Does the deep web really exist? On the dark side of the Internet: What is the Dark Web and Deep Web? Judicial practice of the Russian Federation in “Darknet” cases

The web is like an iceberg. Information available for mass use is only the tip of it. The underwater part is a hidden Deep Web network containing a huge amount of prohibited information. How to get here has long been no secret for Internet users.

Shadow Internet

Thanks to a sufficient number of information sites, social networks, blogs, and torrent trackers, many users do not even think about the existence of an even larger amount of information. According to some estimates, what is on the surface is only 1/5000 of the data. On the Internet, you can only rarely find strange, atypical content, which, as a rule, is hidden from the average reader.

Increasingly, network users are asking questions about the Web, how to get to it, and what opportunities it offers. The Deep Web is an anonymous shadow Internet that provides complete freedom of action.

How to get to the Deep Web?

In order to get into the Deep Web, you need to acquire its capabilities through the means of anonymous network connections that bypass the provider’s servers.

The speed of surfing on the shadow Internet is much lower than usual due to the fact that it is done through several network nodes. Such a system allows other client information.

On the other hand, although the data transmitted along the chain is securely encrypted, it is still possible for it to be intercepted at the last node that interacts directly with the server. For this reason, it is recommended to periodically change the packet sending chain. It is worth understanding that the browser is the best option in terms of anonymity, but nevertheless cannot guarantee it 100%.

Finding Tor in one of your usual search engines will not be difficult. The browser interface replicates the elements of Mozilla Firefox, which will allow you to get used to it without any extra effort.

The Hidden Wiki

Traveling through the hidden Internet with the help of Deep Web Search has already acquired a certain mystical connotation, and users who sink to the “bottom of the network” have even acquired their own name - netstalkers. It is believed that for such surfing you need to have certain technical knowledge and be able to identify hidden encrypted links and codes. But even a few well-known resources, the addresses of which are posted on the main page of The Hidden Wiki, are quite enough to interest and surprise the reader.

All banned sites have the domain ".onion". Access to them is usually limited in regular browsers.

Narcotic drugs

In The Hidden Wiki you can also find a specially designated “Drugs” item, which contains a fairly extensive list of resources for the sale of various narcotic drugs. Sites with .onion domains are not very reliable and change their addresses quite often on the Deep Web. How can I get to the same page next time? You will most likely have to learn about this from recent posts on various forums. Of course, all this is explained by their illegality and a fairly large number of users who do not want to put up with the proximity of prohibited content.

Not so long ago, the most popular resource for selling drugs was Silk Road, but after the arrest of its creator, the project was closed, and in its place appeared Silk Road 2.0, which was even larger in terms of monetary turnover, which was recently followed by its third version. Due to the fact that payments are made in Bitcoint currency, users are guaranteed complete confidentiality. In order to use the resource, you need to go through a short registration, after which you are immediately given the opportunity to begin choosing the products offered with the prices indicated on them. Everything looks about the same as in regular online stores, with the exception of the products themselves.

Immoral content

Also, some is occupied by the sale of immoral pornographic products, represented in the Deep Web by photo and video content. The fight against such a product is unsuccessful due to the huge costs associated with it. In contrast, a large proportion of onion sites do not post such content for ethical reasons.

On The Hidden Wiki you can find other controversial Deep Web links that provide a huge variety of very unusual services and products.

Russified content

The Deep Web consists almost entirely of English-language sites, and the share of Russified resources in it is very small. However, there are several trading platforms, led by Russian Road, which offer stolen electronics, counterfeit documents, as well as smuggled black caviar and other similar products. The site also adheres to the rules of “morality” and does not host child pornography, nor does it provide killer services. Many resources claim that the sale of drugs and weapons is not prohibited in absolutely all countries, while the danger of immoral content is obvious.

Firearms

Thanks to the shadow network, on the Black Market website, those who wish can purchase firearms for an average of $300 cheaper than in official stores, where they still require lengthy registration and fiddling with paperwork. The administration of the resource reports that they have several warehouses with weapons and narcotic drugs, which they can successfully disguise and deliver in parcels.

