The Deep Web - What Exactly Is It?

Regular internet users know more or less what the internet has to offer but apparently, people actually know nothing. I have heard of the "deep Web" or "dark Web" before, about three or four years ago but I did not have any interest in wanting to know what it is or how it operates. That has changed with Wikileaks becoming more prominent and, of course, Edward Snowden. Now I want to know absolutely everything. The deep Web came to my attention once again, explaining how is trivial, but I wanted to know more so I did a bit of research. 

According to an article written by Jose Pagliery for CNN (@Jose_Pagliery), we interact with about 1% of the internet everyday. That's your common sites that you open up every morning, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Buzzfeed, etc, the well-known ones which search engines would have no trouble finding. The most bad ass thing I've done until now on the internet is understand how Reddit works and browse through Wikileaks. Pretty lame, I know. The way search engines work are really interesting but you can research that for yourself when you're done reading this.

Have you noticed that search engine results are more or less the same? Ok, maybe not Bing but, you get the idea. I noticed this in high school whenever I did research for a project. I would use Google and Yahoo! and, most of the time, the results I got were the same. This is because all of the results that pop up have links between sites which are a breeze for search engines to recognize and find in a matter of seconds. Search engines index data and then trawl through this information to help you find what you are looking for. The results which emerge from searches are referred to as static pages. The pages which are not indexed is what's interesting here. 

The pages which search engines are not capable of finding because they cannot access deeper content make up the other 99% of the internet known as the deep web. These pages are known as dynamic pages. Dynamic pages include private databases. Think along the lines of intranets (universities) or company sites (academic journals). These sites require special access in order for you to view information and search engines will not be able to collect data from these sites. Private pages are the tip of a vast, unknown, exciting and dangerous Web. 

The largely unexplored deep Web is often referred to as Tor. Let's just say that Craigslist has nothing on Tor. Tor is the darkest part of the internet. It's a network comprised of a collection of sites that end in .onion (I know right, why bring a vegetable into this mess?). Special software is needed to access the stuff on Tor, which also ensures that you remain completely anonymous while you browse, or do other stuff which is probably illegal. If the software does not ensure your anonymity, do not fear for Tor will be there to shield off the authorities. It's like an extra layer of protection (.onion?). Tor runs on a system which bounces signals off various computers all over the world, which means that you'll be practically impossible to find when you access it. You're invisible but not invincible, please remember that.

As for the content which is available on Tor, you'll be able to find anything from hackers to do your dirty work, lots of stuff to illegally download, various message boards, stolen credit card numbers, illegal pornography, drugs (all sorts of drugs and almost every type), illegal organs and even assassins. Tor is like Craigslist on steroids, only you might go to jail if you aren't careful enough. There are loads of stuff which is legally available and legal transactions take place all the time but, most of the stuff on Tor is illegal, which is why anonymity is stressed. 

I accessed Tor for research purposes. I did my research before doing this, obviously. Accessing Tor is not illegal. To say that accessing Tor is illegal would be to say that accessing Google is illegal. It is a part of the internet, no doubt a huge one, and all you're saying to the world by accessing it is that you're aware of it. What you do on Tor determines whether you've been naughty or not. I downloaded the Tor browser bundle, protected my IP address and I was good to go. I'm not going to explain the entire process of how I accessed Tor, it's really quite simple and anyone can do it. Once I had accessed the Tor network, I began exploring .onion sites. Let's just say that there are parts of the internet which are better left hidden.

If you decide that you would like to explore the Tor network, I must stress that you should not disclose your identity or location to anyone. Be smart. There are loads of creeps out there, the ones who typed a nasty reply to a comment that you left on a post do not begin to even scrape the surface. There's loads of information about the deep Web available on Reddit and Google, I've just included the basics. Surf responsibly guys.

No Ordinary Joe

It's been a while since I've written. Informal literature, that is. I've been caught up with academic life, writing papers and doing tests, the things which are expected of an academic. I've also been reading a lot, not just academic literature, but I've started to re-read Charles Dickens novels and let him captivate me with his words, again. It's important to re-read books at different stages in your life, the stories don't change but your perspective does. The last time I read Dickens, I was a naive adolescent.

I've decided to write this blog post because I'm procrastinating and because it's a good story. The story that I'm about to tell happened a couple of months ago, on a cold and rainy day, when I had least expected it to. I didn't feel like getting sopping wet when my destination was not home, so I ducked into a cafe on the university campus just as a storm was brewing.

I sat down at one of the empty tables just outside the cafe, with my overpriced cappuccino and started to read. Alas, it was not Dickens, but rather a boring journal article which I was struggling to get through. Surprisingly, I concentrate rather well when I'm alone in a noisy, crowded environment. I then spotted a tall figure in the periphery of my vision but thought nothing of it, assuming that they were looking for a table to sit at. I was so engrossed in trying to make sense of all the long words and unnecessarily long sentences that I could not look up until he said, "Excuse me, may I sit down?". "May," I thought. Well mannered. Well spoken. Well dressed. Not a student. 

I assumed that I had known enough about him by what I had seen and heard so I said, "Yeah, sure". He looked like he was in his mid-20s. I got back to reading my tedious journal article, not paying much attention to the person sitting across from me. He decided to disturb me, not that I was terribly annoyed. He asked what I was reading and I replied that it was nothing and that it wouldn't interest him (To be honest, I myself was not sure about what I was reading). I asked him if he was a student, even though I knew the answer. He said that he wasn't, and that he was waiting for his sister. I decided to pursue my line of inquiry and asked him what he did for a living. He said that he was in between jobs (he was unemployed at the time). I asked him if he had been a student at Wits (the university) and he said that he had never attended university, or bothered with any form of tertiary education. At this point, I was rather taken aback. "Rich boy," I thought. 

He switched the conversation and asked me about what I was studying and asked what year I was in. We then got to talking about my honours project. After I had explained the foundational concepts to him, he made some really great suggestions which just added to my surprise. They were valid, completely sensical ideas. Here was a person who knew nothing about archaeology, nothing about the concepts which I had just explained to him, letting me see how his brain works. I think by then I was more suprised that he had paid attention to what I was saying more than anything else. Our conversation broke when I heard someone excitedly call my name. It was his sister.

She's a really good friend of mine, someone I've known since first year, but someone who I hadn't seen very often because she studies something that requires her to be on a different campus to the one where I've been based for the past 4 years. She left with her brother after our general catch up, and by this point I was confused. My friend was by no means rich. I then remembered her telling me about her brother who made a fortune for himself by thinking for big companies. I made the connection, and I could not believe it. I had just sat down with probably one of the smartest people in South Africa and discussed my little honours project with him.

I had been wrong. Rich boy. I now scoff at the thought. He might have been rich, but not in the pretentious way I was thinking of. I thought that he was unemployed because he had mommy's and daddy's money to keep him company. Observation is a tricky thing. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it terribly wrong.