Tor and Darknet

It comes as no surprise that with the recent news of the NSA spying scandals, many people are flocking to find better ways to protect themselves and make their browsing more private. Tor has been around for quite a while and so had the darknet. Their numbers grow each day as more and more people learn about each one. The darknet or deep web shows the more the hideous side of the internet.

Tor is a simple to use tool to promote your privacy while browsing. It comes equipped with its own browser and a couple of other nifty features that many people may be interested in. So how does it work? Tor sends your data through the "onion relay" which consists of thousands of computers. Not stopping there, it constantly encrypts all data usage as well. These relays are all set up by volunteers and not surprisingly, used by law enforcement and certain branches of the government. The navy themselves use it for intelligence gathering while law enforcement uses it as well so they don't leave a government IP address.

Darknet is where things go south. These sites consist of black market items, drugs, bitcoin and bitcoin scams, and of course child porn. Darknet typically consists of websites that never show up in search engine and you must use Tor to connect to them. One of the more popular ones that was recently shutdown was Silkroad. Here you could purchase any drug you wanted. Gone were the days of finding or getting screwed over by your typical street dealer. With just a few clicks and a few days later, you were ready to take some LSD and blast some Jefferson Airplane. But no, the government found it and arrested the owner. Such a shame as now we'll all be back to getting screwed over by those street dealers. That is until another silk road website pops up.

Tor promotes safety and security, and it has its advantages. I, like many others, often use it for this purpose.  The Tor project was created with the best of intentions. But just because there's a few bad apples out there doesn't mean the whole thing is bad. People will take advantage of anything. But as long as the Tor project exists, it stays on my pc.