it, then it would become much harder if not impossible. So there's a motivation for the powers that be to scare the more impressionable folk away.

Of course the real baddies aren't using the internet at all anyway ... if you wanted to stay off the radar you'd just fax handwritten notes to each other (for example) ....

I work in cyber security, and let it be known it doesn't live up to the edgy name it totes! Obviously there is a chance that those like paedos and other intense criminals use it due to the intense node network security, but most use it as extra security for a front end GUI for a database, or a playground for a future 'surface' web site.

If you want a true experience of the darknet/deep web/dank web (any name is fine) then I would suggest watching 'some ordinary gamers' deep web browsing YouTube videos, most of it is fringe (but not always illegal) hobbies, modern art pieces, joke sites (one popped up a while ago called chair porn ) and ARG games (alernate reality games).

Rule 34 of the Internet: if it exists - or it can be imagined, there is internet porn of it.

This is where the dark web probably comes into its element, I think. Anything you can think of; however awful... someone has probably already made it. I don't ever want to find out though.

but are people in the West who are not doing anything illegal worried about state surveillance?
Things may not be illegal per se, but may be used against you if there is a court case or some sort of scandal. You may look up or type something politically incorrect or just poor taste, and whoa - you're a terrorist sympathiser or something.

but are people in the West who are not doing anything illegal worried about state surveillance?

It's not todays government you need to worry about. It's the government yet to come.

Interesting thing about the deep web is that it is far larger than the world wide web probably a hundred times larger.

I really want to look on the dark web now. I'm so nosey!!

There's nothing to look at though. You have to know where to look and exactly what you're looking for. Nothing is indexed or searchable, that's the point. I can post a screenshot of TOR if that's what you want to see but it's just a browser.

I know about it. IIRC you need a special browser (or something ).
I watched the Deep Web documentary about that chap who built up a huge drugs smuggling business on there. It all sounds a bit nuts. I can't even be bothered to use Amazon or shop on line 🤷‍♀️.

Well, actually, I suppose that's a lie, there ARE indexes but you have to know where to look even for those.

Following tornmum1: there is the "dark web", and then there is the online equivalent of the underground. The deep web, if you like. One refers to all the databases and intranets that are owned privately and aren't transparent to, e.g. Google's, search bots. Nothing illegal, just private, so the data won't show up in a Google search. Then you get the criminal stuff.

I went on out of curiosity around ten years ago, the web pages look like geocities sites from the 90s. The first thing which came up was extremely graphic erotic fiction centred around Salem the cat from Sabrina the teenage witch.

I went off it and deleted TOR at that point. Properly weird.

Hello!

I work in Cyber Security :)

There are three areas of the 'Internet':

surface web - anything that's searchable with a direct result from google/browsers and you don't need to log in for

Deep web - stuff that you need to log in to view or have the correct permissions (think 'friends only' view of your Facebook profile)

Dark Web - the place where all your credit card information, email addresses, passwords etc get sold if your account gets compromised. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal porn etc etc.

The Surface web makes up around 4% of the entire Internet. Deep web is circa 90% (think medical records, bank accounts, anything you need to log in for). The dark web makes up about 6% so it's actually pretty huge.

ToR stands for The Onion Router, which basically means you can browse the web in a way that it's super difficult to determine your actual location. I could sign in from America and the traffic hitting these websites would look like its coming from Japan. Very difficult to trace, hence so much illegal activity!

Best bit of advice I will ever give anyone... DON'T USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR ANY OF YOUR ACCOUNTS. If one of those websites is compromised your email and password combination will be on the dark web quicker than you know it. To check your email address for known compromises head to www.haveibeenpwned.com

goelfyourshelf that's really interesting and useful, thanks.

Shocking how many times my details have been leaked according to haveibeenpwned.com . Time to change my passwords I think!

I wonder why the Mumsnet breach isn't on it, though? My details were definitely leaked then.

The list is weird, also. It says my details were leaked from breaches at Adobe, Houzz, Canva, Dropbox, all of which I've used.

But it also says my data has been leaked from breaches at
B2B USA Businesses, Linux Forums and MyFitnessPal. I've never used any of these. That's odd, isn't it?

If I can piggy back off @goelfyourshelf message, if you can spend £5 a month, please consider getting a password manager like dashlane premium. It generates and stores securely passwords a brute force attack won't get to, along with hack alerts that changes your passwords on sites automatically so you're always protected.

For password managers I'd highly recommend 1Password.com - it has a function to check haveibeenpwned.com for any of your leaked passwords and tells you what ones have been compromised in their 'watch tower' section. It's got an app too, so you never have to worry about remembering strong passwords :)

Not sure why there would be entries in haveibeenpwned if you've not subscribed to anything - wonder if someone else has potentially signed up with your email address? There's also stuff on there from marketing company compromises, so that may be something.

Re the Mumsnet data breach, it may be that the information that was stolen didn't include emails and passwords, or perhaps it's not yet been found on the dark web.