Why do we have a dark web???

[Peacetrain]

Serious question... what is the purpose of the dark web besides hiding? I keep getting ads about protecting yourself from the dark web.. okay.. besides the military using it.. why would anyone want to be on there??

[ProfessorGAC]

1. A Fair Question

Of course, I don't have an answer.
Doesn't one need special browsers & the like to access it?
And, if anybody can get the browser, is it really dark?

[The Magistrate]

3. I Would Guess, Sir, It's There because It Can Be

Any capacity that exists will be utilized, to someone's purpose, good or ill.


"What isn't forbidden is required."

[Peacetrain]

4. I am just truly stumped on this one..

Its on the dark web where they are selling all our information..our enemies muck around and get crap stirred up.. illegalities of all sorts abound (reading news stories etc).. seems to me.. just shut it down if possible.. if its whole purpose is to hurt others ... I don't see the point of it..

[MineralMan]

2. Evil seeks dark places to hide.

That's your answer.

[Peacetrain]

6. Yep.. I see that.. is it possible to shut it off MM??

why even be able to access it.. we got white nationalists, proud boys etc mucking around trying to convert people.. I say shut it down (again if possible??)

[MineralMan]

13. Probably not, actually.

Looked at in one way, the dark web doesn't really exist as a discrete thing. It's just computers talking to each other. If the exchange is encrypted, it's really almost impossible to intercept. It's dark because it's not catalogued. The regular Internet is organized and catalogued, so we can all search it to find what we're looking for.

The dark web is dark because we can't see it by using normal internet tools. It's not impenetrable, of course, but it's just not visible without some work.

[Jerry2144]

5. It originated

As a way for places with a high level of government censorship of information to get around the government control to find out the truth. All I know is you need a special browser to access the network which encrypts your communications and uses peer to peer hopping to tunnel through censorship and get you info


It was originally a tool for good but has quickly found nefarious uses

[Peacetrain]

7. I thought I had read somewhere it originated with the military??

seems like a wasteland of evil to me

[Amishman]

14. It's simply a term for a set of private networks not indexed and inaccessible w/o special info

It's not a single cohesive 'place' nor built by any single group or organization.

It is just a blanket term for these darknets that require special software or protocols to access.

[relayerbob]

8. Why does anything exist in the shadows?

[Tetrachloride]

9. Essentially, everything is a link and often has a password scheme

A public library is not secret but we still need an account.

The dark web has mysterious links and theoretically elaborate logins.

[blogslug]

10. Those ads just use terms that sound scary

Dark Web. Boo!

As described above, the "dark web" is a real thing but you aren't going to just fall into it by accident. You have to take active measures to access highly-encrypted, password-protected networks.

When it comes to your internet safety, you need to protect yourself from phishing scams, malware, spyware, bitcoin-miners and other nasty little scripts that are out there on the public internet.

[usonian]

11. Stuff happens and definitions follow. Here is the latest, and some speculation.

https://www.avast.com/c-dark-web

The deep web consists of any content that lives behind paywalls, authentication forms, logins, or passwords. Much of the content an average person accesses on the internet is part of the deep web: email, online banking accounts, private social media accounts, and subscription services. You wouldn’t want your email history available on the surface web and searchable by anyone.

Much of the content an average person accesses on the internet is part of the deep web: email, online banking accounts, private social media accounts, and subscription services.

The dark web is part of the deep web but is built on darknets: overlay networks that sit on the internet but which can’t be accessed without special tools or software like Tor. Tor is an anonymizing software tool that stands for The Onion Router — you can use the Tor network via Tor Browser.

We *REALLY NEED* the dark web to communicate with zero, or as close to zero as we can get, snooping. Whistleblowers, people being tracked down (Kashoggi et. al.), reporters in dangerous places, political targets ...

Sure, there's the other stuff. The ads you see are to scare you, often correctly, that your stolen data and credit card info lands on the dark web auction sites. The quote above is from a company offering to "help" you. (YMMV) .... Your Money May Vanish.

Section 230 or not, I am giving some thought that Facebook, having access to all user data (which is not encrypted end to end) had access to a clear threat made to kill schoolkids. Given what we know about law enfarcement, (sic) if FB had caught that and divulged it, it may have helped. I don't think that any FCC rule exempts one from the responsibility to report a crime being announced, just as attorney-client privilege does not extend to an attorney and client planning a crime. (Ahem)

[Wounded Bear]

12. Same reason we "need" crypto-currency...so people can get away with shit.

[Angleae]

15. The "dark" web is simply all sites that don't have a domain name (only numbers).

As they aren't registered with a domain name server they can't be indexed by the search engines and are therefore "dark." Not all such sites are for nefarious purposes.

[Calista241]

16. It's not an underworld from fantasy novels and just anyone can go there.

It's not monolithic place, it's an unorganized series of networks and servers that are unindexed by search engines, and have restricted access. Those networks pop up and shut down periodically for any myriad of reasons. The users just move on to the next one.

Technically, any closed or restricted network has all the qualifications of a 'dark web' (such as a company or college intranet). The hardware to set one up isn't all that expensive, provided you don't allow for millions of users and hits.