Created by the U.S. government in the mid-1990s to allow the exchange of information with their spies, the dark web is a network of untraceable activities and websites that is not indexed by the search engines. The U.S. government developed a technology called Tor or The Onion Router and released it in the public domain. This was done to keep themselves anonymous because it was harder for their enemies to extract any kind of digital or technical information in a swarm of people over the internet. Although the term “dark web” and “deep web” are mostly intertwined, they are, in reality, different from each other. The deep web refers to the entire web that is not accessible by normal search engines and requires credentials and passwords to work or surf within it. Whereas, the dark web represents a certain region in the deep web that has to be accessed by special browsers such as Freenet and Tor and has been associated with criminal and illegal activities such as sex trafficking, trading of arms and ammunition, etc.
This hidden and intricate network also gives rise to many security and privacy concerns that are difficult not to address. Any professional hacker could easily get into the database of the government or any other reputed organisation to defame or dishonour it. Any new user who ventures into this dark space can easily be tricked and his/her private data or credentials could be hacked and used for criminal purposes. This can kind of web also poses a high threat to the state secrets of any country. However, it has also been observed that even celebrities and high-profile people use the dark web to keep their web activities hidden.
Engin Kirda, a professor in the College of Computer and Information Science and the College of Engineering at the Northeastern University, discussed the dangers of this small but highly affecting part of the web. Since there are still no security measures on this little corner of the web, he believes illegal activities are the biggest danger of the dark web right now. It is nearly and mostly impossible to track the anonymous user. Although it helps the government in encrypting information related to the security and defence fields of its nation, the disruption of privacy is still an ethical crime to be kept under consideration.
Dibyasha Das