Steve Smith explains what is the Dark Net, what it is by definition, and why companies and governments alike dislike it, despite it being legal in most countries.
Episode #5-02 released on September 18, 2014
In a recent news article, the company Comcast, has been shown to be harassing clients who use the dark internet, the part of the internet only accessible through the use of the Tor Browser, Freenet, and I2P. While, it may be indicated as part of the Terms of Usage, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the dark net, and what actually is contained within. Today, we learn 5 facts of the dark net.
First, the majority of the dark net is unindexed by commerical search engines. This is because most standard search engine bots cannot navigate inside the dark net. You can, also, be considered part of the dark net if your page is not linked to, hard to navigate to, requires registration to access, has contextual constraints to access it like IP address ranges, etc...
Secondly, the majority of dark net sites are not only accessible using special browsers, but some of the page assets and information may be hidden from traditional browsers. This is because all dark net sites have a static IP address, however, this is never used over the dark net.
Third, provided by Tor, the dark net does have its own domain name system, however, unlike normal DNS entries, it is fully private, and requires three nodes, not two DNS servers. It is also automatic, and does not quite function like the DNS naming schemes of the public internet.
Fourth, it is possible to access Tor hidden services with any browser and an internet connection, thanks to Aaron Swartz and Virgil Griffith, by using tor2web.
And lastly, in the majority of the world, use of Tor, I2P, Freenet, and even the dark net, is completely legal.
Despite having black markets like Silkroad, and having several terrorist groups using the dark net to communicate their messages, the dark net is much like the open internet, with a more private and secure feeling usage model where many groups can communicate freely without oppression or harassment from others that would attempt to silence them.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions