Internet is vast and constantly growing, the majority of our daily usage only touches the surface of the internet. Internet is of two types, first is surface web that we use in our general life and the other is deep web. Dark web is a small part of deep web. Google, Yahoo, and other search engines only show about 4% of the data available on the internet. To access the other 96% requires customized digging through individual sites, sub pages, restricted access journals or archives, and so on. This 96% is called the deep web.
It’s also important to understand that pretty much everything we do online is visible, traceable, and possibly being monitored. Everything except the areas of the deep web that are masked by the dark web. The dark web is concealed through a series of identity masking layers, which basically means that we can access and interact with it anonymously without being tracked. So it is generally used by hackers. This is achieved through special encryption software like TOR, an acronym for The Onion Router, which when installed on our computer, appears and acts like our standard Firefox browser, albeit slower.
TOR is a browsing tool used to surf the web anonymously. We are tracked by Internet by various ways. By using our IP address or websites, they gather information to target advertising and collect data about our browsing habits. In a normal Internet connection we are directly connected to the website we're trying to visit. The Tor network, however is made up of countless nodes, or relay points, that pass our data along using layers of encryption. Each node that our data passes through peels off another layer of encryption, showing the previous node's IP address, as well as where it’s being sent to. The last node through which data passes is known as the exit node, and it peels off the final layer of encryption and then delivers our data to the intended server. The point of origin, and the intermediary nodes, is completely unknown. Besides browsing the Internet, Tor users can utilize its hidden services to create private websites and messengers that can only be found using the Tor browser.
But nothing is perfect, and while onion routing makes it harder for hackers and spies to track our activities, it doesn’t make it impossible. There are still ways attackers can view activity on the network and extract data from vulnerable entry and exit points, especially if Tor users are not diligent.
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