It's 2026, the "Dark Web" is mostly like the normal web just with more adult content and curious people. It might be even safer than the normal internet.
History
In the 90s, the Us military had a big problem: Privacy . Not encryption, that has been around long enough. It was not a problem of content privacy, it was leading back to you. I'll give you this example for further explanation :
Salah, Aziz and Oumaima are classmates. Salah secretly has a crush on Oumaima and wants his friend Aziz to give her an enveloppe. He made sure to seal wax the enveloppe so that Aziz won't open it.
Now the problem is that Aziz Knows that the enveloppe is Salah's. So the United States Military Problem is exactly This:
Problem is that the Server doesn't know the content of the Message but knows that Agent A sent it to Agent B.
The solution is using relays|onion routing. Let's see the example:
Salah gives the enveloppe to Ahmed and Ahmed to Aziz and Aziz to Oumaima. It might seem simple and silly but here is the under thought :
- Ahmed knows that Salah gived an enveloppe to Aziz.
- Aziz knows that Salah gived an enveloppe to Oumaima.
In technical terms, the message is wraped in multiple layers of encryption ( like an onion ) so each server decrypts only a layer so when the final relay decrypts the message, the source is basically unkown. You might think this is tracable, Oumaima can just ask around and she will eventually find out Salah is the messenger. Well good thinking, let's get to the next step.
In order for anonymity to work, the United States Military needed it to go public. You need a crowd to stay invisible :
Where would we get the crowd from?
The Navy acctually formed an alliance with the cypherpunks, a bunch of hacktivists. In 2003, Tor as we know it today was released! With it, tons of problems, Bad guys used all the technology for their benefits, and the reputation of the " Dark Web " was built .
Proxies
With the anonymous obsession taking over the world, proxies were born. Another layer of security/anonymity used by " Dark Web " users everyday. For a good explanation, see this example:
The Server acts like a broker, he uses his own Ip Adress to retrieve the data/web page you want. so the server's firewall only catches the proxy's Ip.
Just so you know, proxy's have problems too. They can't encrypt data that flows. This is where a VPN comes in.
Tor Bridges
Remember those relays used in the onion routing. They are known to the government and to your Isp ( Internet Service Provider ). Now we have to use bridges, we are basically relays not known to the government or Isp's
These Bridges have types:
- obfs4: makes traffic look like noise, no protocol.
- meek: makes traffic look like you are accessing a cloud service like Microsoft or Amazon AWS.
- Snowflake: makes your traffic look like a normal video/audio call.
- WebTunnel: makes your traffic look like a normal HTTPS webpage.
Usage
There are multiple ways to use Tor, using the normal Tor browser ( Can be installed on Android,IOS,Windows,MacOs,Linux.....)
Linux Tails
And there is Linux Tails, a whole Operating System based on the Tor Project. You can install it on a Usb Drive, and configure your computer's Bios to boot from the Usb. So the whole Operating System runs on the Usb, if it is hacked you can just unplug the Usb drive and everything is shut down. you can download it here
Anona Box
A Kickstarter raised project, that makes your router use the Tor Network itself, so any device connected to it uses basically Tor. Even tho there are a LOT of security complaints about it to the point where it has serious vulnerabilities, it still is a very good idea that can be upgraded in the future.
Conclusion
Now that you know how the Tor Project works, it is really fascinating, it might be used in bad or in good . Your choice, Your morals.