Why the dark web isn’t just for criminals

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why the dark web isnt just for criminals.png
why the dark web isnt just for criminals.png

The Darknet has a miserable reputation, wrongly so. After all, you can do a lot of useful things on the dark web. c’t 3003 gives tips.

Is the dark web really only good for buying illegal substances and doing other criminal things? Absolutely not, for many people the Darknet or Tor Browser is the only way to use the Internet uncensored. c’t 3003 gives a few tips on how to get safely into the Darknet and how the whole thing works.


Transcript of the video:

(Note: This is bonus content for people who cannot or do not want to watch the video above. The video track information is not reflected in the transcript.)

So, I’ll show you how to get into the Darknet: Download Tor Browser, start it, uh, that’s it? What am I supposed to talk about in this video now? Yes, no, kidding, of course there’s enough: The Darknet has been a huge topic for years; and above all a subject where much half-knowledge is operated around. The Darknet is not “evil” at all, on the contrary. We’ll explain everything you need to know about the Darknet and how to be safe there or use the Tor Browser required for the Darknet safely. There is a lot to consider.

The video is also aimed at people who don’t know anything about the Dark Web, but we’re sure to have some interesting facts for people who thought they knew everything. Stay tuned.

Dear hackers, dear Internet surfers, welcome to…

The dark web, the most dangerous place on the internet? Especially in Germany, the Darknet has a miserable reputation, basically it’s all about illegal weapons and prohibited substances?

Yes, there is. But the dark web is also the only way for millions of people to circumvent censorship, to get independent information, to expose grievances, to rebel against the ruling regime — without being arrested for it or worse.

The New York Times, for example, which is undoubtedly a very serious medium, shows that the dark web is not just “evil”. becomes. This address brings you to the New York Times as a Tor Onion Service.

huh Tor, Onion, isn’t this about the dark web? Yes, right, but when people talk about the dark web these days, 99% of the time they mean the Tor network. TOR stands for “The Onion Router” and is a so-called overlay network, so it puts a layer on top of the “normal” Internet. All Darknets have in common that you need special software for this, for example the Tor Browser or the Messenger Briar, which not only works anonymously via the Darknet, but also completely without the Internet: directly peer-to-peer via Bluetooth or WLAN. Should we make our own video about Briar? Feel free to write it in the comments.

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This is about TOR, by far the most popular Darknet. All you have to do is download the Tor Browser, start it and you’re in. You can now use it to visit normal websites such as voonze.de (this is the so-called Clearnet), but also sites that can ONLY be reached from the Darknet, which can be recognized by the cryptic URLs, which always consist of 56 characters and end with . have onion. First of all, this is very important to understand: You can use the TOR browser to be more undetected on the normal Internet AND to reach special darknet websites that you cannot find on the clearnet.

The basic principle of TOR is pretty ingenious and really not that complicated: Instead of your Internet access device connecting directly to the voonze.de web server, the whole thing runs indirectly with Tor: The Tor browser builds first establishes an encrypted connection to the so-called entry node, contacts a middle node in encrypted form and from there encrypts an exit node again. And from there it goes on to voonze.de. The data traffic between all nodes is encrypted, which means your data is definitely encrypted three times, if the website you surf on also supports HTTPS – like voonze.de – then you even have quadruple encryption. Data is wrapped in multiple layers of encryption, just like an onion, and that’s why it’s called The Onion Router. The nodes always only know the next station, never the complete route.

If you go to TOR sites (i.e. with .onion at the end) instead of clearnet websites like voonze.de, two other nodes come into play instead of the exit node: namely a second middle node on the user side, which is known in technical terms as secret agents -referred to as “rendezvous point” and a second middle node on the onion web server side. The data is thus encrypted six times and sent back and forth through the network via six detours. This means that not only YOU have a high level of anonymity, but also the TOR web server. This is also the reason why it is very difficult for investigators to locate the servers of a drug marketplace, for example.

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The Tor nodes are all publicly listed. So your provider knows when you talk to a Tor entry node — they don’t know exactly what you’re doing, but they see THAT you’re using Tor. If you are in a country that blocks Tor nodes, for example China, you can also activate a so-called bridge in Tor. This can be done in the Tor browser settings under “Connection” and “Select a deployed bridge”. Then you choose Snowflake, for example; and zap; nobody sees that you are communicating with Tor nodes anymore.

The current Tor Browser even offers this automatically if it cannot connect to the network. Snowflake is run by volunteers, so if you want to help, just enable the Snowflake add-on for Chrome or Firefox, or go to this URL here and click active. According to our current state of knowledge, you will not encounter any problems if you have activated such a Snowflake proxy.

It is not known exactly who operates the 1500 or so Tor exit nodes, so it is always good to assume that not all of these exit points are operated by nice people. But that’s not a problem if you follow a few safety rules. The most important thing is that you access all websites in encrypted form, i.e. that the address begins with https://. More on that in a moment. By the way, interesting background information: By far the most fast Tor exit nodes — i.e. with 100 Mbit/s and more — are in Germany.

Incidentally, the Tor browser is not only available for the desktop operating systems Linux, macOS and Windows, but also for Android. You can simply install it via Google Play or, if you want to be absolutely sure, download the APK directly from torproject.org . If you don’t just want to have a browser in the TOR network, but want to run other Android apps over it, you can use Orbot, which establishes the Tor connection via Android’s VPN interface. There is no real Tor browser on iOS because Apple doesn’t allow alternative browser engines. I’m showing the Windows version here in the rest of the video.

So and now five important tips to be really safe on the Darknet:

number 1. Check the install file: A possible danger already exists before the installation, namely if a manipulated installation file is foisted on you. Therefore, to be on the safe side, check the digital signature of the file. How to do this is documented on the Tor website, also in German, the link is in the description.

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Number 2. Be careful with your own data: You can hardly be identified via your connection, but of course with the data you transmit. Suppose you order herbal tea on the Darknet and enter your postal address there: If the authorities have access to the Darknet shop, they will of course also have your address.

number 3 Don’t trust anyone: You must always keep in mind that you may be on the road anonymously, but the “exit node”, i.e. the computer that ultimately calls up your desired website on your behalf, can read and manipulate your data traffic. Everything that is not encrypted can be seen in plain text! You should therefore always use transport-encrypted HTTPS addresses instead of HTTP addresses, especially if you enter any data or passwords! You should also not carelessly trust other people on the Darknet, because they are just as anonymous on Tor as you are.

number 4 Set security level: A click on the protective shield here at the top right calls up the security levels. On “Standard” you are largely unhindered, on “Secure”, for example, JavaScript is completely blocked on websites that are not delivered with HTTPS. With “Most secure” only static content is allowed, all scripts are blocked away. This stops many websites from working properly, but you are VERY safe. Everything is a compromise.

number 5 Use Tails: Tor will not help you if a Trojan or other malware is reading along on your operating system. You are more protected if you boot the Linux distribution Tails from a USB stick for security-related activities, for example. By default, Tor is enabled for everything in Tails, which means that not only websites accessed in the browser are routed via Tor, but everything. So, for example, when you call up emails in Tails with Thunderbird.

So, as you can see, while Tor is super easy to install and use, there are a few security rules to keep in mind. I certainly hope that was now all reasonably understandable! If not: Feel free to write your questions in the comments! Bye!


c’t 3003 is c’t’s YouTube channel. The videos on c’t 3003 are independent content and independent of the articles in c’t magazin. Editor Jan-Keno Janssen and video producers Johannes Börnsen and Şahin Erengil publish a video every week.


(jkj)