► Know Internet : Surface Web, Deep Web, Dark Web. Simple and quick for Beginners. (White Hat)

To all who are reading this post, and also to those who have not landed on this page ever, do you know that the part of the internet (World Wide Web) you are using is just about a few percentage of the total network traffic around the globe?
Rest part is partially or completely unavailable to you to use either by imposed restrictions or by law.

** Before starting it is to mention clearly that I do not support hacking to harm people or do not perform any of the activities related to hacking. **

Let's have a look at this "other parts" of the Internet.
First thing first, let us have a look at the bookish definition of these broader sections before going into the in-depth discussion. Though there are said to be total eight layers of the World Wide Web, for the basic information I am giving the idea through three broad sections.

• Surface web (Layer 1): The Surface web is the content of world wide web that we can surf without any obligation or restriction. The contents of the surface web are available for the general public and searchable by a search engine ( like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.). It is also named as Visible Web, Indexed Web, Indexable Web or Lightnet.  For Example, Facebook, Google, Twitter and many more pages that you are surfing using or searching for some specific item at the search engines using your laptop or mobile through public IP is the part of the Surface Web.

• Deep Web (Layer 2 &3) : Opposite to the Surface web, the part of the World Wide Web that is not accessible by the general public on a regular basis through their devices on the public network is called the Deep web. These are not even indexed and searchable via search engines. Specific software, network, and authorizations are required to access the Deep Web.  Also named as invisible web. Two sub layers of the Deep web is The Proxy Layer and The Tor layer. For Example, The official cloud mailing service you are using at your workplace or the Governments investigation data storage.
• Dark Web (Layer 4) or Charter Web: The Dark web is the part of World Wide Web that is the "Black Market" of the web. Not available to surf through a general browser. Specifically designed for illegal activities. Even surfing the dark web is considered to be a cybercrime at some places. This is the part from where the Pure Tor network is implemented.

One liner:

•  The Surface Web is anything that can be indexed by a typical search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo. 
•  Deep Web is anything that a search engine can’t find.
• The Dark Web then is classified as a small portion of the Deep Web that has been intentionally hidden and is inaccessible through standard web browsers.

Comparison:

In the year 2001, Michael K. Bergman said how searching on the Internet can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: a great deal may be caught in the net, but there is a wealth of information that is deep and therefore missed...An analogy of an iceberg used by Denis Shestakov represents the division between surface web and deep web respectively. (Source Wikipedia).

In general, it is taken into consideration that the surface web is roughly about 10% at the most of the total World Wide Web content. The rest 90% is Deep Web + Dark Web. So the content you are surfing on a regular basis is only a tiny part of the total data accessible. Even if you surf the web 24/7 you will only be able to access the tip of the iceberg [considering you are not using sophisticated technique to surf something hidden ;) ]

Let's start the journey at the surface. at this point, we are using Facebook, Youtube, Mails, and this Blog post etc. These are all available at any of the search engines and can be accessed through a normal web browser like Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera etc. All are simply the Surface web. Easy as that.

Now, lets take a dip into the world of Deep Web. As mentioned earlier these are not available at the search engines. Either you have the specific access to the specific URL to access, or you have to use the specific network where the content is available. Suppose you are working in an organization and you are accessing their network to access a network drive. The content of that network is not available at the Internet and thus is not available to anyone except the authorized users of that network. All organizations have their own internal network designed in the pattern so that only authorized persons can access that data. Even if you know the address of specific content you won't be able to access the data from your home network. Though some part of the Surface Web content can be considered as deep web data. For example, you have some file stored at your Google drive / Dropbox. This is only accessible to you in general. But if you get the sharing turned on and you add a person inviting using the sharing URL, you are authorizing that person to access that specific data, but not the entire drive. Similarly usage of VPN or FTP servers are also can be included here. This scenario has some resemblance with the deep web. This specific access can be named as Bargie Web.

Time for Diving Dark. The illegal segment of the web. let's have a look what is available content at this part. Hacking groups and services, Fraud services, Illegal pornography, Terrorism, Extremism, Guns and Weapons, Drug Dealing, Organ and Blood dealing, Human Trafficking etc are said to be the contents of this part. The word 'said' is mentioned as there is no one who will claim that it is his property.

"A December 2014 study by Gareth Owen from the University of Portsmouth found that the most commonly requested type of content on Tor was child pornography." (Source: Wikipedia) 

Connecting To TOR NETWORK

Theoritically Tor can be accessed to use all of the sections mentioned above.
So, whatis Tor? Tor is the anonymous network used to hide your identity. It masks your IP and bounces it over several Tor servers before reaching the final destination. At that point, your actual identity is totally tampered. Thus the at the destination the request will be shown from a different origin. The Tor network is also called The Onion Network. And hence the Dark web network is also named as "The Onionland". Apart from Tor, I2P, Freenet is some other networks used in dark web. 
Freenet, on the other hand, is a peer-to-peer network for censorship-resistant communication and publishing. Unlike other peer-to-peer (P2P) network, Freenet not only transmits data between to nodes but also stores the data making it a huge distributed cache. There is no centralized server and is not controlled by any individual or single organization.

IP is redirected through a number of nodes. 

To further anonymization the top level domain address (like .com .net .org etc in the surface web) of the dark web is suffixed .ONION and is anonymised through Onion routing. 

To hide the transactions taken place in the dark web the users use Bitcoin as this is completely decentralized and no governing body have any control over it. Hence the related parties are completely hidden.

Though using Tor network or Bitcoin is not illegal, to be mentioned again that even surfing the Dark Web might lead you to trouble as no one knows your intention. Tor can be legally used to check the vulnerability of your network.

You can keep a knife at home. But no one knows what is the purpose as it can be used to chop vegetables and also to kill people. To be safe better not to attempt surfing the dark web. 

So, if you ever come across any domain ending with .Onion just skip that.

This is just a brief intro and idea about three segments of the World Wide Web just for information purpose. Do not use any of the techniques available to harm others in any manner.

Read the next article about The Marianas Web Here.

(p.s. Utmost care is taken to keep the post error free. The data is collected from the Internet for compiling this article. If any wrong data is found, comment below and let the thing be rectified.)

Disclaimer ** This entire article is strictly for informational purpose only and does not encourage anyone to access the inaccessible and restricted content.

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Safe Browsing. Enjoy.