Killer services

Hitman Network is interesting in terms of the services offered. The Deep Web has its own concepts about the value of life. For example, ordering such a service in the United States will cost 10 thousand dollars, and in Europe it will cost 12 thousand. The entire service will be no different from purchasing in any online store. Of course, the organizers have their own restrictions - the object must be over 16 and not be among the TOP 10 politicians. The site also offers 1% discounts on orders from attracted customers.

Fake documents

There are many onion sites involved in the production and sale of such resources can be found using Deep web search, represented by the search engines “deeperweb”, “DuckDuckGo” and many others. Communication with the site owners occurs via email, and in most cases, sellers use hacked mailboxes of users who are absolutely not involved in such operations.

Hacker services

Also, similar resources often offer services for hacking mail and various Internet accounts. There are even specialists who are capable of destroying a person’s reputation by accusing him of pedophilia or other unacceptable behavior. Moreover, the price range for such operations is within $200-300.

Stolen goods

In the vastness of Deep Web links, it is possible to launder Bitcoins, purchase stolen Paypal accounts and other services. There is also the sale of stolen mobile phones, which cost only a third of the real price. Basically, online resources try to work covering a wide range of goods and services.

News services

If you want to read censored news, the Deep Web can help. How to get to such sites on the deep web is no secret. There are a huge number of prohibited political and even terrorist sites here. It was with the help of the technology of “onion” connections presented in the Tor browser that such a large-scale project as WikiLeaks was first implemented.

Deep Web links 2014 is presented with the most popular services on the Wiki website, where users can find popular and interesting, and most importantly, working news sites.

There are even stranger resources on the lower layers of the Deep Web, containing information with a paranormal, mystical tinge. Information about such things is not made public, and getting to them will be much more difficult. Such an activity will require considerable effort and a deeper study of the hidden network from personal experience.

The term deep Internet, or deep web, refers to that part of the global network that remains hidden from search engines and which, accordingly, cannot be displayed in search results when asked by users. It can be compared to an iceberg, since even the most conservative and rough estimates of the size of the hidden web show that it is several times larger than the current size of the accessible part of the Internet, measured by the Google search engine index of several trillion pages.

What does the term "deep internet" mean?
The whole concept of search engines working with the “visible” part of the Internet is built on the use of links. This is expressed in the fact that only the document to which a link is established from a previously known page can be found, indexed and provided at the user’s request. If there are no links, then with a high degree of probability the search engine will not know about such a document, which means that it can be attributed to the deep web.

In addition, the deep Internet is represented by the numerous information that is available only after the registration procedure on the site. These are various scientific works, documents and research results, materials from electronic subscriptions and mailings, archival images and videos, results of queries to databases that are issued “on the fly”. The deep web also includes numerous data contained in networks with more complex protocols and routing than those used on the regular Internet. These are primarily the Torrent and Tor networks.

How to get into the deep internet
This is both difficult and simple at the same time. You can always spend a certain amount of your time to find specialized resources on the topic of interest, register on them and gain access to the classified information they contain, but no one can guarantee that there are not other resources that you have not found that contain this information you are looking for presented in a more complete and reliable form.

But finding something is better than finding nothing, so let's look at ways to access information contained on the deep web.

1. Determine the specific topic you need to find information about. This will help you find additional search terms. For example, you are looking for information on the topic weight loss. This means that additional search conditions may include diet, overweight, gymnastics, physical exercise, nutrition. After such a list has been compiled, start requesting information in any major search engine in the form of a topic - an additional search condition. For example, diet exercise. Carefully review the search results, find resources where information will be available only after registration. Register on the selected sites and after that try to find the necessary information on them. This will be the closed part of the Internet that you have successfully entered.
   
2. Use special browsers to view data contained in special networks. First of all, this is the Tor browser, which must be downloaded and installed on your computer. As mentioned earlier, Tor is a highly anonymous network that has recently experienced rapid development due to its higher degree of security of personal data. In it, no one can determine your location as a user or find out what information you are viewing. When using this network, be careful and do not violate the law, as high anonymity attracts various data related to crime.
   
