Have you ever experienced the 'deep web'?

I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never explored it because I didn’t think that there would be anything worth exploring. If someone does explore the deep web, I definitely advise the use of the Tor web browser.

Tor is a free service that encrypts and re-encrypts internet traffic there by giving you online anonymity. Tor article it has been around for over ten years.

When exploring niche subjects, for example related to particular science fiction concepts.

I’m sure there is a huge amount of stuff that goes across the lines that I have no awareness of. The internet is a large pipe – call it a sewer pipe or a water pipe—and I am just using a tiny little bit of the flow.

If we use the sewer pipe analogy, there is all sorts of shit flowing through the pipe, but my couple of drops don’t make an appreciable difference to the quality or quantity of the shit being transported.

But just like any other means of transport, there are lots of things that are being passed that are probably illegal. So what?

Yeah, it was pretty disgusting; therefore I don’t browse it regularly.

I am not very tech savvy, as they say. So please forgive my ignorance on the subject. Do you have to download a program to get the Tor browser? Can the site be harmful to your computer?

Ah the seedy underbelly of the internet. It’s not a good place to go, I know that much.

And @bkcunningham yes you’re at a high risk for harm to your computer going to those places

@gambitking Has stated my reasons for avoiding it. I use Web Of Trust’s trustworthiness warnings (they show a little icon by each search result, green for trustworthy, orange for caution, and red for sites known to be threats, and a question mark for ones they haven’t collected sufficient data to rate (take your own chances). I run a daily scan complete system scan before shutdown at night. And even avoiding the sites WOT warns might be bad the AV program will still find between 25 and 40 threats to remove, mostly just tracking cookies, but I don’t want them. I can’t block all cookies because I use some sites that employ them for purposes I want working.

Last night I was mindlessly clicking on links and found one where a guy is hammering really thick nails into his testicles, one for each testicle.

That’s enough internet for me today even though I saw that yesterday.

Is it mostly porn?

@sinscriven – what a nutty thing to do

@bkcunningham I really don’t even want to type this, but there’s a lot of links to various websites that are child porn and forums discussing a lot of horrible stuff. There was one thread in particular; I’m not sure if it was just to live out fantasies, or if they were true stories or just a lot of trolls, but there was a thread where people were discussing infecting people with their HIV/AIDS.

It is rumored that there are places to find legitimate hitmen as well. It is pretty much any illegal and disgusting thing you can think of.

I’m curious by nature and wanted to see a way that helps you delve deeper into Internet searches. But I have no desire to delve into that filth. Thanks, @Blackberry. Do you feel like you need a shower now?

While there is a lot of very nasty people using darknet services there are also people using them for morally legitimate but locally illegal activities. For example journalists in Syria have started using it to send reports out of the country after the Syrian authorities started using satellite phone signals to find and target journalists (Marie Colvin).

Do you have to download something to use the browser?

@bkcunningham Yes, it is its own program. It is essentially a completely separate internet than what we use. There is no “www.google.com”. An address to a website might be something like “dj39857gjk.(insert domain, or whatever that thin gis called)” So it’s definitely harder to search for a specific website.

@Lightlyseared Yeah, reasons such as that are why I’m glad it is there.

Thank you, @Blackberry. That sounds complicated and it sounds like you really need a better knowledge of computer programming and such than I have before I try it out. Daggone it. I am using an Apple that my geeky neighbor, VP of the local Apple Club, wanted me to use to try and sell me on the products. Can you imagine me giving him back his computer with the program installed? The senior’s Apple Club would never be the same. LOL

TOR has legitimate uses as well though. There are places like Tibet and North Korea where supporters of freedom and human rights need communication channels that are secure from government snooping.

Do you believe, @jerv, and others with a real working knowledge of computers and programs and the language of the codes and all that, do you believe that it really is secure from snooping? Not just from Big Brother, but from others? I would find it hard to believe, but I don’t know the technicalities and how it really operates.

@bkcunningham If you knew a bit about encryption, you would know that just knowing the algorithm isn’t enough; you have to crack the key for each message as well. Look at how hard it was to decrypt messages sent with the Enigma cipher in WWII, and you will get a hint of the difficulty.

China simplifies things by just blocking any and all data packets with a TOR header… when they can. Addresses shift, making it a huge game of whack-a-mole.

Thank you, @jerv. That does explain it a little better for me.

@bkcunningham To expand a bit, there are certain computer programs that, while legal to own, are subject to the same export regulations as munitions because they use encryption that lacks a backdoor that the NSA can use to decrypt enciphered messages. Read the history of PGP to get an idea of how serious governments take encryption.

You don’t want to go on the Deep Web. Ever.
Compared to it, 4chan is a bunch of kids playing around with strawberry flavored lollipops.
I’ve seen shit down there, serious shit. It goes from group interracial gore child porno to government experiences on humans during World War II.
If you decide to go deep, unplug your mic and put duct tape on your webcam, because you enter a ruthless world you won’t even understand. There are million dollar markets there, in weapons, in drugs, in human children, in organs or blood, in assassins, in passports, and so on, so I STRONGLY recommend you not to get in contact with anybody there.
Stay on the surface web, don’t drown, and if you feel like it, start with b/ first, they’re already pretty f***ed up.

There is some confusion of terms here.
The Deep Web is just the parts of the Web which are publicly routed but not accessible to search engines. Lots of websites include a file called robots.txt which can be configured (deliberately or accidentally) to instruct search engines to not index that site. Some search engines will stop crawling a site if this file exists rather than parsing the file. This is probably the most common reason why sites are not indexed by search engines.

The thing the OP is asking about is called a “darknet”. Darknets are networks which use protocols which are incompatible with the ordinary Internet protocols for whatever reason, and therefore require special software in order to be accessible to a client computer. FreeNet is one example of a darknet, designed for anonymity and to make censorship impossible. CJDNS is also a darknet, if only because its protocols are new and cutting-edge. Hell, the entire IPv6 Internet is invisible to most customers of American ISPs; technically the newer parts of the Internet are “darknet” to them.
Darknets are not fundamentally sinister nor dangerous, but some of them do provide anonymity. Wherever you find anonymity, you will find people taking advantage of it to do bad things. Whether this risk is worth the benefits of anonymity is a matter of widespread public debate. Regardless of how anyone feels about it, where anonymity is possible people will use it.

Tor is an anonymizing proxy. It can be used over the Internet or over a darknet or over an intranet. Tor prevents others from tracing the origin or destination of communications. It does not provide meaningful privacy protection. It has nothing to do with the Deep Web, and little to do with darknets (except as above). People probably connect to Fluther using Tor. Tor is very widely used and uncontroversial.

People probably connect to Fluther using Tor. Tor is very widely used and uncontroversial.

I would not be surprised at all.