What is the Dark Web? How to Access and Potential Risks

To make its journalism more accessible to readers around the world, the New York Times launched its onion service in 2017. You won’t find any “hidden” stories here—it’s the same content as the normal web edition—but users in countries with government censorship will appreciate having a secure way to access it. TorLinks serves as a backup or secondary directory site to the popular Hidden Wiki. It’s divided into commercial links and non-commercial links . As always, use Tor Links with care, as it includes onion links to dubious or illegal activity. You can’t access these .onion sites from your normal web browser—the one you’re probably viewing this page on.

Indeed, using the conventional surface web would be difficult without it. Pages like email inboxes and account management pages are all part of the deep web. Though it has some legitimate uses, it can also be used for more nefarious or illegal purposes. For more detailed information about what you might find there, check out our dark web case study, where you can find out how much stolen data is sold for, among other things. The name of this dark web browser comes from the method it uses to encrypt messages.

Is the dark web illegal?

Just around 0.5% of queries are trying to check whether their personal data is for sale. A tiny 0.3% of searches coming from the UK and the US aim at acquiring illegal substances. Freenet’s release to the public in 2000 helped to bring attention and demand for a way to stay anonymous online. It was followed by Tor, which eventually became a browser offering easier dark web access. There are many opinions and options for how to access darknets.

Any page that is non-indexable is technically also considered part of the deep web. It doesn’t have to require a login or contain sensitive data. Website creators and managers can mark pages as non-indexable if desired. Databasescontaining protected files that aren’t connected to other areas of the internet. These could be public or private files, like those from government entities or private educational institutions.

This includes full names, home addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, Social Security numbers, hacked email addresses, and many more details that can pinpoint you as an individual. Developed in the mid-1990s to keep U.S. intelligence communications from prying eyes, the Tor Project is the preferred method to access Dark Web content. The Deep Web hosts information that usually requires a username and a password to access, mainly for security and privacy-related reasons. This colossal amount of information exists on the Deep Web (or “hidden webâ€), where almost all online activities take place. Because not all the information you can access online belongs in the public domain. The internet runs far deeper and wider than anyone can imagine.

Dark Web Com

The terms dark web and deep web are perceived to be linked with illegal and otherwise suspicious activity; however, a vast difference exists between the two. All web pages not indexed by web crawlers are considered to be a part of the deep web. The content is generally more secure and clean than that of the surface web. Most enterprises do not have a direct use case for the dark web.

Unlike the majority of the deep web, it’s not regulated by any business, organization, or government, and can only be accessed via special tools, like the Tor browser. If you’ve confirmed that your personal information is leaked on the Dark Web, you have an elevated risk of identity theft and financial fraud. Details for credit cards carrying a balance up to $1,000 cost $150 on average, while stolen online banking login details (for an account with a balance of at least $100) go for just $40. Some use the Tor Project and Freenet as synonyms for the Dark Web, but that’s incorrect. The Tor network and other networks that use onion routing emerged to protect online communications; not to support criminal actions.

What is the Dark Web and How to Legally Access it?

Short for The Onion Browser, Tor enables users to browse the dark web privately. It encrypts your traffic and erases your browsing history after every session. Read the description carefully before you open any link since it also contains links for websites that include illicit content, such as whistleblowing sites or illegal marketplaces. This made it the subject of cyberattacks by both the FBI and Anonymous. The Hidden Wiki is a dark web version of Wikipedia that offers links to different websites on the dark web. Being a combination of random numbers and letters, many onion links might seem nonsensical.

• While no one can ever guarantee a method keeps your browsing completely untraceable, using Tor ensures your traffic is much harder to trace than if you’re using a normal browser.
• On the Dark Web, you[‘ll find that social media platforms are similar.
• It’s simple to use and offers uncensored and unrestricted web search results.

If you are using sites like Spokeo to look up coworkers or neighbors, then yes, it’s probably not an activity you want to engage in. If you are using it to look at library inventory, old newspapers, or to find scholarly journals, then it’s completely fine. If you start to wade into Dark Web waters, it’s not as much about safety as it is about legalities.

Considering how regularly dark web sites vanish and go offline, it’s better to have more than one source to help you find .onion URLs. For example, most public records are stored in databases and not on individual static web pages. This makes it “invisible” to Google, but we can get this information from Deep Web search engines. Google One’s dark web report helps you scan the dark web for your personal info — like your name, address, email, phone number and Social Security number — and will notify you if it’s found. When you enable dark web report, you provide and select the information you’d like to keep an eye on within your monitoring profile.

It’s relatively easy for anyone to access this encrypted network. Swensen said the most common dark web networks are Tor, I2P, and Freenet, but “Tor is, by far and away, the most popular.” In 2015, the founder of a website called the Silk Road was sentenced to life in prison.

How To Acsess The Dark Web

The exit node decrypts your traffic and thus can steal your personal information or inject malicious code. Additionally, Tor exit nodes are often blocked by websites that don’t trust them, and Tor over VPN can’t do anything about that, either. Dark net websites are called “Tor hidden services”, and they can be distinguished from normal websites by their URLs. The dark web and its browsing aren’t considered illegal; it’s a place where people communicate anonymously without official government surveillance. Sadly, one of the most famous deep search engines from the past, Deeppeep, no longer exists, but all the sites in the article can help to recreate the lost features. You need to use a dedicated browser to access dark web content.

Just note that although you’ll be anonymous, you won’t have the speed or convenience of a direct connection, and some sites might block you outright. That being said, not everything on the dark web is illegal. Many dark web sites are perfectly legal and safe to use, and in many cases are better for your privacy than clear web sites. Alternatively, users can connect in opennet mode, which automatically assigns peers on the network. Unlike darknet mode, opennet uses a handful of centralized servers in addition to the decentralized peer-to-peer network. For built-in Tor over VPN functionality, NordVPN operates specialized servers that automatically route you through the Tor network.