The Deep Web

Disclaimer
The author of this article does not condone any kind of illegal activity.
The information contained in this article is purely for information.
The author takes no responsibility for any illicit activities preformed by the readers of this article.

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Hearing news about the Deep Web, and hearing it referenced in tv-series and movies might have made you curious. And if you're anything like me curiousity will drive you to want to learn more, and maybe even explore on your own.
If that is the case this small article is for you.

The Deep Web is known by many names, conjuring up thoughts of mystery and shady activities.

Dark Web
Deep Web
Undernet
Subnet
Hidden Internet
Deep Net
Invisible Web
Hidden Web

Although there is technically a differentiation between terms such as Deep Web and Dark Web, they have come to be largely synonymous.

What is the Deep Web?

Simply put the Deep Web consists of pages that can not be indexed by search engines, and can thus not be found using google, for instance.

This includes things like your personal Facebook feed (wouldn't want strangers to be able to access that would we?) and private university databases etc.

But it also consists of pages deliberately hidden, and inaccessible by normal means. The reasons for which might be many, including criminal activity, and to hide the user from oppressive governments.

As you can see not all activity on the Deep Web is illicit, but a lot of it is, so use casion and your better judgement while exploading.

It is generally this "darker" part of the Deep Web, consciously hidden from any normal internet user, that is referred to as the "Dark Web".

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How to access the Deep Web

As previously mentioned the Deep Web can not be accessed by normal means, but generally you need to go through the Tor network.

Tor stands for "The Onion Router". For more information see the projects homepage.

The Tor project even have a browser package set up that can be found by visiting their website.

There are even a special domain for the onion network with the ending .onion.

These pages are impossible to access via a normal browser.

Go ahead, check it out. Use your normal browser and try to access https://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/ and you will find it doesn't work.

This example is the anonymous hidden service of the search engine https://duckduckgo.com/ DuckDuckGo works just like any other search engine, but unlike google for instance, it does not collect information of the user, give you ads, or trace you.

Of course the hidden service provides even further anonymity than the clear net version. ("clear net" refers to the "normal" internet, that isn't part of the hidden services of the Deep Web).

By using the TorBrowser (which automatically enables and uses the Tor service) you can access otherwise hidden services, such as the aforementioned hidden DuckDuckGo. Go ahead, try accessing the page using Tor.

"It was a mystery to some, a criminal hide out to others. Yet in reality, it is a database of information that is said to be a thousand times bigger than the internet we see and use everyday." - Kash Laden, 'exploration of the deep web'

What is Tor?

To easily explain what Tor does (for more technical information, check out the projects page), it keeps you anonymous.

Every computer has an IP address on the internet. It works largely like an address in real life, and identify you as the user. If you connect to google for instance the service can see your IP address and know who you are.

By using Tor, your connection gets forwarded through other Tor users, and connect to your target page through those nodes.

In this example google would think you are another computer in the network.

This can easily be tested by accessing https://www.google.com.

You might find that it's suddenly in Thai, or Russian, despite you living in the U.K. for instance. This means your connection have been relayed through a computer in Thailand (or Russia), and finding your real identity is so much harder.

The very idea of using Tor is to be anonymous.

Ironically Tor was created and continue to be funded by the U.S. Navy.

I say ironically, considering how often it is used for illegal activity, but as previously explained it can be used for good as well.

For instance Edward Snowden used this service to securely inform about the illegal activities of the U.S. government. 

As you might have noticed using the TorBrowser is really slow, this is of course due to the fact that your internet traffic must go through several other computers before reaching the destination. This is also a reason why most Deep Web pages look like something from the 90s.

Further security

Considering the nature of the Dark Web, you might consider further security measures than just Tor.

You should at the very least make sure cookies, and scripts allowing for flash and JavaScript content are disabled, since these are common means for hackers to do their deeds.

For even further security you might consider using a security based operating system, such as Tails or Whonix.

Tails being run

Searching the Deep Web

Well, I did state that the Deep Web is unindexed and thus not possible to search.

There are some Deep Web search engines though, but they are more like linkfarms than actual search engines. (DuckDuckGo does not search the Deep Web).

NotEvil is a search engine that only index service on Tor.

Torch (Tor Search Engine) claims to have indexed around 1.1 Million pages.

Access points to the Deep Web

Be warned that these pages does include information about and links to illegal pages and activities including but not limited to drugs, hacking, stolen credit card information, and hit-man services.

Other than the obvious issue of legality of visiting such pages, there are many scam pages; the Dark Web is full of criminals scamming other criminals (of Bitcoins, which is mostly the currency used).

Of course not all of the Deep Web is full of illegal contents, and I advice against taking part in any illegal activity or even visiting illegal homepages. If you do and get in trouble I take no responsibility whatsoever.

One of the most famous gateways is the Hidden Wiki: http://zqktlwi4fecvo6ri.onion

It is a wiki with information and links to different Deep Web pages.

There is also the Uncensored Hidden Wiki:

http://uhwikiwww4e4a2fc.onion/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Conclusion

Be warned that a lot of contents on the Deep Web might shock and disgust you, although far from everything is illegal or immoral, there are certainly a lot of such contents as well.

Most of all however you are likely to get bored, considering the majority of things you will find are dead links and pages that are offline. The very point is for the most part that it's hard to find if you don't know exactly where to look.