THE DARK NET

  How to Stay Anonymous Online

  – Even from the NSA

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Exploring the Web’s Underbelly

  Chapter 2: The Evolution of the Darknet – The Birth of Tor

  Chapter 3: How Tor Works

  Chapter 4: Accessing the Tor Side of the Darknet

  Chapter 5: Additional Precautions to Take When Using Tor

  Chapter 6: Using VPN With Tor for Added Protection

  Chapter 7: Creating a Hidden Service Tor Site

  Chapter 8: Other Viable Alternatives to Tor

  Chapter 9: The Lawlessness that Grips the Darknet

  Chapter 10: Dark Net Links That Works

  Conclusion

  Introduction

  I want to congratulate and thank you for downloading my book, “The Dark Net – How to Remain Anonymous Online – Even from the NSA”.

  Nowadays, privacy and anonymity are mere figments of our imagination, especially when it comes to our online presence. Private browsing or going incognito has become a myth – nothing more than a thing of the past. People can still trace your IP address and identify the sites you’ve visited as well as your logins. And even if you have deleted all the cookies from your browser and erased your browsing history, the search engines record all your searches and even announce the number of times you’ve searched for a keyword. Worst, your internet provider has a tab on all your online activities.

  The sad truth is, once you hook up to the internet, you can be tracked – your files can be accessed, and your browsing habits can be identified and highlighted. A profile can be drawn and culled from your browsing habits and online preferences which shall serve as the basis for advertisers to bombard you with their targeted ads. You are also not safe from NSA and FBI spying, both of which have made it their sworn duty to track all surfing activities and snoop on everything everyone is doing online.

  Admittedly, there are some people who couldn’t care less whether their online activities are being tracked or not. But, for many others who value their privacy more than anything else, this is a serious problem that needs immediate solution. The good news is, there are ways you can prevent people from prying into your online presence while keeping your activities invisible from the eyes of other people with malicious intent – including the NSA.

  This book will introduce you to the underbelly of the internet called the Deep Web which you never knew existed before. Here, you can remain completely anonymous and surf undetected. It contains step-by-step instructions as well as various techniques you can use to make you invisible. This book outlines all the different remedies and strategies that are available to you and explains in clear terms what each one can do and the level of security each one provides, thus giving you the opportunity to choose what will work best for you.

  I hope this will provide you with the most suitable option to remain anonymous online and protect your privacy.

  Thanks once again for downloading this book!

  Chapter 1

  Exploring the Web’s Underbelly

  Many people are still unaware that there is a hidden portion of the internet which exists in the underbelly of the 'surface web' (that part of the world-wide web which you can easily access via Google and other search engines, as well as with the use of typical browsers such as Chrome). The 'surface web' is just the tip of the ‘iceberg’ we call the world-wide-web. In fact, 96% of it lies beneath this surface.

  If you are wondering why this is so, it is because search engines only crawl and index a small percentage of the Internet. The bulk of information remains hidden – left un-crawled and unindexed by search engines and therefore unsearchable. Google and other search engines deemed them to be irrelevant to majority of internet users. Or, they are simply barred from crawling these contents.

  The Deep Web

  This hidden portion of the internet known as the ‘deep web’ is not accessible to ordinary internet users. It represents that part of the internet that Google and the other search engines cannot index because they are prevented from doing so due to the presence of robot texts or some well-placed encryptions. It is believed that the contents of the ‘deep web’ is five hundred times larger than the ‘surface web’. It includes members-only websites, huge multilingual databases, government resources, repositories of various organizations, and online libraries containing academic information, scientific reports, legal documents, and the like which prohibits access to the public. You can, however, access some of its contents using alternative search engines like Google’s ‘Deeper Web’, ‘TorSearch’, ‘Freenet’, and various solutions by Deep Web Technologies.

  The Dark Web

  The dark web (better known as the dark net) is a much smaller part of the deep web that is deemed the anonymous Internet. It is that part of the deep web that is purposely hidden and made accessible only with the use of special tools, browsers, and credentials that use protocols that circumvent direct links.

  Technically speaking, a darknet is an overlay network (a network built on top of another network) that is specifically set up for anonymity. It occupies a routed allocation of the deep web that cannot be accessed through the usual means. You cannot enter the darknet by just typing a dark net address on a typical browser. The term ‘Dark net’ may refer to either a single private network that has been specifically configured for anonymity or to the whole collection of such private networks similarly created to ensure that their IP addresses and the network itself is not discoverable.

  The darknet works much like a virtual private network (VPN) which uses multi-layered security measures, specifically the VPN tunneling protocols where data is encrypted before they are transmitted through an encrypted tunnel that links two sites. However, the dark net has additional security measures in place not only to make sure that the network and IP remains invisible to unwanted guests, but also to hide the actual communication and the exchange of information between its users. The idea is to allow users to share files and exchange data completely undetected by others.

