The Dark Side Of The Web: What You Need To Know
We use the internet every single day, yet most of us only scratch the surface of its potential. We open up our computers or smartphones and, using search engines like Google, we navigate from one site to another with ease. But we could do so much more. As well as the “surface web” with which we interact all the time, there’s also the “deep web.” And within the deep web lies the “dark web.” If you’ve never encountered the dark web before, and you think it sounds shady — well, you’re right about that! But there are plenty of good aspects of it, too.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
The good, the bad, and the ugly
The very term “dark web” gives a hint as to the sorts of activities that go on there. It’s a secret network, where plenty of unsavory characters can ply their illicit trades. Narcotics and weapons are bought and sold, personal information is traded, and illegal porn is exchanged.
You might take one look at those atrocious activities and presume the dark web is an awful, sordid place. But the truth is more complex: for all the harm it can be used for, it also has the potential for good.
Back to basics
In order to wrap our heads around the dark web, it’ll be worth considering how the regular web we all know and use works. Many of us generally don’t muse too much about what’s going on when we’re online, navigating from website to website, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.
The internet is a vast network made up of millions and millions of web pages, but there’s much more to access than we might realize. We tend to only interact with the “surface” or “open” web, which is mediated through search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Translating words to numbers
When we use popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, websites are searched for using the Domain Name System (DNS). This system translates website names that are easily discernible to humans — for example, www.google.com — into IP addresses made up of numbers, like, say, 8.8.4.4.
Computers use these numeric IP addresses to communicate with one another. But DNS means we, as users, don’t need to remember long sequences of numProduction companies Wabers in order to access different websites.
Concerns about privacy
Every device that can connect to the internet has an IP address, and it contains certain information about the person using that device — like, for example, their general location on Earth. It’s essential that a user has an IP address, as it’s where web servers and internet routers send the content a user is seeking when they’re online.
But this is where concerns surrounding privacy come into play. When a person browses the surface web, they leave little footsteps. Bits of their IP address are spread around the internet, which means their activities can be tracked without them ever realizing it.