3. For the English-speaking audience, there are several search engines specialized in working on the deep Internet. All of them are of little use to Russian-speaking people, except for one wonderful resource - https://archive.org, which contains copies of web pages and their contents taken at various periods of time. Using this resource, you can find out information that was contained even on those sites that are not currently working.
   

Thus, what is meant by the deep Internet is a very versatile concept and working with it, searching for the necessary information, must also be versatile.

I came across a very interesting article about the multi-level structure of the “Deep Internet”.

If anyone has not yet heard what it is, let me explain: it is a network consisting of a huge number of web pages that are not indexed by search engines. Access to these pages is possible only through a chain of encrypted connections, the nodes (entry points) of which are scattered throughout the world. There are web pages that are not linked to other hyperlinks - for example, pages that are dynamically created by database queries. The size of the deep web is unknown and generally difficult to estimate, primarily due to the vagueness of the concept itself.

The World Wide Web is a complex multi-level structure that contains mysteries and secrets that the average user is not even aware of...

There are groups of passionate professionals who call themselves “Netstalkers.” They explore the Network, looking for hidden corners, classified information and other secrets in it. Netstalkers divide the Network into levels.

Social media
Blogs
News
Porn
Imageboards (for those who don’t know - something like chats/forums, with complete anonymity of participants)
Small boards (almost the same as image boards, but more thematic and with fewer participants)
ARG (Alternate Reality Games)
Closed communities
Hard porn
Collections of strange links

Tor (the same TOR... An anonymous proxy network inside the regular Internet)
Net art
Hacker communities
i2p (Another anonymous proxy network)
Dead forums (forums that have been taken down but are still online)
Freenet (Another anonymous network on the Internet, peer-to-peer)
Memetics Information
Future sites
Two Internet sects
Search results for words from the subconscious
Deep Web (Deep Network, the term originally meant pages that were not indexed by search engines)
The limits of bruteforce netstalking
Dark Internet
Number radio stations
Secret government radio stations

If the two upper levels are still quite objective, then deeper the paranormal, supernatural and folklore begin...

The so-called "Pass"
Researcher forums
Blank Pages
Non-existent IPs
Void
Non-existent pages
The way up, back, for the last time
Non-existent protocols
Old browsers needed here
Really dangerous point
You Tube for Level B
Random numbers
Small imageboard
Tons of useless information
Tons of useful information
Valuable phrase
The limit of human capabilities
Level D Control
Holes
Death
Schumann resonance
Dead zone
The terrifying truth about mirrors
Level C management
Quiet house

And at the very depths - Level A
About which it is generally difficult to say anything, just like about the higher planes of human existence.

This diagram clearly shows the levels of which, according to the assumptions of "Netstalkers", the World Wide Web consists

And here is what the general director of one of the leading companies involved in computer security in Russia said in an interview on this topic:

The volume of illegal trade on the deep web is difficult to estimate, but some experts believe it could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. There you can buy absolutely everything - from plastic card holder data to passwords for email addresses, from animal skins listed in the Red Book to pornography. Moreover, the “deep Internet” is used not only by illegal traders and hackers, but also by representatives of large businesses to transfer confidential information to partners, journalists to communicate with “unnamed sources,” and diplomats for classified correspondence. “Hidden networks are used for anonymous, hidden exchange of information, and you can meet a wide variety of people there - from religious fanatics to child pornography dealers. For the most part, of course, hidden networks are criminal in nature, since they are not regulated by any legislation.

Here there is drug trafficking, and the sale of fake ID cards, and trading in access data to financial accounts of users of various banks, and child pornography, and much, much more that simply cannot legally exist on the public Internet." But, in addition to openly criminal sites , there are also those resources whose existence the owners would not like to advertise due to the secrecy of information or the presence of trade secrets in the data “Closed bases, academic, government, military sources, closed bases of enterprises and organizations.

