Is The Dark Web Real Or Is It A Conspiracy?

The internet is a lot of fun. You can watch videos on YouTube, connect with your friends through Facebook, Instagram etc. Maybe once in a while, you might go to the weird side of YouTube and watch some crazy videos. But underneath all of that is something called The Dark Web.

The Dark Web is very real. It is not a conspiracy or a legend. It is where some of the darkest sides of humanity are exposed.

Where is it located?

The Internet has 3 layers. It is often compared to an iceberg. Let’s try to explain it a little better.

• Top Layer: This is also called the Clear Web. This is where the Google, Twitter etc are. Basically, this is what people mean when they talked about the internet in general. But what we don’t know is that this part contains only about 4% of the internet.
• Deep Web: This is part of the internet which most of the stuff common people don’t know how to find. Kinds of Stuff like data, encrypted services etc. Most of the time people think that Deep Web and Dark Web are the same thing but it is not! We’ll get into the details later.
• Dark Web: Now, the Dark Web will be at the very bottom of the iceberg. There are as many as 4 billion pages in the Dark Web. It can get you on the radar of the FBI. Even the most skilled hackers stay away from it because the things you could find are incredibly terrifying. Not just terrifying but also ILLEGAL. 

What are the things you can find on the Dark Web?

• Government Secrets
• Weapons(illegal firearms sold&traded)
• Hidden Wiki
• Drugs ( Many drug dealers have moved their business to the dark web)
• Government testings/Experiments (Many have theorized that the government is using the dark web to find people willing to be experimented on)
• Thieves looking for jobs
• Hitmen/Assassins
• Human experiments
• Snuff films(videos or films of real people dying)
• Weird sexual things
• Social security number, stolen credit cards, passport etc

There are a number of scary stories from the Dark Web but I am going to mention only the least scary and disturbing stories:

• The first one is a story about Government Testings that I have mentioned before. A Reddit user once told a story on the site about browsing the dark web and stumbling upon a job application posted by someone with R credentials and combat experience based out of Washington DC. The application didn’t say exactly what it was. Only that it was offering 255 thousand dollars for 6 months for being out of communication aboard a ship.

• You should never casually browse the Dark Web just because you are curious. Not only because you can stumble upon disturbing things but also because if you follow the wrong link or end up on the wrong page, it can open your computer to hackers. Shushant Tulare, a computer science student in Kanpur, India found out just how scary that can be after spending a day poking around in some dark web chat rooms.

   

 For several days after he spotted an LED indicator on his laptop lighting up every time that he connected to the Internet. He soon realized that someone was accessing his web camera remotely. He finally reinstalled           Windows to make it stop but it was already too late. The hacker had been watching him sleep and had seen him in his most intimate moments.

• This next story had to do with HITMEN who are available for hire as mentioned before. The site uses a bitcoin, an anonymous and largely untraceable online currency in order to hire a hitman who would take care of your problems swiftly and efficiently. However, the most terrifying part was that the prices were listed from lowest to highest and included civilians, police, politicians and even children.

There are a number of different communities on the dark web consisting of people who are interested in some weird things. One of those things is Cannibalism! There is a place called The Cannibal Cafe where cannibals from all over the world discuss how to find victims, how to prepare them and in some cases, buy and trade body parts.

Difference between Dark Web&Deep Web:

As I have mentioned earlier, many people associate deep web and dark web together as if they are the same thing. They are somewhat similar but let’s discuss the nuances.

The Deep Web is the stuff you can’t find on the normal search engine. It is accessible and mostly consists of business intranets, user databases, web archives etc. The Deep Web is 500% larger than the Surface Web and is not always illegal or immoral.

The Dark Web is basically just a part of the Deep Web. It is basically an overlay network that is only available to be accessed with certain levels of authorization/software configurations. The sites on the dark web are often of an illegal nature. It is highly restricted.

Hence, site owners use anonymous names and crypto-currency(eg bitcoins) to try and avoid detection. This site contains many marketplaces. 

To summarize it, you can access normal deep web easily but they won’t appear in search engine results. Whereas dark web is not easy to access and often require sign up and additional authorization. Most of the messed up stuff you hear about regarding the deep web is on the dark web.

The Dark Web is now dubbed as ‘The Global Black Market’ because of the things you can find there. I am writing this article with a hope that it would bring some type of awareness in the way we use our internet. Let’s all stay on the Clear Web of the Internet.

Read Also: Some Spine-Chilling Secrets That The Internet Doesn’t Want You To Know