Although the dark web is an acclaimed part of the internet that most people fear, the dark web forms a very small portion of the whole of the internet. The internet as we know it is made of two major parts, which are the open web and the deep web. The open web, also known as the clear net, is the part or section of the internet that everyday internet users access daily (or maybe sometimes on a second basis). This part of the internet is visible to search engine bots and crawlers and so they can be accessed via a simple search. Search engines like Google and Bing use crawlers to crawl web pages to store parts of the information on these pages for future use. So when anyone searches a term on a web search page, the crawlers release the information they have stored about every single page that relates to the search criteria. The open web, therefore, is those parts of the internet that is accessible via web search engines. Unfortunately, this part of the internet is just about 5% of the whole data available online.
The other part of the internet is the deep web which forms about 95% of all the available data of the internet. The deep web is that part of the internet that requires a login or a direct link to access. Usually, the deep web doesn’t necessarily mean a part of the internet that is shrouded from the whole world. Any website you require a login to access is automatically part of the deep web. This is because web search engines will not be permitted to crawl these pages and as such, even if you keep the search criteria focused forever, you will get no result or very meaningless results. The deep web includes the likes of email accounts of users, banking online portals of individuals, school intranets, and business websites that log access only.
The dark web on its own cannot exist outside the deep web. Therefore it is should be noted that the dark web is just a small part of the deep web that is shrouded from the entire internet. The shrouding is a form of layers of overlay networks that help keep whatever is happening in the dark web of a private business. Therefore, the dark web is a private part of the deep web that can only be accessed using special software. One of the special software used for this purpose is the TOR (The Onion Router).
The dark web according to Garth Griffin is found to have several websites numbering around 55000 and more. Although because most of these websites are operated by criminals and they need to move shop frequently to avoid detection by government operatives, police and FBI, a ton of the sites are usually offline. There is no serious evidence as to how many of these websites are used for criminal activities but since most people find the dark web synonymous with criminal activities, It can be said that more than half of these websites are often owned and operated by criminal elements.
Contrary to public opinion though, the dark web is not just used and operated by criminals. The dark web itself was created by scientists working for the US naval research laboratories years back. They came up with the idea of the dark web simply because they felt the open web is no longer secure for government field operatives to send and receive vital and classified information. So even the government makes use of the dark web in ways the public can barely think of.
Dark web market places are websites on the dark web where goods and services are sold and traded between customers and vendors. Goods sold can range from non-criminal and legal goods and services to criminal and very illegal goods and services. In the non-criminal category, journalists use the dark web to contact their informants in countries where releasing such information can be dangerous (countries where there no is freedom of speech, or where there is freedom of speech but there is no freedom after speaking). People trade information that can help better the lives of fellow countrymen and even the world at large in secret and private on the dark web. Lots of people also make purchases on the dark web to stay away from government radar, not because they are criminal elements but because they believe their government is tyrannical. There are forums where information about new scientific discoveries is shared by scientists in secret on the dark web.
As much as the dark web is used for moral and legal businesses, there is a heavy network of criminal and illegal business being run on the dark web. There are market places on the dark web where human parts are sold in broad daylight. Since most of these websites are hosted on the dark web and the Tor network, it is a hard work for police and operatives to crank down on these criminals swiftly. There are marketplaces where personal data of innocent citizens are put up for sale. Personal information like credit card details, home, and office addresses, phone numbers, bank account numbers, internet banking login details, ATM card details and so on. Apart from all of these, some vendors sell illicit drugs online in the dark web. The sale of drugs has generated tons of billions for sellers online. These drug sellers, cook, packages and ship different kinds of hard drugs to customers almost anywhere in the world. The dark web is truly dark and so it is hard to find out who operates what website there. There are ammo and ammunitions for sale in various sizes and countries of manufacture on the dark web.
All of these criminal websites make people believe that everything about the dark web is criminal and in fact, there are no good market places or honest vendors on the dark web. Well, the dark web may carry the name “dark”, but then it is not a dark place as there is still some light shining in the hell of the dark web and the few users who bring about the light aren’t going to quit their privacy because of the criminal elements.