DARK WEB 2
The Dark Web
The Dark Web is a term that describes a collection of websites that may be publicly
visible, but their IP addresses of their respective servers are usually hidden (Chen, Chung, Qin,
Reid, Sageman, and Weimann, 2008). Any web user can visit the site, but it is challenging to
identify who runs the sites. The sites cannot be found by search engines. Most of the sites in the
dark hide their identity through the Tor encryption tools. Tor is famous for their end user hiding
properties. Tor hides the user identity and spoofs their location. Tor has a similar effect on
various websites. However, not all dark web users use Tor, some use I2P but they have similar
principles to Tor (Qin, Zhou, Lai, Reid, Sageman, and Chen, 2005).
The dark web is accessed after installing Tor. After that, some users may place tape or
tinfoil hat on the webcam to prevent prying eyes (L'huillier, Ríos, Alvarez, and Aguilera, 2010).
It is also referred to as the deep or hidden web. Tor was originally intended to protect the privacy
of its users, but the objective took a turn. The dark web usually hides criminal activity from the
relevant authorities. It has about 40000 sites and about 1.7 million connections daily. Its primary
users are located in the US and Europe (Fu, Abbasi, and Chen, 2010).
The types of activities on the web are what has attracted attention over the past few years.
A lot of illegal sales occur in the dark web such as selling drugs, gun or worse. Child porn has
been prevalent in the dark web. It is also a professional network that is used by criminals.
Despite the fact that activities in the dark web were becoming public, criminals use it to buy time
before the authorities catch up (Regner, Barria, Pitt, and Neville, 2009).
