Has anyone dared to explore what lies in the darker parts of the internet? I've read that the surface web only carries %20 of the information out there. Was thinking of taking a clunky computer of mine, installing ubuntu and using TOR browser. I've also read some reviews of others and they've written so pretty disturbing stuff. However, that the deep web and TOR browser are ways like Syrian rebels communicate as to keep under the radar of the government.
No and I'm not going to. Apart from encountering things and people that might be bad for my state of mind, I imagine people who do this can become the object of surveillance by security agencies. While this ought in theory not to pose any risks, the British police have been known to shoot people carrying table legs, and Brazilian electricians, for no real reason other than their own panic and incompetence.......
My assumption is that the indexed web contains far less than 20% of the information out there. I would say the surface web contains a fraction of that compared to what is not indexed... I should also mention that as I am sure most already assume, TOR is not the most secure way to browse what is not indexed. If you really wish to poke around, at least install Tails on a laptop you will do nothing else with. I would also suggest that you do not browse what is not indexed from your place of residence. It's an interesting place, generally you will only come across the illegal or vile things if you go looking for them. Of course, given how links in that area appear, it's always possible to stumble upon something unfortunate like the Sad Satan game. I, personally, stay away from it now because it requires a large amount of effort to truly remain anon while on it. I also do not like the idea that I could possibly stumble upon something vile while looking for, as an example, news from Germany.
I did some research on Sad Satan while thinking it was only a horror game, but I soon decided it wasn't my cup of tea. Didn't play the game, however. Remarkably, you can play a version of it on Youtube. I intended to wipe my hard drive and just use ubuntu and TOR. Also, I don't go looking for really nasty stuff
The version of Sad Satan that is on Youtube has the illegal images removed. Also use the Tails linux distro if you wish to browse TOR. It's the most secure way to do it from what I can remember. Keep in mind that you're trying to stay anonymous so that you don't leave any fingerprints that lead back to you and you have to make sure you're not vulnerable to a drive by download (or anything else, really).
Absolutely do this. Also buy a VPN service that doesn't keep logs, check whatsmyip website before and after to make sure the VPN is working properly. Know that if you're going to go on it, you are taking a risk even if you're just looking for conspiracy theory sites or whatever random thing you are looking for. I went on there briefly a few years back. You can use specific websites to find different web addresses. Some that are listed may be closed down, infected or monitored heavily.
The 20% number is about something completely different. Every firm today uses the internet protocol for most of its internal communications. But most of it will be, of course, protected from free access and accessible only inside the firm. To access this, you have to take a job in that particular firm, and the dark net (Tor, freenet and so on) will not help you at all to access these 80%. Even most of the traffic of Tor is not access to Tor hidden services, but access to open, legal sites where one simply wants to be sure that it remains hidden that one reads this site. Which is quite reasonable today. For example, there was one German politician named Edathy who was stupid enough to access, openly from a Bundestag computer, a Canadian clearnet site where one could buy videos with nude boys. Completely legal, the site owner has cared to use lawyers to make sure that all these naked boys are not child porn. And, given that it was claimed that all this is legal, this Edathy was stupid enough to buy something from this site. Today the owner of this site is imprisoned for distributing child porn, Edathy is no longer a German politician, but prefers to live somewhere out of Germany, and all those stupid enough to buy something at this site have had nice experiences with police raids of their homes. Now they know what means living in a modern "democratic state of law", and why it would have been a good idea to hide the access of such seemingly legal sites from various LEA using Tor. Inside Tor, one can find a lot of illegal things on various hidden services. But most of them may be various LEA honeypots. So. think twice (better: much more than twice) before using them in a way different from simply reading them. But using Tor simply for accessing clearnet nodes is a good idea. This also allows you to detect sites which (for whatever reasons) collect IPs to identity their users, and to avoid them. With Tor, you will be forbidden to use them. Which is a nice hint not to use them.
Nobody known, but most of the non indexed web is simply the internal web of firms, nothing dubious but of course protected, even if much less protected than one should. I disagree. TOR seems the safest dark net up to day. Of course, if you do really security-relevant things, you should combine this with other security measures. Tails with a separate computer for web surfing is, clearly, a good idea for safety. If it is necessary for the average guy is another question. Tor alone already heavily improves your privacy. That's already paranoia. What is more important is that you protect access to the computer itself, as well as additionally to relevant private data. So, modern Linux systems provide encryption of the whole computer. Use this, together with a good passphrase. A separate partition, encrypted with, say, veracrypt, which contains all the deep-web related data, including the Tor browser itself (and all its data, like the bookmarks, cash or history), would add security. It makes you vulnerable only if you use the dark net, and have opened the container. If you use only unproblematic things, it is closed and you are safe. Other places may be much more vulnerable to attacks like hidden cameras and so on.
