The Deep Web

Today I learned all about the DEEP WEB, which is pretty damn interesting. According to wikipedia, deep web just refers to any web pages that aren't indexed by search engines. Apparently, it is also several ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE bigger than the indexed internet.

While this doesn't seem all that surprising or even interesting, apparently the key websites on the deep web can only be accessed using a program called TOR, a system designed to allow you to surf with total anonymity - no way to track your internet activity. Standing for The Onion Routing project, it lets you access the top level domain .onion, which apparently has BBS or Craigslist like sites that feature things like child porn, snuff films, dealing in all sorts of illegal items and even assassins for hire. The anecdotal reports I've read tell me the snuff is the worst, most disturbing stuff they have ever seen. I'm not going to repeat anything specific but be assured it's much worse than what you can imagine. Here is some random person's description:

"Trust me as others have said, it makes /b/ seem like some kiddy pool. To put it into terms that you can come to terms with. The internet that you know including /b/ is sesame street or other toddler shows. The hidden wiki leads you to things that are so cruel and horrible they've caused some to go insane. There is nothing worse than the things that you shall see there. You don't know shit, and just because you've seen /b/'s bannable shit doesn't mean you know how far down the rabbit hole the hidden wiki will lead you.

Most of the shit lasts but a few minutes, and then it's taken down and reshifted. Stuff moves faster than you could ever imagine. Those who control the world live there, they are the ones who are doing everything. The internet that you know is almost nothing. It is as if i gave you the book 'everybody poops' and that's all you knew about literature. And then i took you to a local library, that's the entrance to the 'hidden wiki', from that library they lead you down a hall and then you see it's true entrance. All of humanities secrets, the darkest and most depraved things that we've ever done all there.

None of you stupid fags can deal with it. I'm giong to go kill myself now since i cannot make the nightmares of what i've saw cease."

Sounds a little over the top, but pretty intriguing right?

The reference to 'onion' is the onion routing technology that encrypts and bounces your connection across relays provided by volunteers worldwide. The onions encrypt in a multi layered manner (like an onion) to prevent supposed total secrecy. There's lots more information on the TOR wikipedia article if you want to know more details. Regarding the black market websites that use TOR, here's a sample home page someone posted:

* graffiti.onion - A simple, editable page. No rules, total anarchy. (LUP 2010-12-06)
* Free Tradecraft Forum - Talk about pretty much anything, wide range of topics
* Freedom Security - Attacks, Defenses, The Underground, Security, Off-topic chat (LUP 2010-12-06)
* Hosted by: CircleServices
o Assassination Market - Anonymous assassination market using Tor Bank and TorPM
o TOR Free For All - Unmoderated area for political and other topics. Anything goes. (Guest account: user=public01 pass=public01)
o TorTSE - A continuation of the infamous TOTSE forum which has existed since the late 80s covering almost every topic.
o Democrat Watch - Right-wing board dedicated to criticizing Democrats (registration required)
o The Intel Exchange - Know or need to know something? Ask and share at this underground intelligence gathering network...
* talk.masked, clearnet version (read only) - Talks/Notes. A Janitor Joint.
* K5 Odd Forums - Forum with a different interface than the common ones. Poop's joint. (Requires HTTP referrers)
* OnionWarez - Uncensored warez/multimedia forum. Eng/Pol. Pedo/necro/bestia/murder talk only in allowed channels.
* anonymous bbs, gopher interface, telnet interface - Another variation of the talks style of board.
* Tajna Community - A WIP Underground forum & file dump. Caters for most tastes. (LUP 2010-12-06)
* TextForest - Kinda like talk.masked, but personalized. A Janitor Joint.
* Hosted by: Freedom Hosting
o Warez and uncensored talk Forum - Forum for warez and uncensored talk
o HackBB - Forums for hacking, phreaking, cracking, programming, anti-forensics, and other topics centered around technology.
o Anarcho-Syndicalist Brigade - Forums for Collectivist Anarchists and leftists to discuss things, primarily revolution
* Muchan - Imageboard for discussing music and random stuff. Boards : /b/ (random)


The other interesting thing coming out of this is the currency that is apparently used by this shady underground. That is the "bitcoin" invented in 2009, it is a virtual currency and uses an encrypted, peer-to-peer technology to track how much money you have in your electronic wallet and how much you have spent. Bitcoins use a different transactional system opposite from other currencies: the transactions are kept public (because they are broadcast over the entire peer to peer network), but the ownership of the address is private.

Bitcoins have no issuing authority, and cannot be artificially inflated. There is a built in deflation protection as well: the more coins springing into existence increases the value of each coin. I don't really understand how currencies work but apparently it is useful for black market trading since bitcoins are difficult to trace and regulate. The official website for bitcoins is https://mtgox.com/