  There are several darknets in existence today. However, to get in into any of these sites, the user needs to use the same encryption tool used by the site itself. The more popular dark nets include The Onion Router Network (better known as Tor Network), the Freenet Network, and the I2P Anonymous Network. As we will explain in detail in the subsequent chapters, these anonymous networks are completely decentralized where traffic is coursed through a series of volunteer-run servers that are widely and randomly spread across the Internet landscape. They all employ a complex routing system which makes it almost impossible to trace the exchange of information between its users.

  The Tor Network uses The Onion Router which channels traffic through a series of virtual tunnels across a network of widely- and randomly-distributed servers run by volunteers. With the Tor Network, the user's real IP address is made to bounce across several security layers to make it appear that it is at another IP address. The same thing goes to the Tor website the user is visiting. This is on top of the already-anonymous browsing activity provided by the Tor browser.

  The Freenet Network makes use of the Freenet tool, an open-source software which allows users to publish anonymous ‘Freenet’ sites which are accessible only with the use of the Freenet browser. It allows the sharing of files, chatting in forums, and random browsing with almost complete anonymity by routing traffic through a series of encrypted Freenet nodes.

  The I2P Anonymous Network, also known as the Invisible Internet Project from which the name I2P was derived, is another peer-to-peer network built on top of the Internet specifically to guard against monitoring and dragnet surveillance by third parties. It is designed to handle traditional Internet activities such sending email, web browsing, blogging, site hosting, file sharing, real-time chat, and many others – again, in almost complete anonymity. I2P is the home of the now infamous and newly resurrected Silk Road.

  Apart from these popularly known dark nets, there are many more sites that were created purposely for clandestine activities like the illegal sharing of protected files and copyrighted materials, distribution of pirated software, and dissemination of illicit materials such as child pornography. This is the darker side of the Dark Net we should be wary about. It is home to covert marketplaces like Silk Road where drugs, stolen credit card numbers, illegally-acquired firearms, and more are bought and sold. There is an even darker corner of the dark web where you can hire hitmen and engage in human trafficking.

  As you make your cursory journey through the Dark Web, you will notice that most of the Dark Net sites uses the Tor encryption tool. That is why much of the emphasis in this book will be about how to access the Dark Net using the Tor encryption tool.

  Chapter 2

  The Evolution of the Darknet – The Birth of Tor

  With over 175 million sites in the onion router network, it is not surprising that the Tor browser has become the most commonly-used, the most popular, and the most downloaded encryption tool for accessing the dark web. It has even come to the point where in most cases, when someone says he had just surfed the dark net, what he truly means is he had just visited the Tor Network and dropped by some Tor sites.

  As we mentioned in the earlier chapters, the Dark Net has other sites that cannot be reached using the Tor browser. You need to use the same encryption tool used by the site itself. But since there are more websites with a dot onion (.onion) extension, it would help us appreciate what the darknet is all about if we know its origins (particularly about how, why, and who started the ‘onion routing project’).

  The TOR Dark Net Origins

  In 1969, Pentagon developed ARPANET, the precursor to today’s Internet. And, as soon as they made it public, a small number of secretive networks began to crop up and existed alongside of it. They were piggy backing on the rapidly developing technology of the Internet, injecting their own innovations so they can operate freely – away from the prying eyes of the public. They became the infantile Internet’s dark net.

  While the public remained oblivious to their existence, their clandestine operations did not escape the curious eyes of the people behind the Research Laboratory of the United States Navy. At that time, the U.S. Navy was looking for ways to communicate intelligence and defense data securely and anonymously with their operatives both here and abroad via the fast-evolving Internet.

  By 1995, drawing inspiration from the small secretive networks which became robust as the Internet developed by leaps and bounds across time, the U.S. Navy began its Onion Router Project which gave birth to TOR (The Onion Router).

  TOR’s architecture was designed to conceal not only the location and the IP addresses of users, but also to keep the communication itself under wraps. For a while, the deployment of TOR was limited to the Military, the law enforcement agencies, and the government who found good use for it in conducting extremely confidential negotiations with their foreign counterparts.

  It was in mid-1996 that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory finally had their onion router system in place. They gave the public free access to it to demonstrate the concept underlying the anonymous onion routing system. However, it was still hosted on a single server in the U.S. Navy lab. They merely created virtual relays to show how the concept works. At the same time, they formally published Tor and made their presentation in the presence of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) personnel who decided to fund the onion router project in 1997 so they can continue their research. However, by 1999, they ran dry on funds, thus forcing them to suspend the project. The project proponents, together with the developers, decided to leave the agency.

