onion sites for a n00b

I swindled the NSA

Ive been reading a bit about these "dark web" .onion sites and am a bit curious

Is there anything of interest on there to a (fairly) law abiding citizen or is it all unsavory/illegal/extremist/dodgy/explicit stuff ?

_Tombstone_

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-legal-side-of-the-deep-web-is-wonderfully-bizarre

I swindled the NSA

Any recommended guides/links/lists of sites ?

jimgoose

There's some bad cholos knocking about on the dark web. If I were you I wouldnt bother. There's nothing there for decent folk.

I swindled the NSA

jimgoose wrote: »

There's nothing there for decent folk.

Which is why Im asking the question.

Im hearing all sorts of figures like "the dark web is x times larger than the surface web" If its true then surely it cant all be porn and legally questionable stuff ??

gouche

When people say 'dark web' they just mean sites and pages that are not indexed by search engines.
This is different to .onion sites which are accessible through the Tor browser and mostly filled with legally questionable content.

I swindled the NSA

So for a (fairly) law abiding citizen with no interest in porn .onion sites have little/nothing of interest to offer ?

Ive already experimented with TOR browser for regular sites and have pondered the ethics of setting up an exit/relay node to help other users. But were I to do this who would I be helping
1) Internet activists in repressive regimes wishing to protect their anonymity/privacy ?
2) Internet activists in somewhat less repressive regimes wishing to protest the intrusiveness of NSA/GCHQ/"The Man" ?
3) Terrorists/extremists/lunatics ?
4) Resistance partisans of the war on drugs ?
5) Child pornographers/illegal arms dealers/cybercriminals ?
6) All of the above ?

jimgoose

I swindled the NSA wrote: »

Which is why Im asking the question.

Im hearing all sorts of figures like "the dark web is x times larger than the surface web" If its true then surely it cant all be porn and legally questionable stuff ??

Internet search-engines have always computed an index of Web content and presented some sort of portal or "view" of the Web. Things are somewhat complicated now, and naturally ISPs and search engines will filter out much of the downright illegal stuff, and sometimes they're bate into it, i.e. the recent shenanigans with the various media companies over free downloading.

But even Google can't index the Deep Web stuff, for various reasons: because it's dynamically-generated in response to queries, living on anonymous onion-routed (network of anonymously-hosted websites "protected" by complex, convoluted encrypted routing. So named because the names of them end in ".onion") networks, unlinked, etc.

By no means is everything that goes on on the Deep/unindexed/onion-routed Web illegal, it is simply the on-line equivalent of walking around in Southill without a tracksuit.

There's a half-decent Wikipedia article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.onion#Onion_Sites

And here's a useful list of .onion sites to get a feel for things:

http://pastebin.com/ADTynHbX

Khannie

I swindled the NSA wrote: »

So for a (fairly) law abiding citizen with no interest in porn .onion sites have little/nothing of interest to offer ?

Ive already experimented with TOR browser for regular sites and have pondered the ethics of setting up an exit/relay node to help other users. But were I to do this who would I be helping
1) Internet activists in repressive regimes wishing to protect their anonymity/privacy ?
2) Internet activists in somewhat less repressive regimes wishing to protest the intrusiveness of NSA/GCHQ/"The Man" ?
3) Terrorists/extremists/lunatics ?
4) Resistance partisans of the war on drugs ?
5) Child pornographers/illegal arms dealers/cybercriminals ?
5) All of the above ?

All of the above, plus people like me who just don't like having their metadata sucked up by the government. When people ask me about the nasty things people use Tor for, I remind them that the telephone can be used to plan crimes, but we still use telephones.

"It's just metadata" is frighteningly disingenuous when trotted out by security agencies so I don't like giving mine away.

edit: Be careful about a decision to run an exit node though. It's a serious undertaking. You should probably start with a relay. These are the "layers" of the onion where an exit node is the last layer that does that actual processing of the request for a web site.

_Tombstone_

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-legal-side-of-the-deep-web-is-wonderfully-bizarre

Many many hours later, I take this back^^. This is b*llox.

Theirs feck all there and fewer people.

_Tombstone_

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Many many hours later, I take this back^^. This is b*llox.

Theirs feck all there and fewer people.

The Dark Web as You Know It Is a Myth


Researchers claim they’ve developed a better, faster Tor

DarkyHughes

I was watching a Y/T video about sites on Tor & a popular one seems to be the illegal sale of pretty advanced guns like Barret Sniping Riffles stuff like that & even some small bombs & hand grenades. Just out of interest anyone ever browse any of these sites & come across an Atomic Bomb for sale?

Stasi 2.0

Is it "safe" to use TOR browser for regular web activities such as any surface web sites requiring login (email, online banking etc) given that all ones traffic is going through someone else's computer (node)

What if one of these nodes is operated by a hacker or is compromised in some manner ?

_Tombstone_

Stasi 2.0 wrote: »

Is it "safe" to use TOR browser for regular web activities such as any surface web sites requiring login (email, online banking etc) given that all ones traffic is going through someone else's computer (node)

What if one of these nodes is operated by a hacker or is compromised in some manner ?

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2011-June/020639.html