What I knew before about the “dark Internet” - well, that this is such a hidden segment of the network in which no less dark individuals sell, buy and show everything that on the regular Internet could have long been subject to criminal liability. Drugs, weapons, fake passports, and everything is beyond the radar of any regulatory organizations, just like on the planet Tatooine. It’s enough to make you want to explore this hot spot.

Dark Internet (darknet)

A segment of the deep web (deep web), sites that are not indexed by search engines and are not accessible through standard browsers.

The most popular way to get there is Tor (The Onion Router), an onion router that sends data through many of its own servers and thereby covers all traces of users. The service was developed for the US Navy in 2004 and has become a Pandora's box: its decentralization makes it impossible to simply “turn off” the system.

We need to start with the main thing - for me, the Internet and technology have always been just tools for transmitting content. Their filling and some non-obvious capabilities interested me no more than those of an iron or a juicer. VPN, Tor, IP2P, proxy - I learned all these magic words from socio-political, not geek publications. The first sparked a wave of interest in the topic a year or two ago, when Roskomnadzor was just beginning to become a serious censorship body. Instructions on how to bypass the blocking that the department actively imposed on interesting or politically objectionable resources became relevant. Then the choice settled on ZenMate, only to enter the fenced-in, it seems, according to Alina Kabaeva, “Luch”. It turned out that when this thing was turned on, it significantly slowed down the connection, and the culture hacker magazine predictably slowed down the pace of work, so soon I stopped turning on the plug-in icon hanging in the upper right corner.

So, with the dark internet it’s even worse. Anonymity and security require sacrifice, so surfing the Tor browser I chose for the tour instantly brought back memories of payment cards with ladybirds from the pre-broadband Internet era. The feeling is enhanced by the shabby design of most “dark” sites - this is what the web looked like on the monitors of the characters in “Hackers” or “The X-Files.” But this only adds charm to the process; we came here for content, not comfort.

First of all, the hand reaches for the forbidden fruit - here they are, the legendary drug markets Silk Road, Pandora, Agora. Everything there is exactly as you expect and at the same time afraid to see - right here with prices, descriptions, photographs, reviews of happy customers

Internet structure

REGULAR Internet

VKontakte, FURFUR, Buzzfeed and everything else that we are used to constantly using.

"Underwater" Internet

Imageboards, FTP servers, marginal sites with naked teenagers and other interest clubs that fall beyond the bounds of ordinary consciousness.

Proxies required

Deep Internet

Websites blocked by censorship organizations, hacker forums, legally questionable content.

Tor or alternative systems required

Dark Internet

Trade in drugs, weapons, documents and people, exchange of secret or dangerous documents, banned books.

CLOSED Internet (the existence of which is reasonably doubtful)

Reports on secret government experiments, snuff, services of killers.

You can immediately forget about search engines. At least about special ones designed for searching on the dark web. There are not one or two of them, but using them is a real pain, there is no question of any relevance or effectiveness. It's easier to immediately go to existing lists of links - for example, Hidden Wiki or TORDIR. Lurkmore also has its own option for beginners, but it’s very small and not interesting.

First of all, the hand reaches for the forbidden fruit: here they are, the legendary drug markets Silk Road, Pandora, Agora - the list can be continued for a very long time. Everything there is exactly as you expect and at the same time are afraid to see - right with prices, descriptions, photographs, reviews of happy customers. Most reminiscent of the old Ebay or Japanese denim fan forum before the advent of popular specialty stores. The diversity is amazing - you feel like a Soviet person on a Baltic business trip, nothing less. It's hard to believe it's so simple. “Is this even legal?” But enough: firstly, it’s illegal, and secondly, after the third market studied, it becomes boring, almost like with sneakers.

Why don't the valiant drug police close all these shops? “Because this doesn’t happen in the real world,” answers Dmitry Khomak, one of the founders of Lurkmore. - The district police officer usually knows where in the area under his responsibility all sorts of interesting things are happening, but he does not break in there with operatives and riot police. And the point is not corruption, but the fact that it is more profitable to keep small traders of forbidden goods on a short leash and wait until someone big arrives. Although there is always a chance of running into some kind of police “Operation Black Network.”

