Image by: Rudolf Olah

You’ve never heard of the deep web? Well, not many people have and it’s something I’ve only recently stumbled across. The deep web is like the Wild West – it’s lawless, and it exists outside the lovingly constructed social networks and content sharing sites we know and love.

By some estimates this ‘deep web’ is five times the size of the regular internet (this infographic is a good visual interpretation). According to some, the search engines that we all rely on are only searching around 0.03% of total information stored out there. Spooky.

So, let’s dig a bit, erm, deeper - what exactly is the deep web, who is using it, and what are they up to?

The What

Sites in the deep web are dynamic or unlinked content, private or limited access content or pages that are not written in HTML. They simply don’t get found by the likes of Google, Bing or Ask.

Most of the deep web consists of consumer and research data that is held by companies, but not publicised. The lack of regulation and near total anonymity of its users can offer the nefarious some salubrious opportunities...

Image by: Anonymous9000

The Who

Private companies, governments, political and other activist groups (such as Wikileaks and Anonymous) and of course, criminals – the deep web can be taken advantage of by criminal networks in a number of ways:
Spam - the deep web is many times bigger than the familiar internet; there is a lot of disused space so it is not uncommon for criminal networks to settle on a piece of the deep web, send out millions of bits of spam and then quickly disconnect.

Criminal hosting facilities – there are several on the deep web, allowing people to do some pretty unsavoury things. One of the main activities is the facilitation of identity theft by offering services such as email hacking and address and postcode searches.

The ‘dark market’ - you can buy a whole range of illegal drugs and other things. This system functions like any other e-commerce business, with the addition that most transactions utilise the ‘BitCoin’ system to maintain user anonymity.


The Future

So while the existence of an unlimited, Wild West style-world below Facebook may only now have made its way into your conscious, it is apparently already coming to an end.  Police are now insisting that even on the deep web you are likely to leave some traces of your activity.

And it’s not just the direct justice system - the internet will continue to become a more commercialised, profit driven behemoth, and search engines will adopt a much more regulatory role. The near future will see companies like Google and Kosmix pushing further and further into the uncharted frontiers of the deep web, and soon enough there will be nowhere to hide, begging the question:

Is the game finally up for the deep web cowboys?

Author Bio:
Elise Lévêque is a freelance translator who is obsessed with all things related to the internet and social media. Elise’s foray into the deep web came because she loves exploring and learning about new things. When not sipping coffees, dragging her boyfriend around London, or attempting a phone number lookup via Siri, Elise likes to blog for a number of different sites.