Lentis, The Deep Web

The Deep Web (also referred to as The Hidden Web and The Invisible Web) is a collection of non-indexed web content. The deep web is often confused with the term "dark web", the darknet networks that require special tools and authorizations to access. The dark web is a subset of the deep web, as the two fulfill separate purposes. Both are separate from the "surface web", web pages openly accessible to anyone. HTTP form hide content on the deep web 1] that [web crawlers cannot access nor index. This secures data from the public. A login page can hide information from unauthorized users. With most of the inaccessible deep web being dedicated to business transactions and database storage with limited widespread social impact, this page will focus on the dark web with respects to anonymity, privacy, and security.

People can access the dark web through either onion routing or garlic routing. Onion routing and garlic routing are most commonly employed by the Tor and I2P projects, respectively. The Tor Project has a larger user base. There are several differences between the two projects.[2] While originally developed for government and military communications, dark web use has expanded to civilians, journalists, law enforcers, activists, business executives, and professionals.[3]

The Onion Router Project

The Tor Project logo (Image: The Tor Project, Inc., CC BY 3.0 us)

The Onion Router (Tor) Project4] is an open-source volunteer-driven project with the agenda of improving the privacy and security of people on the Internet.[5] Its Tor browser software protects users by bouncing their communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers around the world. The software is a modified Mozilla Firefox web browser that can access darknet [.onion domains as well as surface web domains.

The Invisible Internet Project

The I2P logo (Image: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain)

The Invisible Internet (I2P) Project[6] an open-source anonymous overlay network that relies on bouncing encrypted messages around numerous one-way tunnels.[7] Instead of the Tor's .onion sites, the I2P browser features its own .i2p eepsites. Its browser can only access darknet domains within the I2P network.[8]

Peer-to-Peer Networks

The dark web uses a peer-to-peer network. It differs from the conventional client-server model since there are no designated servers. The network's infrastructure, processing power, and storage comes from the computers, also called nodes, on the network. They function as servers and routers.

Tor[9] uses standard internet communication protocol, which allows any computer to join the network. The list of Tor relays at any moment is public. A user's Tor client facilitates the routing process to provide security, privacy, and anonymity. The client retrieves the list of active relays, generates a random path, and then adds additional overhead layers to the data packet for each node on the path. The computers at each node can only access their layer, which tells them the location of the next relay. As a result, a relay node does not know the end destination of the data, nor can it see the data. The last node, called exit node, delivers the data packet to the end destination.

The network contains many features and vulnerabilities such as eavesdropping, protocol sabotage, and IP reveals.

Internet service providers have sold their customers' browsing records.[10] Participants who care about their online privacy can communicate and research without unwanted surveillance. Darknet softwares hide peoples' identities and web traffic while browsing.

Governments and Militaries

Governments and militaries need private untraceable communications. Originally designed by the US government for military communications, onion routing's original purpose was to distribute robust messages through centralized server sites.[3] By routing messages through multiple encrypted layers, they can protect intelligence operations from interception, traffic analysis, or infrastructure shutdown.

Beyond defense, governments also use the dark web for law enforcement and intelligence gathering, such as infiltrating criminal networks and conducting undercover operations. However, similar tools can also be used for domestic surveillance and control, including monitoring dissidents or restricting information, showing how the same technology can serve both security and authoritarian purposes.

Activists and Whistleblowers

Under government censorships in countries like China,[11] activists and whistleblowers need protections and anonymity to protect themselves. Readers can evade national firewalls to research global censored and/or controversial topics without risk of persecution.[3] Whistleblower submission systems such as SecureDrop[12] allow media organizations to securely accept documents from anonymous sources.[13] Journalists can access the dark web to write about local events and social reforms that would otherwise be censored.[3]

However, the anonymity provided for whistleblowers can complicate credibility and accountability, as sources are harder to verify. This highlights an important tension as the dark web enables free expression and broad information access, but introduces challenges in trust and verification.