What's next on the list? Of course, pornography. It’s not that it’s really lacking on the regular Internet, but it’s still “dark”, “deep” - here you certainly won’t have to look for long for something perverse. But no. Damn Thor search engines give links to the local Pirate Bay on the first few dozen pages of a request. Okay, let's dive into the link library and look for code tags in the description. And here’s the terrible truth - there are not that many of them at all, even much less than all kinds of illegal commercial services. The most extreme thing I came across was a porn tube-type resource entirely dedicated to coprophilia and related areas of the erotic. Even the greasy pedophiles who allegedly have taken a liking to the darknet don’t advertise themselves too much. Except that on local imageboards, unlike Russia and Asian countries, the loli section is not prohibited. There were also several portals for fans of young boys, but, again, limited to hand-drawn content. Even Milonov Tor would be too lazy to install this.

The most extreme thing I came across was a porn tube-type resource entirely dedicated to coprophilia and related areas of erotica

Limits of anonymity

But Pink Meth, a platform long closed on the surface, is thriving in the deep web - a platform on which users post intimate photos of their exes, or whatever, partners, invariably accompanying the “leak” with screenshots and the address of the Facebook page. In general, it is still impossible not to note the fairly high concentration of asocial types on the darknet. Popular Russian-language forums are filled with discussions of alternative types of income: blackmail with intimate photographs, fraud on social networks under the guise of a psychic or an individual prostitute. On another thread they are discussing the possibility of purchasing a grenade launcher by mail, almost in case of a zombie apocalypse. Against the backdrop of such threads, users running in to buy prohibited substances look like stupid tourists at an oriental bazaar.

What else can you purchase in the .onion domain zone? Not much, but everything an action hero needs: firearms of all kinds (some stores chastely ban only “weapons of mass destruction”), passports, driver’s licenses, credit cards, counterfeit bills, gold bars and iPhones. They say you can also buy killers, slaves or human organs. Have not found. But I found a couple of excellent trackers, one of them specializes in mondo films and shockumentary, from which, even if you are not a big fan of dead bodies, you can select something interesting. Others simply store content without any problems, which is mercilessly cleared by copyright holders on the regular network.

While systematically searching for links from what at first seemed like a huge catalog, I came across only a couple of interesting libraries, several postcard sites with dubstep and eight-bit animation, and a certain number of radical portals like the Caucasus Center or CyberBerkut. There are also havens for anarchists (many) of all stripes and neo-Nazis (not so many), lovingly filled with tons of thematic content. The platform for the exchange of hot information between journalists, opposition politicians and other interested parties seems to be the most advanced and up to date with modern design standards. This is understandable: the process there is organized seriously, the site administration takes a 20% commission from each transaction.

Popular Russian-language forums are filled with discussions of alternative types of income: blackmail with intimate photographs, fraud on social networks under the guise of a psychic or an individual prostitute.

All financial transactions in the Tor universe are carried out using BitCoin. Decentralized cryptocurrency is the only reasonable monetary equivalent for purchasing prohibited products.

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation recently published a bill according to which the use of cryptocurrencies will be punishable by fines of up to 50 thousand rubles for individuals and up to 1 million rubles for legal entities. Users of darknet forums are confident that there can be no talk of any effective fight against cryptocurrencies in Russia: the relevant departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs simply do not have enough competence.

Everything turned out to be approximately as predicted: without special consumer intentions, there is practically nothing to do on the dark Internet. Super-secret documents and reports on experiments on people, apparently, still lie at the next, deeper level, but “The Anarchist Cookbook” is not difficult to find “on the surface.” In the process of getting to know each other, it turns out that there are a huge number of extreme sites for which you also do not need to turn on the Tor browser at all. The illusion of absolute, arcade-style freedom is, of course, enchanting, but the spell subsides as soon as you realize that you, in general, do not need a fake driving license of a British citizen.

