Is the dark web illegal?
It is the question that arrives in the mind of most of the peoples when they hear about the activities that happen in the dark web.
Technically, it is just a part of the internet, which is highly secured and encrypted with various technologies that provide their users to access webpages anonymously. Since it is only a normal part of the internet, it can’t be illegal to browse it. There are no laws applicable to browsing the internet, so you can say that the dark web isn’t illegal at all.
But even if by mistake or without your knowledge, if you’re getting involved in illegal activities, you can be imprisoned and face legal issues.
I recommend you to read this article further to get a good understanding of the dark web and how to access it safely (If you want to).
What Is The Dark Web?
Whatever web pages we can access through the search engines comes under the surface web. Similarly, the web pages that are not accessible with search engines are considered as part of the deep web. All these pages in the deep web are easily accessible with an internet connection and Tor Browser.
On the other hand, if we talk about the dark web, so the dark web is a different kind of animal in the jungle of the internet. The dark web considered as the layer beneath the deep web. It is mightily encrypted with multiple layers of encryptions, technology, and securities. It is renowned because of the illicit activities performed there. There is no way a regular internet user can slip inside the dark web.
What’s The Difference Between The Deep Web & The Dark Web?
People often get confused between the deep web and the dark web and consider them the same thing. But in reality, the dark web is the scrimp part of the deep web.
Now the deep web is the biggest part of the internet (almost 90-95%), which just never gets indexed by the search engines. However, you can typically access it with a regular browser such as Chrome or Mozilla, with an internet connection. Deep web links are not get indexed because it shares some information that is only accessible for specific users.
Your mailbox and the facebook feed are the best examples of the website on the deep web. You can not find your inbox in search engines but can easily access it by a regular browser. It is used to protect the privacy of users. It is mainly used by government agencies, journalists, whistleblowers to keep their identity private while sharing sensitive information.
While the dark web is not available for everyone, if you want to browse it, you need some specialized software that supports onion routing technology such as TOR and Freenet. Because of the anonymity that the dark web offers, dealing in illegal things such as drugs and weapons, become much more accessible on this side of the internet.
What’s On The Dark Web?
The dark web mostly has illegal content hosted on their servers. It is the reason why it is famous with names like Dark Web, Shadow Web, and Black Web.
You can easily find illegal things like marijuana, fake college degrees, ricin, and similar dangerous poisons, drugs, plastic explosives, weapons, and many other illegal things that can lead you to imprison for almost half of your life. Along with it, the dark web is very popular because of the digital stuff such as hacked government data, social security numbers, fake college degrees, fake coupons, hacked account details, credit card details, counterfeit passports, and many other fake IDs.
Even you can hire a hitman as well for giving the contract of murders. Buying counterfeit money, Paypal accounts with loaded cash, hacked accounts of premium services such as Netflix, carded products, torture rooms are readily available on the dark web. Overall, it is the most dangerous place on the internet. And this nature attracts most of the users.
How To Access The Dark Web Safely?
Accessing the dark web is not that tough than making yourself untraceable.
Since we can’t access it with our regular browsers, we need the browsers specially created for the onion routing technology. TOR, I2P, Freenet are some of the popular options that he has. These browsers create multiple layers of IP addresses to mask your real identity. Also, it continuously changes the IP addresses of the layers to make it more complicated to trace.
However, I don’t trust these browsers entirely, and because of that, I suggest you use additional things to enhance the overall security. For this, you can use TAILS (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) OS along with best VPNs with the help of virtual machines like VMWare.
To set up it concurrently, first of all, install VMWare on your system and then install TAILS on it. Now close everything and restart your PC. After that, connect your PC with VPN (Avoid using the free one) and then open the TAILS in VMWare.
TAILS is a security-focused Debian based Linux distribution mainly created for performing tasks like accessing the deep web and other layers anonymously. It comes with TOR pre-installed, and it only supports anonymous connections. All the connections that are non-anonymous get blocked by it.
By using this technique, you can safely access the dark web without any issues.
Is It Illegal To Access The Dark Web?
No. Accessing the web pages available on the dark web ain’t illegal at all. But you can quickly get involved in illegal stuff because most of the webpages are unreadable, and just by a click, you can get into the trouble.
However, until you’re not leaving any footprints, you’re safe, but TOR can’t make you 100% untraceable, so I recommend using other securities along with TOR. Also, I suggest you get proper knowledge before getting into this world. And try to avoid in involving any activity. Bwosing is legal but if you perform any other activity apart from browsing, then accessing become illegal.
Now you know the answer of your question is the dark web illegal. Time to wrap this article. This article’s purpose is to provide information only. After reading this, whatever you do is your own resposbloty completely.
