Dark Web: The Shadows of Cyberspace

The dark web is one of those notions everyone has heard of but few people can define. Associated with a multitude of clandestine activities, from trading stolen data to selling illegal products, the Dark Web is a place where digital piracy proliferates. This October theme lets us dive into this universe, to discover exactly what the dark web is, and to explore the piracy-related practices found there.

Surface Web, Deep Web and Dark Web

To understand what the Dark Web is, it is first essential to distinguish the different layers of the internet.

• Surface Web

The Surface Web is the set of websites indexed by search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo. It is what the average user reaches when browsing the internet. The content is public, easy to access and regulated by local and international laws.

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• Deep Web

Below the surface lies the Deep Web, which includes all the sites and databases not indexed by search engines. It is not necessarily a space for criminals; it includes medical data, scientific databases, corporate intranets, and so on. These sites often require specific authentication to access. This space represents a very large share of the internet.

• Dark Web

It is a subsection of the deep web. Specific tools are needed to access it. Unlike the deep web, which is often harmless, the dark web is known for hosting illicit activities, although it is also used by journalists, political dissidents and activists who wish to protect their identity. Despite these legitimate uses, in this article we will focus mainly on the part of the dark web that serves as a platform for illegal activities.

How Do You Access the Dark Web?

To access the dark web, users must use special software that hides their identity and location. The best known of this software is Tor (The Onion Router). Tor is a decentralized network that allows anonymous browsing by encrypting and redirecting internet traffic through several relays spread around the world.

Tor’s principle rests on onion routing. Internet traffic is encrypted and sent through several layers of relays (or nodes). Each node knows only the immediate origin and destination of the packet, but never its entire path. It thus becomes extremely difficult to trace the exact identity or location of the user. Everyone’s anonymity is therefore perfectly preserved.

Sites accessible through Tor have addresses ending in “.onion,” and can only be viewed with Tor-compatible browsers.

Other encrypted networks

In addition to Tor, there are other networks used to access the dark web, such as I2P (Invisible Internet Project) or Freenet. These networks work on similar principles in terms of privacy protection and anonymity, although Tor is the most widely used to access dark websites.

Uses of the Dark Web

Much of the attention paid to the dark web is tied to its black markets. One of the most famous was Silk Road. The site is now closed, but it allowed people to buy drugs online, along with other illegal commerce sites. These platforms make it possible to anonymously buy prohibited goods or services, including drugs, firearms, hacked data or malware.

Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin in particular, are often used for these transactions because of their relative anonymity. Bitcoin makes it possible to transfer money without going through traditional banking channels, thus offering a degree of financial invisibility, letting pirates receive payments almost anonymously and complicating investigations into the tracking of funds. Although some initiatives have been launched to monitor cryptocurrency transactions, criminals are often a step ahead of the authorities.

Join us in mid-October for the continuation of our article on the dark web. In the meantime, if you have a film, a series, software or an ebook to protect, don’t hesitate to call on our services by contacting one of our account managers; PDN has been a pioneer in cybersecurity and anti-piracy for more than ten years, and we are bound to have a solution to help you. Happy reading, and see you soon!

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