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In October 2013, the FBI closed down Silk Road, considered then one of the most notorious online global black market sites and reportedly used by more than 100,000 buyers. The virtual platform for illicit services and contraband – everything from drugs to malware to forged passports – generated about $1.2 billion in sales from its reported launch in 2011 until its dissolution. 

It was also one of the best known examples of the "dark web," one of the deepest, intentionally hidden reaches of the World Wide Web used for both malicious and legal purposes. In a Congressional Research Service report (pdf) dated July 7, Kristin Finklea, a specialist in domestic security, provides a broad overview of the hidden layers of the Internet, focusing on the dark web and the challenges facing policy makers and law enforcement officials in fighting illegal online activity taking place in those virtual regions.

The dark web is just a deeper, stealthier part of what's called the "deep web" in which certain content such as private intranets and commercial databases like LexisNexis can't be indexed by search engines. While Finklea doesn't give a size and scope of the dark web, which can only be accessed through special software, she writes the deep web is estimated to be 4,000 to 5,000 times larger than the "surface web," which is the content that can be accessed through search engines like Google and Bing.

But the dark web, can only be accessed through specialized software through networks like Tor – which stands for "The Onion Router" and was originally created by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory – or I2P, also known as the Invisible Internet Project, according to the report recently made public by the Federation of American Scientists.

To navigate this realm, users can access directories such as the "Hidden Wiki" that organizes sites by category like Wikipedia. They can also use general search engines like Ahmia or specific ones like Grams that allows individuals to find illicit drugs, guns and other contraband, writes Finklea.

Anonymity is a major reason why people use the dark web whether it's to keep sensitive personal or business communications private, whether for illegal or legitimate reasons. Some individuals use it to access content that may be blocked by governments, while others like political dissidents use it to keep their communications and locations private.

Even journalists use Tor to communicate with whistleblowers and dissidents. For instance, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden reportedly used one operating system that runs Tor to speak with journalists and leak classified information, according to the CRS report.

Still, anonymity isn't "foolproof," Finklea writes. For instance, in October 2011, the hacktivist group Anonymous crashed a website hosting service that supposedly housed more than 40 child pornography sites. Anonymous matched digital fingerprints to one site and then launched a distributed-denial-of-service attack against Freedom Hosting, leaking usernames and other data for more than 1,500 members in the process.

And the dark web continues to be a platform for conducting a variety of malicious and criminal activities such as illicit goods sales, gambling, and child porn as well as services for hire such as thieves and assassins. But Finklea writes that data on the prevalence of such sites is lacking.

The law enforcement, military and the intelligence communities also use the dark web. For instance, the FBI use it to target hackers, online sexual predators and others. Since 2002, the agency has been using a computer and Internet protocol to compromise servers to identify certain Tor users. She writes that policy makers are questioning whether law enforcement officials have enough tools to fight such illegal activities.

The U.S. military uses the dark web to protect command and control systems in the field from being identified by enemies. It also uses it to study the environment around them or discover activities that present a risk to troops.

"For instance, evidence suggests that the Islamic State ... and supporting groups seek to use the dark web's anonymity for activities beyond information sharing, recruitment, and propaganda dissemination, using Bitcoin to raise money for their operations," writes Finklea. "In its battle against [the Islamic State], the Department of Defense ... can monitor these activities and employ a variety of tactics to foil terrorist plots."

Finklea writes that much of the scope and nature of the dark web, and deep web, is unknown. And while researchers have suggested there may not be much incentive for individuals to browse these areas, technology will likely "improve the stealthiness of darknets."

"As such, law enforcement and policy makers may question how best to contend with evolving technology such as encryption and the challenges of attribution in an anonymous environment to effectively combat malicious actors who exploit cyberspace, including the dark web," she concludes. 

For more:- read the CRS report about the Dark Web (pdf)

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Source: Who lurks in the 'dark web'? Criminals, terrorists, the military and more, CRS explains