Will the young and free take to the “dark internet” to avoid the undue attention of increasingly active internet watchdogs? Hardly. To do this, according to Homak, a cataclysm must occur that will make the ordinary Internet completely unsuitable for communication. Even the romantic desire for complete digital anonymity can hardly replace the convenience of multimillion-dollar services and media that suck personal data from their users. To read news, even uncensored ones, Tor is not yet required, and the pages of 99% of social network users, sadly, do not actually contain anything interesting. And, in the end, well, not all of us are destined to become action heroes.

This text was created for informational purposes only, does not call for action and does not contain links to any sites. In addition, we remind you that the production, sale and transfer of narcotic and psychotropic substances is a criminal offense in accordance with Art. 228-231 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

What is the deep internet

The Internet that we use every day is called the “surface web” (from the English “surface web”). You don't need special tools to access it - a working connection is enough. All pages of the “surface” Internet can be easily found using any search engine, and user actions on the Internet and data about them are available to Internet providers. Accordingly, they can also be tracked by law enforcement agencies in accordance with a court decision.

In addition to the surface network, there is also the deep Internet (from the English “deep web”). You cannot find pages from the deep web using a regular search engine.- they are not indexed by search engines. Therefore, it is impossible to accurately estimate the size of this segment of the Internet.

Links to pages on the deep web work in a special .onion format, so you can’t open them with a regular browser. To access the deep network, you need special programs that preserve user anonymity and encrypt traffic.

There is also darknet is a closed network within the deep internet. The concepts of “deep web” and “darknet” are often confused, but the darknet has a fundamental difference from the usual deep network.

The deep Internet is a single network hidden from search engines, but there can be several darknets, and each of them requires special access. So, to get into each of the popular darknets - Freenet, RetroShare or I2P - you need to install separate software.

Why do we need a “hidden” Internet?

There can be many reasons for creating pages on the deep web or one of the darknets. The main advantage of closed networks compared to superficial ones is, of course, anonymity. Therefore, the hidden Internet is often used for illegal activities.

Drugs, weapons, fake documents, and even people are traded on darknet trading platforms. If desired, you can also find contacts of a contract killer on the darknet.

In addition, user data often leaks onto the dark Internet - hackers who break into databases periodically leak them into closed networks. The easiest way to pay on local markets is with cryptocurrency - again, due to the fact that it allows you to remain anonymous.

Another option for illegal activities on the darknet is distribution of pirated content. However, this won’t surprise anyone even on the “surface”. And in countries where authorities are actively pursuing piracy, the dark internet comes to the aid of lovers of free content.

The deep web and darknet have gained notoriety due to the fact that they are often used by criminals. Nevertheless, Illegal activity is not the only use of hidden networks.

There, for example, human rights activists and journalists from totalitarian and authoritarian states create their pages. On the darknet, they are not afraid of either censorship or authorities. The deep Internet is an excellent platform for the fight for freedom of speech and it can be used not only for illegal purposes.

What useful things can you find on the deep web?

The deep web isn't just about sites for criminals. We have collected several links that may be useful to ordinary law-abiding citizens.

Libraries	After the Russian-language library “Flibust” was blocked on the surface Internet, it moved to the “depths”. There you can find thousands of books in Russian. Flibusta has its own pages on the deep web and the I2P darknet. Other well-known deep web book resources include The Verbal Hero and the Imperial Library of Trantor.
Rospravosudie	Database of publicly available court decisions from all over Russia.
Image hosting	Anonymous image hosting where you can upload jpg, png or gif files up to 20 megabytes for free.
Science articles	A deep “mirror” of the Sci-Hub portal, which allows you to download scientific articles for free.
Anti-censorship community	The multilingual community We Fight Censorship publishes materials that, for one reason or another, have been considered prohibited in different countries.
Questions and answers service	The English-language Hidden Answers service works on the same principle as Mail.ru Answers. Some users ask questions, while others answer them. The main difference from similar “superficial” platforms is the subject matter of the questions. They are mainly devoted to cybersecurity and the deep Internet. Although there are also quite ordinary thematic sections, for example, about relationships or food.
Search engine	If you want to search for something on the deep web yourself, you can use a system that allows you to search for working sites on the deep web.