Going Dark: The Internet Behind The Internet

NPR ^ | May 25, 2014

[Mean Daddy]

The average computer user with an Internet connection has access to an amazing wealth of information. But there's also an entire world that's invisible to your standard Web browser.

These parts of the Internet are known as the Deep Web. The tools to get to there are just a few clicks away, and more and more people who want to browse the Web anonymously are signing on.

Fans of the series House of Cards might recall the Deep Web being worked into the plot of latest season. The character Lucas, a newspaper editor who was trying find a hacker, gets a little crash course from one of his reporters:

"Ninety-six percent of the Internet isn't accessible through standard search engines. Most of it's useless but it's where you go to find anything and everything: child porn, Bitcoin laundry, narcotics, hackers for hire ..."

[Mean Daddy]

About fell out of my chair seeing this was a NPR article.

[NonValueAdded]

NSA planted article. “Hey, all you dissidents and terrorists ... over here, it’s safe.” Love, PT

[CincyRichieRich]

What’s the status of us “giving” control of internet to Chinese?

[GOPJ]

Edward Snowden’s going to release a list of Americans spied on...

[Cicero]

Odd article. Why would any normal person want access to child porn, money laundering, or drug gangsters?

[Chode]

that's not what the article is about..

[libstripper]

If I were going to use this, I’d get a cheap $350.00 Windows machine and use it for nothing else. Too much can go wrong.

[righttackle44]

. . . normal person . . . .

That's the point. These aren't normal people. They are people looking for, or looking to provide, illicit, dangerous servics and products. People who will kill anyone you want for $5,000, or who will provide services to people with serious, deadly STDs because they also have serious, deadly STDs, are there. The drug cartels looking to find people they want to kill, are there, asking for help in finding their targets. People willing to do things or asking for things you don't even want to think about, are there.

I only know these things because of a report done by one of our local newscasts. I wouldn't go on the deeper internet for anything in the world.

[OldNewYork]

What hath Al Gore wrought?

[ShadowAce]

[GeronL]

The CIA and FBI are probably all over it

[rarestia]

Nah! TOR networks are as secure as you can get.

The best analogy I can muster is like this:

The Internet as we know is like a four-course meal. You can pick your amuse bouche, you dabble in others; you pick your meat and cut and how you want it cooked; you pick your dessert. The difference is that there are menus all over (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo) that tell you what you’re eating, and the cooks in the back (i.e. anyone monitoring Internet traffic) know how to cook your meals and deliver the same food consistently.

TOR is like a soup. Every ingredient is thrown in, nothing is measured, it’s all by taste or “feel.” There could be too much salt in one batch, too little in another, and there are thousands of chefs just adding what they think would be good. There’s no consistency.

TOR traffic cannot be sniffed or deciphered the same as the Internet. You could get a couple of packets from a secret document, but you’ll never find all of it. You also don’t know from where it came nor to where it’s destined. The only entities that know are the sender and the receiver. That’s it.

TOR is an exciting but terrifying place. There’s a lot of stuff that’s just downright awful about it, but for the safety of my data and my privacy, I take the good with the bad.

[rarestia]

TOR was developed by the Navy to securely send and receive traffic without revealing the sender. You can bet your bottom dollar that the government is out there using it, but I can tell you personally that they can’t decipher it all.

TOR traffic is over 70% of active web traffic at any time.

[The Antiyuppie]

No, what you need is a virual machine and Tor.

[ShadowAce]

TOR networks are as secure as you can get.

You forgot the /sarc tag, right?

[COBOL2Java]

These aren't normal people. They are people looking for, or looking to provide, illicit, dangerous servics and products. People who will kill anyone you want for $5,000, or who will provide services to people with serious, deadly STDs because they also have serious, deadly STDs, are there. The drug cartels looking to find people they want to kill, are there, asking for help in finding their targets. People willing to do things or asking for things you don't even want to think about, are there.

In a related story: Govt. Workers Surf Port on Job

[IncPen]

Odd article. Why would any normal person want access to child porn, money laundering, or drug gangsters?

There are people stupid enough to believe that 'the givernment' would not just ignore such a place, but suggest where you might find it.

Such people are ratings bonanza material for self-righteous liberal media whores like Geraldo, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, etc.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[Lazamataz]

Odd article. Why would any normal person want access to child porn, money laundering, or drug gangsters?

Exactly.

I *AM* interested, however, in money porn, drug laundering, and child gangsters.

[uncommonsense]

"NSA planted article. “Hey, all you dissidents and terrorists ... over here, it’s safe.” Love, PT"

Interesting... Tor: Overview

Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion routing project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Today, it is used every day for a wide variety of purposes by normal people, the military, journalists, law enforcement officers, activists, and many others.

But also they claim:

Individuals use Tor to keep websites from tracking them and their family members, or to connect to news sites, instant messaging services, or the like when these are blocked by their local Internet providers. Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site. Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.

Journalists use Tor to communicate more safely with whistleblowers and dissidents. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use Tor to allow their workers to connect to their home website while they're in a foreign country, without notifying everybody nearby that they're working with that organization.