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The dark web is as ominous as it sounds Margaret Cataldi The Prospector The internet is a vast and seemingly endless place, more immense than most people can even comprehend. Yet the common user has only explored about 1% of its total content. The remaining 99% is what is known as the deep web. The vast content is only accessible via a special browser and within its depths lies the infamous “black market” of the internet known as the dark web. In it, every sort of illegal paraphernalia imaginable lies at the user’s fingertips just a few clicks away. Special Agent Alex Bustillos of the El Paso Federal Bureau of Investigation uses the analogy of an iceberg to explain the deep web. “What you see above the ocean’s surface is essentially the internet that’s known today,” Bustillos said. The tip of the iceberg peeking out above the surface can be compared to the sites that we tend to access daily, such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and YouTube. “Right below that is your deep web and the deep web is where you’re going to find financial records, medical records, criminal records — things that are not typically accessible
Photo illustration by Teddy Baylón by the public,” Bustillos said. “Below that is the dark web, at the very bottom of the iceberg.”
In order to access the dark web, a computer requires a specific web browser or “onion browser” called Tor, a software that seeks to provide online privacy and freedom, which can easily be downloaded after a quick Google search. This is so that the IP address can be masked, making it difficult to track the user’s information. “Like layers of an onion that get peeled away, when you come into the dark web using this special browser, it strips away a layer of your IP address,” Bustillos said. “By the time you exit, your IP address isn’t the same as when you went in.” The anonymity that Tor provides created the perfect conditions for an ominous yet intricate hub of suspicious online activity. A popular destination with the dark web is what is known as the “Hidden Wiki.” This is essentially the internet’s black market in which one can find an endless catalogue of illegal items.
Once you start seeking out illegal items to buy or interacting with people that are trying to sell you illegal items … that’s when it becomes illegal. - ALEX BUSTILLOS special agent of the El Paso Federal Bureau of Investigation “I’m talking about child porn, guns, stolen electronics and identities, hitmen, unregulated blogs, free eBooks, any drug you can think of, you name it it’s all there,” said Gabriel, an undergraduate UTEP student asked for his last
see DARK WEB on page 3
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