Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

ANALYSIS: The Dark Web



The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknetsoverlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access.[1][2] The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.[3][4][5][6][7]
The darknets which constitute the dark web include small, friend-to-friend peer-to-peer networks, as well as large, popular networks like TorFreenetI2P, and Riffle operated by public organizations and individuals. Users of the dark web refer to the regular web as Clearnet due to its unencrypted nature.[8] The Tor dark web may be referred to as onionland,[9] a reference to the network's top-level domain suffix .onion and the traffic anonymization technique of onion routing.

Darknet websites are accessible only through networks such as Tor ("The Onion Routing" project) and I2P ("Invisible Internet Project").[17] Tor browser and Tor-accessible sites are widely used among the darknet users and can be identified by the domain ".onion".[18] While Tor focuses on providing anonymous access to the Internet, I2P specializes in allowing anonymous hosting of websites.[19] Identities and locations of darknet users stay anonymous and cannot be tracked due to the layered encryption system. The darknet encryption technology routes users' data through a large number of intermediate servers, which protects the users' identity and guarantees anonymity. The transmitted information can be decrypted only by a subsequent node in the scheme, which leads to the exit node. The complicated system makes it almost impossible to reproduce the node path and decrypt the information layer by layer.[20] Due to the high level of encryption, websites are not able to track geolocation and IP of their users, and users are not able to get this information about the host. Thus, communication between darknet users is highly encrypted allowing users to talk, blog, and share files confidentially.[21]
The darknet is also used for illegal activity such as illegal trade, forums, and media exchange for pedophiles and terrorists.[22] At the same time traditional websites have created alternative accessibility for the Tor browser in efforts to connect with their users. ProPublica, for example, launched a new version of its website available exclusively to Tor users.

Many hackers sell their services either individually or as a part of groups.[47] Such groups include xDedic, hackforum, Trojanforge, Mazafakadark0de and the TheRealDeal darknet market.[48] Some have been known to track and extort apparent pedophiles.[49] Cyber crimes and hacking services for financial institutions and banks have also been offered over the Dark web.[50] Attempts to monitor this activity have been made through various government and private organizations, and an examination of the tools used can be found in the Procedia Computer Science journal.[51] Use of Internet-scale DNS Distributed Reflection Denial of Service (DRDoS) attacks have also been made through leveraging the Dark Web.[52] There are many scam .onion sites also present which end up giving tools for download that are infected with trojan horses or backdoors.


1 comment:

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