- You are about to enter a hidden part of the internet,
a journey into the scary and bizarre.
Next up, the dark web.
(thunder booming)
Why am I whispering, you ask?
I don't know.
It just feels right.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so maybe talking about this is a little dangerous.
Before we dive in, we need to be clear about something.
The dark web is a very real place,
full of very real, sometimes very illegal things,
that you cannot unsee.
The goal of today's video is education.
We do not encourage that anybody uses this information
to access the dark web and the content within.
With that, we're ready for our first question.
I didn't think the internet could get any darker.
What the heck is the dark web and where did it come from?
The best way to tell any story
is to copy the tried and true comic book origin story.
Roll the tape.
(static whirring)
Way back in the early year of 2000,
mild-mannered university student Ian Clark
spent his days studying computers,
the earliest form of the automaton.
But then, late one night in the lab,
he's struck by a bolt of lightning,
and doused in dangerous chemicals,
and exposed to gamma radiation,
resulting in peculair changes.
The following morning, Ian awoke to an epiphany.
What if there was a distributed, decentralized
information storage and retrieval system?
And shortly after, the dark web was created.
(static whirring)
Okay, so maybe it didn't happen exactly like that,
but our man Ian was onto something huge.
It didn't happen overnight,
but over the course of eight years, the Tor Project was born
and became the foundation that the dark web is built upon.
The technology that drives the dark web
is called onion routing.
Instead of connecting directly to one server,
your request is bounced around the globe
over many encrypted servers
to ensure you're not being tracked.
I like to think it's called onion routing
because of all the layers of protection you get,
but I don't think it's that deep.
This heavy duty tracking protection and encryption
is what makes the dark web so intriguing.
That sounds really complicated to access.
Let's talk about that with our next question.
Asking for a friend, how does one get onto the dark web?
Not like, for crimes or anything. (chuckling)
Luckily, you don't have to worry too much
about stumbling into the dark web by accident.
For starters, you need a specific type of browser
that can access the Tor network.
A key difference in browsing the dark web
versus the regular web is a lack of website indexing.
That means dark web results
won't be pulled up by search engines
like Google or Ask Jeeves,
if you just woke up from a 17-year coma.
This design choice was key
in the creator's idea of decentralization.
If all the dark secrets are kept in one central place,
it wouldn't be so secret, now would it?
The only way you can connect to these decentralized sites
is via direct link, which often looks like
a very long string of characters and numbers.
So while it may be tempting
to just open a new tab on illegal.stuff,
that's actually not going to take you anywhere.
All this sounds like the perfect recipe for dark business,
but our next question brings a little light
to this dark, dark place.
Is there anything to do on the dark web
that isn't gonna get me put in jail?
(chuckling) I know that's right.
Yes.
The dark web is often used by people
looking to post illegal content.
However, that's just the result of a service
created with the purpose of privacy.
While that has led to many evil uses,
there are just as many reasons
to use the Tor network for good.
In some countries, internet access is heavily monitored
and censored by oppressive regimes.
The Tor network provides a platform
for free speech in places
where that isn't a guaranteed right.
In some cases, if global internet access
is restricted to only nationally hosted sites,
the so-called dark web can provide
a vital line of global news
that might otherwise be censored.
It can also be a place
to scratch that social networking itch
without leaving a digital footprint
trackable by corporations and advertisers.
While you might not get
the same smooth experience as Reddit,
there are platforms
with large and diverse communities to explore.
Oh, crap.
We gotta wrap this up before the heat shows up.
(sirens wailing)
Been to the dark web and back?
Hit us up on social.
We're on IG and Twitter.
Make sure to give this video a thumbs up,
and subscribe for new videos every week.
I'm your girl, Chenae.
If you don't go getting yourself lost in the dark web,
I'll see you next time on "Ask Firefox."
Yes, I will.
(upbeat music)