Illicit Actors

Illicit actors include cybercriminals, black-market vendors, and extremist/terrorist groups, all drawn to the dark web for its core features of anonymity and decentralization, allowing them to operate outside traditional legal and regulatory systems, reducing the risk of identification and prosecution from authorities. Compared to the surface web, the dark web offers a far more secure environment for sensitive communication and coordination.

Moreover, trading cryptocurrencies over the dark web allow these groups and individuals to negotiate and transfer large amounts of funds without detection, allowing them to operate outside traditional financial oversight, further supporting their operations.

General Privacy Users

A majority of dark web users are not malicious, but rather privacy-conscious individuals who value anonymity and protection from digital tracing. These users include everyday citizens who wish to browse the internet, communicate, or access information without being monitored by corporations such as their internet service providers or big tech companies.

Unlike activists or whistleblowers, privacy users use of the dark web is typically not politically motivated, but instead driven by concerns over personal data privacy, targeted advertising, and online profiling. The strong association of the dark web with illicit activity often stigmatizes these users, creating a tension between legitimate privacy-seeking behavior and public perceptions of digital anonymity as suspicious and criminal.

Infrastructure Builders

Infrastructure builders include developers, researchers, and organizations that design, maintain, and extend the technical systems that hold up the dark web. This ranges vastly from core anonymity networks like Tor to platforms, marketplaces, communication tools, and privacy-enhancing applications built on top of them. These builders are often motivated by core dark web values such as privacy, decentralization, and open access to information, aiming to create systems that resist surveillance and centralized control.

However, they typically do not control how their technologies are ultimately used and as a result, tools intended to support privacy and free expression also enable illicit activities, highlighting a tension between design intentions and real-world use.

Darknet Markets

Darknet markets and communications platforms do not simply pit technology against law enforcement - they are arenas where competing social actors content control, trust, and legitimacy. The cases below, spanning drug markets, financial whistleblowing, and AI, each illustrate how the dark web's conflicts are fundamentally about who sets the rules when there is no central authority.

Silk Road

Screenshot of the Silk Road shutdown (Image: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain)

Silk Road was an online black market marketplace for drugs and other illegal goods founded by Ross Ulbricht who used the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts".14] Ulbricht's explicit goal was to build a free market where drug use was treated as a victimless personal choice, bypassing violet middlemen. To make that work without institutional backing, Silk Road layered ratings, escrow systems, and buyer feedback on top of [Tor's anonymity - technology substituting for the social trust that ordinarily requires knowing someone in person. Buyers could purchase drugs with untraceable Bitcoin transactions, and have them delivered by the postal service, an unwitting participant. In June 2013, FBI agents identified Silk Road's true server location through a software flaw, and Ulbricht was arrested.[15] Despite having no prior criminal record, he was sentenced to double life plus 40 years without parole. The severity of the sentence was widely debated: proportionate justice, or a strategic deterrent to discourage future operators?[16] That question was reopened in January 2025, when President Trump pardoned Ulbricht, reigniting debate about how states should respond to darknet markets.[17]

AlphaBay

AlphaBay forfeiture notice screenshot (Image: Public domain)

Canadian citizen Alexandre Cazes launched AlphaBay in September 2014,18] and by July 2017 it had grown to ten times the size of the Silk Road by expanding beyond drugs into stolen corporate data, credentials, and financial records - making businesses unwitting victims alongside individual users. Cazes relocated to Thailand to operate the market and displayed his wealth publicly on social media, lapses that contributed to his arrest. But the most consequential innovcation in AlphaBay's takedown was the enforcement strategy surrounding it. As part of [Operation Bayonet, the Dutch National Police secretly seized and continued operating the competing darknet market Hansa in the weeks before AlphaBay was shut down.[19] When AlphaBay fell and users fled to what they believed was a safe alternative, they walked directly into a law enforcement honeypot. The FBI and DEA's goal was not merely to close one market but to destroy user confidence in the darknet markets as a category. The operation succeeded not because authorities broke the encryption, but because they understood the ecosystem's social dynamics - displacement behavior, trust migration, and platform loyalty - better than the users themselves did. Thai authorities found Cazes dead in his cell days after his arrest and suspect suicide.

Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing on the dark web centers on control over sensitive information rather than economic exchange. Unlike darknet markets, which rely on pricing, reputation, and cryptocurrency transactions, whistleblowing platforms are structure around trust, credibility, and the safe transfer of information between anonymous sources and journalists. The case below demonstrates how anonymity reshapes the relationship between individuals, institutions, and the public by enabling the disclosure of information that would otherwise remain hidden.

"John Doe" and the Panama Papers

Countries implicated in the Panama Papers leak (Image: JayCoop, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Not all dark web activity involves markets. In 2015, an anonymous source using the pseudonym "John Doe" contacted journalists at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung through encrypted, anonymous channels and offered access to internal documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.20] The whistleblower insisted on communicating exclusively over encrypted channels and refused any face-to-face contact, stating that their lift was in danger. The resulting leak - over 11.5 million documents exposing the offshore financial networks of politicians, executives, and celebrities worldwide - become known as the [Panama Papers and triggered investigations in more than 80 countries. Without the ability to contact journalists anonymously, the source would have faced near-certain legal retaliation. The case surfaces a tension that runs through the entire dark web; the same infrastructure that enables criminal markets also enables accountability journalism. The Panama Papers strengthened financial transparency laws, increased regulation of offshore accounts, and expanded international cooperation on tax enforcement - while simultaneously legitimizing anonymous communication tools as instruments of the public interest.

Artificial Intelligence

The emergence of large language models (LLMs), which rose to prominence in the early 2020s, has introduced a new dimension to the dark web: the automation and amplification of technical capability. Unlike markets or whistleblowing platforms, which mainly focus on exchange and the flow of information, AI systems reshape what users are able to do by lowering the skill barrier for complex tasks. The case below highlights how the integration of AI into the dark web transforms it from a space of coordination into a space of on-demand malicious capability generation, raising questions about control, responsibility, and the scalability of harm.

DIG AI

The dark web's sociotechnical contests have expanded into artificial intelligence. In September 2025, DIG AI launched as a Tor-hosted large language model built on open-weight models that were explicitly fine-tuned to operate without the content restrictions that mainstream AI systems enforce.21] While mainstream surface web LLMs like [ChatGPT and Claude deliberately decline requests for phishing emails, weapons instructions, or malicious code, DIG AI fulfills them. As a result, criminal capability becomes significantly more accessible. Tasks that previously required hiring skilled technical specialists, such as hacking a website, can now be performed directly by non-technical users through simple prompts to the un-restricted LLM.

The governance vacuum is striking: AI companies whose models were appropriated can only file threat reports; cybersecurity firms can monitor DIG AI but cannot remove it; no internal authority has jurisdiction over a Tor-hosted service. DIG AI extends a central pattern: each time enforcement closes one avenue, the ecosystem reconstitutes around a new technology. The question is not only how to respond to one uncensored model, but what it means for the dark web when AI-powered capability becomes as accessible as a drug listing.

This development also reveals a deeper tension between governments and AI capabilities. While states actively pursue advanced and potentially unrestricted AI systems through partnerships with private companies, they simultaneously seek to restrict public access to those same capabilities. However, the dark web functions as the critical infrastructure that undermines this control. By enabling anonymous hosting, distribution, and access, it allows tools like DIG AI to exist outside traditional regulatory and corporate boundaries. The implication is a shift in the balance of power: while governments attempt to centralize access to high-capability AI, the dark web enables capability diffusion, redistributing these tools to a broader set of actors. This raises a fundamental question: does restricting such technologies enhance security, or does it simply incentivize their migration to decentralized, less controllable environments?

