We have often come across or heard the terms surface, deep and dark web. But what is it in reality?
The first thing to know is that the internet and the web are two different entities. The internet was created by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the 1960s. Many of you may know that email and message boards existed before the web began – these services used the internet.
The World Wide Web, or web, as we know it, was developed nearly 3 decades later at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), the particle physics research laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The web consists of HTML and HTTP protocols used by browsers to communicate with servers. This web – originally created to allow particle physicists to share datasets – runs on top of the internet in the same way that voice is transmitted over telephone lines.
Surface Web
A great way to understand the web’s classifications is to think of it as an ocean. The surface web is similar to the ocean’s surface, the part that’s easily visible and accessible by services like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. The deep web is a layer below the surface that you would need scuba gear to get to, while the dark web is the layer even below the deep web – the ocean floor that can only be accessed by submarine.
The surface web contains everything that is publicly accessible through a search engine. This is the part of the web you access when you read an article on a news site, buy something from Amazon, or watch a video on YouTube.
It is thought to only make up 5% of the entire world wide web. A number that seems tiny but simply shows how much data is on the web today. The Deep Web is generally believed to be anywhere from 500 to 5000 times larger. There are around twenty terabytes (TB) of data and around one billion documents on the surface web compared to 7,500 terabytes (TB) of data and almost 600 billion documents discovered on the deep web.
Wetsuit now and we're going to the deep web
The Deep Web is essentially the opposite of the Surface Web, as it contains data that cannot be discovered by a search engine. data is still publicly accessible, although you will need special access, in the form of access credentials (username and password). A good example of data on the Deep Web is the pin you create to access your bank account or your Gmail. As you can see, both are easily accessible but require additional special permissions.
The term deep web may make us feel like a threatening place, but we wouldn't be able to use the web without it. It's the part of the web that contains medical records, financial records, social media files, and many other important pieces of information that we wouldn't want accessible through a Google search. It's this need for security that created the need for a section of the world wide web that would keep a portion of its data safe.
We board the submarine and dive into the dark web
The Dark Web is part of the Deep Web with the only difference being that it was specifically designed NOT to be accessible by regular browsers. The technology required to make the Dark Web a reality was created by US Military Researchers in the 90s and is still funded by them. The technology was created to allow intelligence agencies to send and receive data anonymously. Also known as “The Onion Router” – its name comes from the implementation of encryption layers within a communication protocol stack – many layers, like the layers of an onion. It quickly became known as TOR from its initials.
However, a reasonable question arises, if it was created by the US Military, why is it accessible to anyone? The answer to this is simple, how do you hide anonymous messages when you have nothing to hide? The more people who used anonymous mail, the harder it would be for intelligence agencies to detect messages intended for the US Military. Another perceived benefit of this was that it allowed people living in countries with repressive regimes to communicate without facing consequences. However, today the dark web is used for illegal activity by people who exploit anonymity. This is why users are warned that they enter the dark web at their own risk.