If you wish I can provide documentation that supports the claim that TOR isn't really safe these days. Who do you think financed a large portion of the development and the operation of TOR? I wouldn't consider it paranoia. We're not talking about someone that is literate in computer security like we are, we're talking about a novice who is bound to make a massive mistake. The safest way they can browse TOR without leaving breadcrumbs is to use a clean laptop with Tails on it at a clean location, or to engage in wardriving.
In your opinion, do you think Linux is still safe after what happened to Ian Murdoch? This is an article I read regarding the implementation of backdoors into Linux. http://falkvinge.net/2013/11/17/nsa-asked-linus-torvalds-to-install-backdoors-into-gnulinux/
You have to remember, there are many distros of Linux. For now I would consider many Linux distros very safe and less intrusive than anything Microsoft creates. If you analyze the network traffic coming from your computer if you are running Windows 10 you will see that OS communicating with Microsoft, even if you tell it not to. Linux's strength is the ability for an advanced user to harden the system. With Windows the user is extremely limited in what they can do to harden the system. For example, do you think the average Windows user knows how to (I hate to use this term) "unlock" GodMode? Here is a website you can use to learn a bit about basic computer security since you're interested: http://thehackernews.com/ Here is a site where you can learn exactly what goes into "hacking". I'm not talking about the illegal stuff, I am moreso referring to gaining the knowledge needed to harden your system, or at least make it as secure as you are willing to make it. With security there is always a trade off of efficiency and functionality. https://www.hackthissite.org/
Thank you for the advice. I tried hackthissite years and years ago. I recently read a book about reverse engineering so I know where you're coming from regarding using the knowledge as a platform for increasing security.
There can be no such warranty. What can be done is 1.) Open source, so that everybody can check the code and think about where backdoors can be hidden, and 2.) a large enough community which cares about possible attacks, and, if somebody finds an attack, he writes papers about this. After this, people can care about how to prevent these attacks. I know that it comes from the US secret service. So what? Open Source remains Open Source. They needed a safe way to communicate in a hidden way, and the only realistic way to hide communications was to create a lot of them, so that the own communications will be lost there. Same with Linux - what makes it safer than Windows is not that Linus is a honest guy, but that the whole system is open source. Of course, there is so much code that it is possible to hide backdoors. But even Linus would nonetheless have to work hard to hide it. In Windows one does not even need to hide it. If a novice engages in many different things, the predictable error is that one thing he will omitted - he is already using n-1 things, that will be safe enough. If this thing will be Tor, this will be ... . So, I prefer to tell people what is the most important thing. To protect privacy while in the net this is Tor.
I'm more referring to this vulnerability of TOR: https://thestack.com/security/2014/...lysing-router-information-research-indicates/ There are others as well. When you send a novice into TOR I always advise them that it's not as anonymous as they are led to believe. Remaining completely anon on TOR can be difficult. I agree that open source is the biggest advantage Linux has in security. It's simply impossible to prevent zero day attacks, therefore having an army of free labor checking and reporting vulnerabilities makes it far more secure than Windows.
Erm, no. It's an example of one of the many features your average MS user doesn't know about. I am confident if you walked around and asked 1,000 people about "GodMode" the vast majority of them would have no idea what it is. The point was that your average MS user isn't very knowledgeable about MS.
Of course, one has to learn a lot of possibilities how people may be identified. Writing too many texts as in the clearnet, as in the darknet, gives already enough information to identify the author. Some very extravagant greeting may be already sufficient. But for most people all this is not that important. Because their potential attackers are not powerful at all. If I want to protect my privacy from family members, neighbors or colleagues, you don't need much. If the enemy is the music industry, it is already more powerful, but Tor will be enough. If the problem is illegal porn, the problem is already more serious. But the LEA would not spend valuable tools like zero day attacks on porn. If one has more serious problems with LEA, one has to think a lot about security. So I think that it is more important to have clear ideas about who is the potential attacker, what are his abilities.