  Paul Syverson who used to work for the U.S. Navy’s Center for High Assurance Computer Systems and is also one of the original developers of the onion router, decided to go on with the project despite the absence of funding. He had one goal in mind – to protect government agents tasked with gathering intelligence data via the internet.

  In the year 2000, he recruited two MIT graduates with superb research experience and excellent academic background. The first one is Roger Dingledine whose graduate work is centered on building an anonymous publishing system online. He eventually became the team leader of the onion router project. The second one is Nick Mathewson who is also a researcher and developer. He became one of the project’s directors.

  Two years later, in 2002, the network that became more popularly known as Tor was deployed and its code released, allowing the public to use it freely. The idea is not to limit the use of the network to just one entity (the government) as this does not make it truly anonymous. Distributing the benefits of an anonymous communication network to more users will put the onion routing concept to a real acid test.

  One year after the deployment of Tor (in 2003), about 12 Tor nodes were created by volunteers from the United States and Germany. After yet another year (2004), the number grew to over a hundred Tor nodes widely spread across three continents. The hidden wiki was set up after which hidden location services began to be deployed. Notably, as soon as the Tor software was made public, shadowy Tor domains started to crop up too. They included sites that deals on prohibited drugs, terrorism, and child pornography.

  All the way up to 2011, Tor usage continued to balloon and the Tor Network grew bigger, creating close to 2,000 Tor nodes across the globe. Today, more than six thousand Tor nodes around the globe. Varied

  Six thousand and counting, that’s the number of Tor nodes that is currently operational all over the globe today; and the anonymity the onion router provides is put to good use by the military, law enforcement agencies, journalists, politicians, political activists, and many others.

  The main objective underlying the onion router project is to put together a distributed network of computers located in different places to form a cryptographic circuit. Syverson’s original idea is to solicit the participation of independent volunteers who don’t even know what onion routing is all about so that the network won’t be compromised.

  Chapter 3

  How Tor Works

  Today, Tor is already in its third generation. To hide the identities and the activities of its users, the system uses a routing process where separate cryptographic keys are created for each segment of the information flow. These cryptographic keys are purposely created to be short lived to prevent anyone from retrieving old traffic to decrypt it. It then makes the encrypted communication ricochet across a network of volunteer-run computers which act as relays. This way, if the NSA succeeds in taking down one node, the rest of the system won’t be compromised. The original design of the onion router, a single node run by a hostile operator, can take a snap shot of all the traffic – thus compromising the whole system. The third-generation Tor has solved this and kept the NSA continually frustrated.

  From a technical point of view, the way Tor ensures privacy is by keeping identities separate from routing. Normally, when you go online, your router or your laptop is given its own IP address. Every online activity emanating from your router or from your laptop sends out this IP address as the end-point where your requested information will be sent. Whether you like it or not, your IP address becomes a unique identifying mark with which all your online activities can be traced quite easily.

  In the Tor Network, however, all your communications (including the URL of the site you type on the browser) do not follow a straight path directly to the site from whom information is requested. Instead, each request is made to bounce through three or more of the Tor nodes run by volunteers before making an exit from the network and subsequently sends the requested data to the intended destination.

  The Tor process uses multi-layered encryption, which is nested much like layers of onion skin. It encodes the data along with the destination site not once but multiple times before bouncing it to several Tor nodes selected at random. Each node decodes only a single layer of coded data and then passes on the remaining encrypted data to other nodes, which in turn decrypt the multi-layered encryption one by one. It is the final node cracks the last encoded layer (innermost), revealing the original message which is then sent to the intended recipient without unravelling, or revealing, the IP address of the data source.

  The darknets other than Tor which we mentioned earlier use pretty much the same process of transmitting data anonymously.

  This way, the site from which information is requested won’t be able to know the IP address of the requesting party, much less trace its origin. It is only at the instance when one enters the Tor circuit and makes the request for the first time that the IP address of the requesting party is identifiable. Thereafter, the communication goes through several Tor-initiated actions, winding and bouncing across several relays that cloaks the IP origin of the request – making it completely undetected. This, however, will also slow things down significantly. On top of that, by default, the Tor settings also disable some functions – obviously, for security reasons. This includes the plugins that allow you to access and view videos on your browser. This is of no consequence though, since you can easily turn them back on when you go back to regular browsing.

  Apart from allowing you to surf the surface web anonymously, Tor also has what are known as the ‘hidden services’. This is the hidden layer of the Tor network which constitutes the Tor dark net. This is a collection of sites with the dot onion extension (.onion) which cannot be accessed using regular browsers. You need the Tor browser to access these sites. If the regular internet traffic goes through three pathways (or hops), the hidden services traffic goes through six or more hops to conceal ongoing communications to and from sites.

 

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