Darknet Communications

Facebook

Facebook 22] launched [its services on the dark web in 2014 allowing users to circumvent any firewalls or censorship. The launch aligns with Facebook’s mission to connect people. Once the user reaches Facebook they can use services normally. Facebook used to flag excessive routing, like Tor, as suspicious behavior and even denied services. Android support and dark web client plug-ins followed.

Dark web traffic to Facebook spiked temporarily near the end of 2015. Political conflict and civil unrest caused the Bangladesh government to ban Facebook and other social media services in November of 2015. However, they could not shut down nor block the Tor network. This rendered the ban ineffective. Most bans use IP, but Tor conceals the IP. Over 1 million users connect to Facebook monthly through Tor[23]. Alec Muffett, a Facebook engineer wrote, “It’s important to us to provide methods for people to use our services securely—particularly if they lack reliable methods to do so.” Security expert Runa Sandvik praised Facebook and expects other companies to do the same.

Chat Rooms and JavaScript

In early 2018, a chatroom called OnionChat was developed for users to communicate anonymously and privately over the dark web.[24] OnionChat is the first anonymous web chat service for Tor that does not use JavaScript. Malicious JavaScript inserted into darknet sites can leave users vulnerable to tracking and private information leaks. In April of 2012, Higinio O. Ochoa III, a hacker that goes by the w0rmer, was charged by the FBI with hacking into US law enforcement agencies and releasing phone numbers and home addresses of police officers.[25] Ochoa posted pictures of his girlfriend on sites that he had hacked as a digital signature, indicating that he had exposed private information. The FBI was able to extract metadata contained in the JavaScript used to post the pictures, matching the GPS coordinates where the pictures were taken to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Similar concerns have been raised for chat room and email services that use JavaScript, leaving users prone to information leaks and real time tracking.

Dead Man Zero

Dead Man Zero is a darknet site that allows whistleblowers to set up automatic releases of information in the case that they die, get jailed, or get injured. The site charges around 0.3 Bitcoin to provide users with a digital switch that is linked to encrypted files in a cloud storage service. The site relies on these external cloud storage services so that they do not have to upkeep their own file servers, which may be subject to targeting. The creators of Dead Man Zero built the site in response to NSA scandals, claiming that "there should be consequences if you are hurt, jailed, or even killed for trying to render a genuine and risky service to our free society." As of September 22, 2014, over 400 archives of encrypted files had been uploaded, with 17 pending release within the next 24 hours unless their owners logged in.[26]

Trust in Systems

The dark web has never been as anarchic as it seems from the outside; even early marketplaces like Silk Road developed surprisingly structured systems of governance. On Silk Road, users relied on escrow payments, detailed vendor reviews, and a ranking system that mirrored legitimate e-commerce platforms. Its founder, Ross Ulbricht, even enforced rules about what could be sold, banning certain types of harmful goods to maintain internal order. After Silk Road was shut down, successors like AlphaBay and Hansa Market expanded these systems with more sophisticated reputation metrics and security features. These examples show that governance on the dark web emerges through community-enforced norms and technical safeguards rather than formal law.

At the same time, these systems are constantly strained by distrust and competing incentives. AlphaBay’s collapse in 2017, followed by the revelation that Hansa had been secretly controlled by law enforcement during the Operation Bayonet, highlighted how fragile trust can be. Users who believed they were operating in a secure, anonymous marketplace suddenly found their data exposed. Exit scams are another recurring tension. Platforms like Evolution Marketplace vanished overnight with millions in escrowed funds, reinforcing the constant fear that even “trusted” administrators might betray users. Meanwhile, vendors compete for reputation but sometimes engage in selective scamming, and buyers may attempt fraud themselves, creating a system where no participant fully trusts another.

