From child pornography to arms sales, not to mention human trafficking, there has been a dark side lurking on the Internet for years now, where the virtual becomes dangerously real. To bring clarity to the issue of Deep Web e Dark Web we interviewed Eva Claudia Cosentino, Director of the National Center for Combating Online Child Pornography (C.N.C.P.O.), of the Postal and Communications Police Service, who mentioned how often these two terms are confused with each other. In most cases, in fact, they are “mistakenly used as synonyms, when in fact they are structurally different ‘virtual territories’.”
Deep Web and Dark Web: two terms too often confused
“The Dark Web,” Cosentino explained, “is a small part of the Deep Web. Both are hidden, but the Deep Web is accessible only by authentication, while the Dark Web, in addition to being private, requires ad hoc servers to access it. Specifically, the term Deep Web or ‘invisible web,’ or about 96 percent of the Internet, refers to the spaces that are not indexed by common search engines. Each of us surfs the Deep Web daily, without realizing it. This is the so-called ‘private’ part of the network — e.g., data saved on the cloud, e-mail, forums, databases, etc. – i.e. any resource that, not being public, requires an authentication mechanism to be viewed, such as e-mail and passwords. All it takes is any browser to enter the Deep Web.”
The Dark Web and its endless darknets
What does the Dark Web indicate? “The most hidden part of the network (about 0.1 percent), which, in addition to being ‘private,’ cannot be reached by ordinary browsers, but only through special software, because it relies on network architectures programmed to anonymize communications (darknet). It is a set of data and content made intentionally invisible.”
Cosentino also pointed out that “the Dark Web consists of countless darknets, reachable only through specific software or particular network configurations, such as Tor (The Onion Router), which can be accessed through the browser of the same name or proxy servers configured to perform the same function. Tor uses a layered, onion-like mechanism; data in transit is encrypted on multiple layers, allowing only the sender and recipient to read it. Most of the sites on Tor’s darknet have .onion domains and trade in cryptocurrency (bitcoin, etc.).”
The Onion Router: by whom it is used
“The Onion Router was created to protect the privacy of browsing and users and, because of this characteristic, is not only used by those who need to escape the meshes of those regimes that implement censorship, but is often exploited to carry out criminal activities in the black market and, in particular, exchange of child pornography, human trafficking, buying and selling illegal goods and services, such as drugs, weapons, false documents, and even hit men.”
Facilitating certain criminal conduct is certainly theanonymity denoting the darknet, “a feature that does not allow for traditional investigative activities aimed at identifying criminals and has required operators to employ new working methodologies, as well as strategies aimed at de-anonymizing users, as well as managing and analyzing the conspicuous computer traces.”
The Dark Web and Child Pornography
“In the context of online child pornography offenses, the introduction of a special aggravating circumstance in the case of using means to prevent the identification of access data to telematic networks represented an important adjustment of the legislation to the evolution of virtual pedophile communities. In this scenario, undercover mode activities carried out in the network by the operators of the National Center for Combating Online Child Pornography (C.N.C.P.O.) constitute an effective operational tool, as they enable practitioners to interact with the Internet users involved and delve into the relevant dynamics. Such investigations are aimed at disarticulating virtual communities of pedophiles and, therefore, are always particularly complex and time-consuming, both because it takes time to gain accreditation in these environments and win the trust of the subjects who are part of them, and because they, as mentioned, make use of anonymization techniques, aimed at concealing computer traces useful for their identification.”
Obviously, since users are anonymous, “it is not possible to comprehensively survey the typology of darknet users, although they are predominantly individuals with greater computer skills and higher danger profiles. However,” Cosentino concluded, “as part of the fight against online child pornography, an attempt has been made to profile the individuals who have been identified as a result of the investigations, and they are men of all ages and social backgrounds, unsuspected professionals, fathers of families and singles, teachers and psychologists, etc., approached only by the common interest they show in the subject.
