In spite of this, Tor has a much more noble history, often used by whistleblowers to expose government corruption or by regular people to circumvent oppressive government censorship in places like Uganda or, rather famously, China. It often gets a bad reputation for being used for criminal activity, such as buying and selling narcotics from sites like the infamous Silk Road or the recently shut-down AlphaBay.ĭon't Miss: How to Keep Your Internet Traffic Private from Anyone Tor's intended purpose is to protect user's privacy through anonymity. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will talk about the most popular and widely known network, Tor. Three of the most popular dark web networks are I2P, Freenet, and Tor.

(Hint: Using Tor is not enough.) The Wonders of the Dark Webįirst off, we should establish that the term 'dark web' refers to overlay networks running on top of the normal internet infrastructure, which need special permission or custom software to access. To help you out with that, this guide will cover some need-to-know information for traversing the dark corners of the internet while keeping your identity and data safe. The dark web is an intimidating place for a newbie hacker, but it's a powerful tool once you've learned to navigate it safely.

Tor web link