Study suggests most “dark web” users are not engaging in illicit activities

Despite its reputation as a tool for criminals, only a small percentage of Tor users were actually going to the dark web, a new study finds that some people just want privacy

Various parts of the internet have earned stereotypes about how people use them. Some of these are warranted, and some are mere caricatures. Perhaps no section of the internet is less pleased with its stereotype than the Tor Network, which must contend with being blamed for every crime that originates on the internet.

However, a new study shows that the dark web isn’t quite as dark as you might think. A group of researchers led by Eric Jardine of Virginia Tech suggest that only 6.7 percent of global Tor users are going to sites for what are likely malicious reasons.

What do half of those words mean? web

For those who don’t spend all of their time on the internet, a few of these terms might be new to you. We’ll go over them first before we continue. If you do know all of these terms, you can skip ahead to the next section.

Surface Web: The regular internet that you can find with a search engine. You’re on it right now; unless these articles are shared in places we don’t know about.

Deep Web: The part of the internet not indexed by search engines. This includes things like your email inbox; you can’t get there from Google or Bing, but instead have to enter a password to find it from another page. You’ve probably visited the deep web today, too.

Dark Web: A subsection of the deep web that requires special software to access. While not everything there is bad, there are social media sites, email services, hidden forums, and even puzzle games down there; this is also where you would find the places for illegal markets and other, extremely nefarious, things.

Tor: A kind of software that allows users to browse the internet in near-total anonymity. It does this by encrypting connection data and scrambling the route a computer takes to connect to a site, thus making it difficult, but not impossible, to find who is using a particular website. The potential value of this to criminals should be evident to you.

While it often gets bad press for how it can be used for illicit purposes, it should be said it was created and used by the United States government for often banal purposes. The leaders of the Tor Project often remind the public that “normal people” use Tor for everyday internet activities as well.

As a personal example, I once used it to get around the Great Firewall of China when I wanted to get to the regular, uncensored internet.

Soure: Big Think

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