So I understand the general idea of the much broader deep web being stuff that isn’t indexed by search engines but I have a lot of questions about how the “dark web” works:
1. Where is all the data stored? I get that companies would store their own deep web data but would people who want to create a dark web site need to have their own servers to store it?
2. How are you supposed to find things? If this is stuff you have to look for specifically what do people mean when they say “I stumbled upon this really messed up thing on the dark web” etc.
3. How does something like the tor browser allow you to access stuff that isn’t indexed, how does it find it
4. If you use a tor browser could you technically access anything not indexed? Like if you knew what to look up you could access someone’s personal account on a surface website? I feel like the answer to that is no, but if so then, why
These questions definitely make me look questionable but I promise I’m just fascinated by how the dark web can even function
In: Technology
Do you remember (or know about) how there used to be phonebooks where you could look up people’s numbers based on their name? Imagine that for most people, you could just look up their name and find their number to call them. The “dark phone” would be unlisted phone numbers. Yes, you could technically just dial random phone numbers to try to find somebody whose number is unlisted. However, nothing stops them from not picking up the phone at all or not telling you their identity when they pick up. This is basically all that the dark web is. It’s like unlisted phone numbers.
One added protection that you can use to access the dark web with more privacy is onion routing (TOR is The Onion Router). Imagine you want to send something to somebody, but you don’t want anybody knowing both the sender and recipient. You can put that package in a box and padlock it with a lock only person #1 has the key to. Then you put that in a box that only person #2 has the key to. And so on, until you have 50 boxes each with a padlock that only one person can open. You hand the box to person #50. They use their key and it tells them who person #49 is, so they give the box to person #49 who uses their key to open the box and they see who person #48 is and gives it to them and so on. Each person only knows who they received the box from and who gets it next. So only person #50 knows who you are and only person #1 knows who the recipient is. This is how TOR works. If you go back to the original phone metaphor, this would let you call somebody to leave them a message, but their caller ID wouldn’t know who you are because you’re doing it through a bunch of relays.
– “Where is all the data stored?” Any device connect to the internet, just like normal websites.
– “How are you supposed to find things?” Nothing is inherently different here. You might be see the URL shared with you. A site you visit may link to another site. A directory of manually curated links might exist (this is what Yahoo originally was for the web). A full fledged search engine is possible for the dark web but the main thing undermining that is that many sites may intentionally not really publicize themselves and are just harder to find without somebody telling you about them.
– “If you use a tor browser could you technically access anything not indexed?” The way to access any internet connected device is just randomly (or systematically) guessing IP addresses and there are hackers that do that. TOR doesn’t let you access more than you could access just by guessing IP addresses. Its purpose instead is to allow two people to communicate without revealing each other’s IP addresses. That guarantee* is what enables people to feel more comfortable doing illegal activity on the dark web, but was actually originally developed by the military and has utility to everything from spies to people who are stuck in oppressive regimes.
* TOR is one step in a long chain of things a person needs to do to actually protect their identity.
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