Deep Web and Dark Web
Introduction: As we know, Internet is accessible by WWW(World Wide web)
but it has 3 types Surface web, Deep web, Dark web. Internet is huge source of
information but what most of us see is just one link in very long chain of unseen
website and unseen content.
Surface Web: It consist of only 6 to 10% of total internet and it is accessible
using search engines such as Google and Yahoo. They are indexed by search
engines. It is also called as Visible Net.
Deep Web: It is around 85 to 90% of the WWW internet and it is invisible net.
This websites are not indexed by search engines. It consist of very large amount
of data as compared to other two types of internet. The links which are directly
provided to the users who are eligible to access.
Dark Web: It consist of 5 to 8% of the internet. The Dark Web is a term
referring to websites and networks that are heavily encrypted and “hidden” from
the average internet user. Dark Web has earned a connotation as a sort of
immense black market, one associated with drugs, guns, hacking, and
conspiracies.
How is it different from normal internet?
The data which is used in internet is on same channels but the encryption put a
clear divide between Normal internet content and dark web. We can not go back
into our normal browser and access the dark site any time for any instance.
The Deep Web refers to all parts of the web that are hidden away from the
average user and not indexed by the average search engine. This includes an
immense amount of data, internal copies of various web pages and anything that
you need an access code to reach. Every site has some of its content in Deep
Web and Dark web is small part of deep web.
What is meant by TOR hidden services?
TOR is The Onion Router essentially uses network of proxies to anonymize
internet usage. It is more efficient with memory usage.
Tor hidden service allow users to publish their service without revealing their
identity (IP address). Users can connect to this service using rendezvous point
without knowing the publisher of service and revealing their identities. We can
achieve goals such as Access control, Robustness, Application transparency
using hidden services.
Need of Hidden Services and How to host them:
As we know TOR is valuable tool for preserving privacy and anonymity. If our
device is attached to internet via router follows a series of look up request for
specific URL or IP And returns the content to the device which requested
information. Our request are still directly connected to the up address on each
end of the transaction. But our Internet Service provider can see where u go on
the web.. TOR network sends the encrypted details of it's request to an entrance
node within an tour Network.
TOR network before either reaching it's destination within a TOR network or
being carried back into the internet through the exit node. And possess security
and privacy risk.
As the node has same level of access to the details of request as ISP would look
to avoid the danger of exit node we host the website entirely through TOR
network in the form of hidden services and this services can be accessed using
.onion address. Which can be discovered by its name within TOR network.
.onion is pseudo top level domain host suffix which designates an anonymous
hidden services reachable via TOR network.
Hidden services provide two way anonymity. The server doesn't know IP of the
client if u access over TOR, but client also doesn't know IP of the server. it
provide ultimate privacy.
We can configure a TOR server using http content by choosing conventional
web server at 0.0.0.0 and we can bind these local server to 127.0.0.1 which is
accessible only through TOR.. Otherwise, someone may be able to correlates ur
hidden service with public one.we should modify our web server so that it won't
provide our software type or version and all of our external request should route
over TOR.
We can run hidden service and relay node from same host. and we can ran
hidden services without any risk.
Using python 3 and http.server we can bind and launch a server on specified
port number.
We can also ensure whether our server is function or not using
localhost:portnumber .
Then for listing the port which should listen for hidden service and to which
address to forward that traffic. we use HiddenServicePort.
What is I2P and Freenet?
I2P is invisible Internet Project same as TOR but theoretically more secure
where each user acts as relay. It increases anonymity and deniability. The
tunnels in i2p are all one way, so we need two connection to transmit to and
from one website. This means attacker has to crack twice as many nodes to
retrieve your information. It also has hidden services like TOR. It allows
connections where neither client nor server know the identity of the other.
Hidden services in I2P are faster than in TOR. They are fully distributed and
self organized. I2P networks are packet switched instead of circuit switched.
Freenet, is not anonymizing network. It is not used for connecting the internet
via freenet. Users can access files which are uploaded to it. There are no servers
in the freenet. All the files are hosted by users. The content available on freenet
is illegal. But there are many others file stored within it by people taking
advantage of this feature as cloud service since nobody can delete their files.
Basically Freenet is neither anonymous nor particularly secure.