Current Social Dynamic

More recently, the ecosystem has shifted away from large centralized markets toward smaller, more fragmented networks. After repeated takedowns, activity has migrated to encrypted platforms like Telegram and decentralized forums, where invite-only access replaces open registration. Some communities experiment with multi-signature escrow and cross-platform reputation systems to reduce reliance on any single authority. The shutdown of Hydra Market in 2022 further accelerated this trend, pushing users into more distributed and harder-to-monitor spaces. Today, the dark web looks less like a marketplace ecosystem and more like a patchwork of semi-private networks, where governance is constantly renegotiated and trust is both the most valuable currency and the most fragile weakness.

Further Work

Future editors might consider renaming this page from "The Deep Web" to "The Dark Web" to better reflect its focus. The case studies section could also be retitled "Case Studies as Sociotechnical Contests" to make the analytical framing explicit.

• ↑ Shedden, Sam (June 8, 2014). "How Do You Want Me to Do It? Does It Have to Look like an Accident? – an Assassin Selling a Hit on the Net; Revealed Inside the Deep Web". Sunday Mail. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
• ↑ https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor
• ↑ a b c d "Who uses Tor?". The Tor Project. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
• ↑ https://www.torproject.org/index.html.en
• ↑ "Tor Project: Overview". The Tor Project. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
• ↑ https://geti2p.net/en/is
• ↑ "Intro". The Invisible Internet Project. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
• ↑ Bischoff, Paul (2018-09-12). "Step by step guide to safely accessing the dark net and deep web". VPN & Privacy. Comparitech. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
• ↑ https://www.torproject.org/docs/documentation.html.en
• ↑ Blodget, Henry (2007-03-13). "Compete CEO: ISPs Sell Clickstreams For $5 A Month". Seeking Alpha. https://seekingalpha.com/article/29449-compete-ceo-isps-sell-clickstreams-for-5-a-month. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ "Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship" (PDF). Human Rights Watch. 18 (8). 2006-08. Retrieved 2018-12-10. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• ↑ https://securedrop.org/
• ↑ "SecureDrop". Retrieved 2018-12-10.
• ↑ Lee, Nicole (2015-02-08). "Anonymity is dead and other lessons from the Silk Road trial". Engadget. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
• ↑ Greenberg, Andy (2014-09-08). "FBI's Story of Finding Silk Road's Server Sounds a Lot Like Hacking". Security. Wired. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
• ↑ "1-page Overview". One-page Overview. Ross Ulbricht Defense Fund. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
• ↑ McLaughlin, Jenna (2025-01-21). "Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace". NPR. Retrieved 2025-04-22.
• ↑ "AlphaBay". Darkweb News (Dark Web News Publication). 2018-11-12. https://darkwebnews.com/darkwebmarkets/alphabay/. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ Greenberg, Andy (2018-03-08). "Operation Bayonet". Wired (New York: Wired Magazine). https://www.wired.com/story/hansa-dutch-police-sting-operation/. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ Mauriello, Tracie (2026-03-31). "The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1". ICIJ. Retrieved 2025-04-22.
• ↑ "DIG AI: Uncensored Darknet AI Assistant at the Service of Criminals and Terrorists". Resecurity. 2025-12-18. Retrieved 2025-04-22.
• ↑ Greenberg, Andy (2014-10-31). "Why Facebook Just Launched Its Own 'Dark Web' Site". Wired (New York: Wired Magazine). https://www.wired.com/2014/10/facebook-tor-dark-site/. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ Wong, Joon (2016-04-22). "A million people now access Facebook on the “dark web” every month". Quartsz (New York: Quartz). https://qz.com/667880/a-million-people-now-access-facebook-on-the-dark-web-every-month/. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ "Introducing OnionChat, The First Anonymous Web Chat Service For Tor". 2018-05-27. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ Diaz, Jesus (2012-04-12). "These Breasts Nailed a Hacker For the FBI". Retrieved 2018-12-11.
• ↑ Cox, Joseph (2014-09-22). "A Deep Web Service Will Leak Your Documents If the Government Murders You". Retrieved 2018-12-11.

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