THE DARK WEB Exploration of the Deep Web Innocence, in a sense. Copyright © Kash Laden 2014 THE DARK WEB Exploration of the Deep Web 1st edition published by Future Gothic Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This report guide is meant for informational purposes only, the author and publisher can not be held accountable for those using the information within for illegal or inflammatory reasons. How you use the information contained within this book is your choice and yours alone. WARNING: there is some dangerous information available in this book, its purpose is to show you what the dark web is used for and how it can be misused. Some of the hidden websites listed within are not condoned by the author or publisher. They are listed to give an overview of the subject in an unbiased fashion and to aid in the exploration of the 21st century anomaly we have come to know as the dark web. Table of Contents Aim of this guide. What is the Dark Web? The TOR Browser Package The TOR Paradox How does the TOR Browser work (layman) WHONIX Operating System Oracle VirtualBox with WHONIX Accessing the Dark Web Safely Dark Web Access Points Dark Web Search Engines GRAMS – Darknet Market Search Portals of the Dark Web Criminality of the Dark Web The Dangers of Marketplaces More Links for your exploration! Aim of this guide. Ever since the shutdown of the ‘Silk Road’ marketplace last year, the dark web has been shoved into the limelight. The irony is that if the media had not given ‘Silk Road’ as much attention as they did then the dark web would have remained – dark. It was an international story that ran on front pages all over the world. How could we now escape this strange hidden world that they called the dark web? It was a mystery to some, a criminal hide out to others. Yet in reality, it is a database of information that is said to be a thousand times bigger than the internet we see and use everyday. This guide to the dark web from Kash Laden is called ‘exploration of the deep web‘. The aim is to get you online safely and anonymously, then show you how to explore what you have found. For most first time and even experienced users of the Tor browser and the dark web, the trick is knowing how to navigate the dungeons. I’m going to get you there, then help show you the light hidden within the darkness. What is the Dark Web? The dark web is also known as many different names. Dark Web Deep Web Undernet Subnet Hidden Internet Deep Net Invisible Web Hidden Web All in all, it is for those sites that are hidden from mainstream internet users. Those websites and pages that for some reason or another you cannot find through traditional search engines. The dark web does not just mean those sites that are only accessible through the TOR browser - which we’ll look into later on - but sites that have been manually hidden. It is very easy to create a website and then not allow the search engines to index that site. If you use certain interfaces, you can simply click a box that confirms you wish the site or page to remain hidden or password protected. These sites can then become undiscoverable through normal methods. They won’t be indexed, therefore they won’t exist. They can only be found and visited by those in the know. This makes up some of what is known as the dark web. But this isn’t why you are here! You are here to discover the mystery of the dark web – the internet beneath the internet, the excitement of treading into a place rife with danger and intrigue. You want to know what remains hidden away from the internet we know and use every day. Your curiosity had brought you here and you want to know why this place exists and it’s purpose in the world. I know this because I was exactly the same as you before I spent many weeks researching what was down there and the best ways to access it and explore it. You are here to find out how to access it, how to explore it, and how to remain anonymous whilst doing so. Allow me to be your guide - The TOR Browser Package Your first step in being able to access the actual dark web is by downloading the Tor Browser. The link to the homepage of the anonymity project is here. I won’t link to the direct download page like others do, as it is known to have been compromised in the past. On the home page of the Tor Project, look for the Tor Browser and then download. This is very easy to do, any instructions for the download of your specific operating system are available from the site. But I’m guessing that if you’re heading into the dark web, then you know a little bit about the internet, computing and downloading already. As mentioned before, this is a no-bullshit guide to exploring the dark web. If you want the history of Tor, the technical details of it, and a step by step installation guide then I won’t waste your time here, as all that information is available on the Tor home page or other forum sites. I won’t be regurgitating any information that is freely available online. This is after all, titled: exploration of the deep web! The TOR Paradox TOR stands for ‘The Onion Router’. A stupid name, I agree. Yet, bizarrely this anonymity tool for accessing the hidden internet was founded and created by the US Navy to send messages and make contact with complete anonymity. It subsequently became a haven for political and religious exiles in countries where the internet was banned or an information leak would have resulted in severe consequences. To this day, the US government is the biggest financial supporter along with scientific groups and other government bodies. The very knowledge that it was the US military who built it and continue to fund it has put many people off from going near the dark web via the Tor browser. But in reality, it is this very foundation that makes it all the more secure. After Edward Snowden released the NSA files at the end of last year, a report from the NSA regarding the Tor browser said the following: “Tor is the king of high secure, low latency Internet anonymity with no contenders for the throne in waiting.” This is despite having cracked the firefox browser add on at one point to access users computers. The Tor browser was subsequently updated and fixed by the coders leading to the following confession from the NSA: Leaked report titled ‘Tor Stinks‘ - “We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time.” The only way they can is if they own all the exit and entry nodes that access Tor – this is fundamentally impossible. So, I might have lost you with the nodes thing there. Let me explain how it works in the simplest of terms. How does the TOR Browser work (layman) When you access the internet via Tor you will begin by using a proxy computer. A proxy basically masks your true IP address, something which gives away your location to ‘those who would like to know’. You can use proxies on the normal internet but not at this level. Once you are on the Tor browser, you can test this by going to the Google homepage. You may see some of the text written in German, Korean, or Italian. This is your starting point in the world. When you send a search term or website address in to the Tor browser it goes through a virtual proxy tunnel. In a sense, it is bouncing you off other Tor users all over the world. And when the search term or site address comes back to you, it is being relayed from a different server in another location different from your starting proxy. It is for want of a better word – untraceable. As mentioned before, the only way you can really be traced is if the NSA or GCHQ own both the entry AND exit node, which is a statistical improbability and the cost for doing this would probably be more than the US government’s entire defence budget, which is huge! This is also dependant on your browsing methods. Don’t stick to a routine pattern of browsing the dark web, use different starting points and different times – patterned web browsing is potentially traceable. There are sites within the dark web that add to the anonymity structure. You can own anonymous email addresses and you can even send one time emails or cellphone text messages that destruct upon delivery. They don’t destruct like they do in ‘Mission Impossible’ - the path of delivery destructs as it is being sent, making it a perfect system for sending a message or making contact from an anonymous source. WHONIX Operating System For extra security for your system and for an added level of anonymity you may want to use the WHONIX operating system instead of Windows, Mac, Linux etc. Most people will tell you to use the TAILS operating system which is created by the Tor Project to go hand in hand with the Tor Browser.