Major Difference Between Deep Web, Dark Web And Darknet

Sure you have heard many times of the terms Deep Web, Dark Web or Darknet, but do you really know what they mean and what makes them different? In this article we are going to discover the differences between Deep Web, Dark Web and Darknet.

The first concept that we must be clear about is “Clearnet” or also called “Surface Net”, which is nothing more than the Internet as we know it, the pages that appear on Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines and we can freely access and directly without entering any previous data or having to use special software to access.

Deep Web

In recent years the term “Deep web” has become popular and spreading on the Internet, although it is often used to refer to other terms such as “dark web” or “darknet” in a wrong way.

When it comes to “Deep Web” it refers mainly to content that is not indexed by the main search engines, and therefore it is difficult to locate it and know that it is there. When we say that a content has not been indexed by a search engine, we mean that it has not been included in its search database and therefore it will not appear. 

There are many reasons why a content is not indexed by search engines, it may be that the content is protected by a password to access or they are pages that you have to pay to view, but also the files that we upload to our Google Drive account, OneDrive or Dropbox (and we haven’t made it public).

Imagine if someone with a simple search for your name in Google could read your mail from your Gmail or Outlook account, it would not be right.

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Darknet

The term Deep Web is often used to refer to the Darknet or the Dark Web, but there are differences between Deep Web, Dark web and Darknet. The Darknet is an encrypted network * that cannot be indexed by search engines and requires specific tools or software to access it. We can say that the Darknet is a part of the Deep Web.

This network makes users and their locations anonymous. Users can hide their identity, website owners can hide their location, and data can be transferred anonymously.

One of the most popular Darknets is Tor or The Onion Router, to access this Darknet it is necessary to install a specific client and, in addition, although there are some search engines within this network, you must first have the addresses of the services to which you want to access. As we know, on the Surface Web, we find sites whose address ends in .com, .es, .net, etc. These sites within the Tor network have a special address ending in “. onion “

Other types of Darknet are I2P and Freenet.

Dark web

Actually, Darknet and Dark Web are related to each other. When we talk about the Dark Web we are referring to the existing websites in these Darknets. We cannot access many of these websites if we do not have a user on them or the access allowed. The activity of these sites is usually unknown and in some cases they are sites that are dedicated to trafficking in illegal content. It is the Word Wide Web of the Darknet.

This is the space used by the Internet black market, where we can find malware for sale, drugs, weapons, forged documents, and all kinds of illegal and / or degrading content.

The Iceberg

On many occasions we can find an image of an iceberg to represent the concepts we have seen, although this image is not a correct representation since we are unable to determine or measure the content that is on the Deep Web because many of this content is inaccessible or unavailable all the time. What is known is that it is much larger than the Surface Web. And as they say the Dark Web represents 0.01% of the Deep Web. As we see there are differences between the Deep Web and the Dark Web.

Cybercrime Or Privacy?

The main objective of the Darknet and for which it was created was so that they could be used in authoritarian regimes, which censor freedom of expression or access to content. 

Through these networks, political whistleblowers, activists or journalists were given the possibility to express themselves, who may be censored or run the risk of political reprisals if discovered by their government. For example, during the Arab Spring, bloggers in Iran used Tor to be able to browse anonymously, bypass censorship, and remain undetected by the police.

These networks help safeguard and protect the right to privacy and freedom of expression, which are fundamental to the well-being of any society.

But the same thing that happens with any tool, it is neither good nor bad, but is defined by the use that is given to it and, unfortunately, on many occasions it is used for criminal activities or that injure the integrity or dignity of people.

As you can see, there are clear differences between Deep Web, Dark Web and Darknet. In summary, the Deep Web is the contents of the internet that are not indexed, and they are the majority. Darknet is an encrypted network * , to access which you require specific tools -and knowledge-. Lastly, the Dark Web is the sites hosted on the Darknet. We hope we have helped you clarify these three concepts.

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