The world of web

February 2, 2021

by CYBTECH

Now a days, majority of the populace knows or at least have some idea about the internet. We all experience the internet through accessing mails, searching for content and browsing…Etc. However, there are lots and lots of services that works in the background to give the users what they generally experience doing their everyday chores on the web. But, behind that web browser lays multiple dimensions, which a normal user may never access. So, the world of web is commonly divided into three parts. The Surface Web/Clearnet, the Dark Web and the Deep Web. Now, let’s explore a bit of each to get some basic understanding.

The Surface Web/Clearnet

This is the portion of the World Wide web (WWW) that is easily available to the general users, which can be searched via standard search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing…etc. These are indexed and hence searchable. These can be accessed through normal web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer/Edge, Safari…Etc.. and they do not require any special configuration. The content of the Surface Web is estimated to be around 5 percent or less of the total WWW.

The Deep Web

Dive a bit deeper and we enter the world of Deep Web and this huge. The contents you find in Deep Web is estimated to be 1000-2000 times bigger than that of the Surface Web. The contents are not indexed and hence they cannot be searchable. The contents are hidden. However, they are accessible to general public, as in they require different methods of accessing. For example, requiring user credentials for opening your Mails, Net banking, Netflix..Etc. Deep Web also contains legitimate databases, such as Medical records, Legal documents, Subscription information and other data to which the user has access to.

The Dark Web

Now, onto the shady side of the WWW! Dark Web is smaller than that of Deep Web. This IS a part of the Deep Web and is accessible only with appropriate tools developed to access the Dark Web content. Popular tools to access the contents of Dark web are Tor and I2P. These tools provide the users anonymity. Though, Dark web is associated with being all things shady such as drugs, weapons, malware and stolen data, there are legal activities taking place as well. For example, sending and receiving messages anonymously to avoid the state suppression where freedom of speech is a serios offense. Tor and I2P are the browsers that are used in Dark Web to access the contents. One has to be extra careful while browsing through Dark Web and take appropriate precautions while navigating it, so as not to become the next target of hackers that are constantly scouring there to steal data.

Having said that, with the good comes the bad. Every web user has to exercise utmost caution all of the time while browsing, be it on the surface or the deep or the dark and keep their details safe by not following or clicking on links that aren’t safe and using good antivirus and antimalware tools.