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This is what it's like to browse the dark web
You might have heard about the "dark web."
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It's the digital back alley of the internet where you can find pretty much anything you normally can't find on the regular "surface web" we all use every day.
But unlike a dark and dangerous back alley where the black market thrives, the dark web is much more accessible, and to a degree, safer. There's no contact with criminals or gangsters, but you can browse through their services and offerings online like you would on Amazon or eBay.
The Codebreaker podcast by Marketplace and Tech Insider had a chat with a couple who visit the dark web to obtain life-saving medicine they can't get anywhere else.
The Dark Web: Is it evil? Listen to the whole episode.
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On the podcast, we also speak with a researcher who argues that the dark web makes the illegal drug trade safer.
Still, it's shocking to find things like weapons and counterfeit currency as product categories on a (hidden) web site.
You can learn more about the dark web in the latest episode of Codebreaker. In the meantime, I took a little tour of the dark web to see what it looks like so you don't have to.
The Tor browser "prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked," according to the site.
It goes without saying that much of what you can buy on the dark web is illegal: counterfeit currency, hacked Spotify accounts, stolen smartphones, and hardcore drugs.
That's not even touching the worst of it. There have been stories of murder-for-hire jobs and child porn on the dark web too. The good news is that authorities are getting better at tracking that activity on the dark web, as we saw in the big Silk Road case a few months ago.
It's not all bad either. Some of what you can do on the dark web is morally ambigious, but still helpful. As we learned in the dark web episode of Codebreaker, shopping through Tor can also give you access to medications that are cheaper and easier to obtain if you don't have insurance.
Still, the dark web seems mostly designed appeal to the worst in people. So it shouldn't be shocking that it makes up a huge chunk of the internet. It's best for you to stay away.
It goes without saying that much of what you can buy on the dark web is illegal: counterfeit currency, hacked Spotify accounts, stolen smartphones, and hardcore drugs.
That's not even touching the worst of it. There have been stories of murder-for-hire jobs and child porn on the dark web too. The good news is that authorities are getting better at tracking that activity on the dark web, as we saw in the big Silk Road case a few months ago.
It's not all bad either. Some of what you can do on the dark web is morally ambigious, but still helpful. As we learned in the dark web episode of Codebreaker, shopping through Tor can also give you access to medications that are cheaper and easier to obtain if you don't have insurance.
Still, the dark web seems mostly designed appeal to the worst in people. So it shouldn't be shocking that it makes up a huge chunk of the internet. It's best for you to stay away.
It goes without saying that much of what you can buy on the dark web is illegal: counterfeit currency, hacked Spotify accounts, stolen smartphones, and hardcore drugs.
That's not even touching the worst of it. There have been stories of murder-for-hire jobs and child porn on the dark web too. The good news is that authorities are getting better at tracking that activity on the dark web, as we saw in the big Silk Road case a few months ago.
It's not all bad either. Some of what you can do on the dark web is morally ambigious, but still helpful. As we learned in the dark web episode of Codebreaker, shopping through Tor can also give you access to medications that are cheaper and easier to obtain if you don't have insurance.
Still, the dark web seems mostly designed appeal to the worst in people. So it shouldn't be shocking that it makes up a huge chunk of the internet. It's best for you to stay away.
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