Drugs, firearms, hired guns and human trafficking? In the past few months I have regularly encountered headlines considering the oh so mystical Darknet. That is why I want explain to you what exactly the Darknet is, what’s happening there and how to get there in my little series.

The Darknet can be considered a large amount of servers – basically, a server cluster. Now the special thing about this cluster is that it doesn’t sit in a huge server center, but is scattered all around the world. Hence, every single user who’s connecting to one of the many clusters, becomes part of this web himself. Of course you can leave the cluster again by simply disconnecting.

A large portion of the Darknet consists of sites which are only accessible through private invitations. Because every single user shares this network, a clear suspect cannot be found if illegal content is distributed.

Unfortunately, even in the Darknet you are not completely safe though. Authorities may implement Trojans on websites and on the Darknet-Clients with hack attacks. However, this is a whole lot of work and it’s been successfully done only once by the NSA. Furthermore, these Trojans are useless when the user is utilizing a Linux System.

The most popular and oldest open server cluster is called TOR. By now, TOR has been developed so far that you can simply download the TOR Software and start browsing sites in the TOR network.

The two most infamous official sites in the TOR network are currently GRAMS and Silk Road V2. On the Silk Road V2 you can purchase all kinds of illegal goods. GRAMS is similar to Google – just for the Darknet. GRAMS automatically searches all the accessible Darknet sites for a search term.

But the TOR network consists of so much more – Whistleblowers, NGOs, civil rights activists, hackers and privacy groups and all kinds of different collectives is what you’ll find there. I’m not going to tell you how to connect to sites like GRAMS and Silk Road V2 with the Tor Client. The ones of you who can’t manage to find out themselves, shouldn’t be in the TOR Network and the “Darknet” anyway.

On sunday in my next part I’ll tell you more about the various collectives you can find in the Darknet! Stay tuned!

tor

Image Copyright: torproject.org

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