We all know about this gigantic internet that we access. We can find everything we want on the internet, well not everything but ALMOST everything. But what if someone told you what you use a tiny part of this internet, and there’s whole new universe of information available there? You won’t believe it right? Well, then this might come as a shock to you, but you only use 0.003% of the real internet. The real internet is known by many name like Deep Web or Dark Net or Undernet. In this post, we will refer to it as Deep Web.
What is Deep Web?
The real internet/deep-web/dark net is immeasurable. Deep web is like a whole new universe of information. The internet we use today via Google and Bing, is only a small part of the real information out there. A small part that the crawlers can access. The internet we use has around 19 Terabytes of data, compared to 7500 terabytes of data available on deep web. But the deep web is literally filled with all kinds of data, which is neither indexed or catalogued. So to find something on deep web, you need to know configure your browser and go to the specific web addresses to reach there.
How Deep Web exists?
So if there is a lot of information available, how can we not find it on Google or Bing or Yahoo? Well for that you need to understand how Search engine’s crawlers work. All you need to do is open any news website and keep clicking on the links available. This is what crawler does. It visits a website, clicks on all the links available and then comes back indexing all the information.
But if you’re on a particular website, search for something and there’s a high chance you’ll find it. But you won’t find it in search engines. Why? Because you were in that website and the content too was in there, but crawlers don’t touch the search box. That is why you rarely find public records in search engines. Crawlers work with the links available indexing everything as they go on. So things which are not indexed or cataloged are not available on Search Engine and that is why what you see on the internet is only a bit of the real internet out there.
There are also some sites, that don’t allow crawlers to come in, hence they are not indexed and will not appear on search engines.
How to use Deep Web?
You just can’t go to search engines and try to find or hope to stumble on the deep web. To use Deep Web you need a browser other than Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer. Deep Web is usually accessed from a special browser called The Onion Browser or commonly known as TOR, a browser made for people to surf the net anonymously. Tor browser makes it almost impossible to trace the path back to you, hence making it the perfect browser to use Deep Web. Avoid using your information anywhere, while you’re using the TOR browser. It is there to make sure you’re anonymous and it should be used in that way.
What is on the Deep Web?
You can find anything on Deep web. Literally anything. You can buy Drugs, Weapons, metals, stones, credit card information, supplements, heroin, tobacco, passports, banned books, confidential information, secret files, Hitmen etc. You name it and someone on the deep web has it. If you buy any thing you’ll get it in an untraceable packet. But what made Deep Web really popular, was the infamous online drug market worth $ 1.2 Billion known as Silk Road . Silk Road was only accessible by Tor and everyone needed a username and password to enter the website. All the websites on dark web have a domain name ending with .onion.
For example, the hidden Wikipedia of Deep Web is at http://kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.
You can find a list of Deep Web sites please check this link: http://pastebin.com/ADTynHbX
Here’s Google’s list of websites on Deep Web: https://sites.google.com/site/howtoaccessthedeepnet/working-links-to-the-deep-web
Here are some screenshots of Deep Web:
Guns market
HItmen on deepweb
THe infamous Silk Road
How to pay in Deep Web?
Say you get all worked up and excited after learning about deep web. You download TOR, go to the specific website and you found whatever you wanted. But how will you pay? You can’t possible put your credit card details?
Well, all kind of payments on the deep web are only made through bitcoins. Bitcoins is the currency of deep web, and you can’t buy anything if you don’t have bitcoins. At the time of this post, 1 Bitcoin is valued around INR 23000-26000 or $400.
Buyers will generally give their bitcoin address, which is usually a public key and you’ll have to pay to that address.
Some Facts about Deep Web!
- Various activists communicated on the deep web to organize the Arab Spring Revolution.
- One of the former NSA employees used Deep Web to leak the files of NSA’s surveillance programs.
- There are puzzles focused solely on the ability of a programmer on code breaking, commonly thought as a recruitment tool for govt. agencies.
- U.S. have intercepted messages of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda on the deep web.
- Deep Web is famous for extremists.
- The U.S. Govt provides almost 80% of the budget for deep web.
- Bitcoin is the official currency of Deep Web,
NOTE: Deep Web is not a place to hangout for any normal internet user. If you know little about staying anonymous or secure, please avoid Deep web. It’s not worth the risk. Plus there are some things that can literally freak you out. So this is not one of the adventures you should be excited about. Don’t get into any mess. Please do not visit or try to surf deep web if you don’t have know what to do there. This is just an informative post. Stay safe, stay secure.