dark web

A television commercial offers to find if your personal information is on the dark web.

The first time I saw that Experian commercial, I immediately said, "Well that's really stupid!" (Maybe I added a few colorful adjectives as well to my shouted out remarks.)

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Experian is preying on the fear of the dark web to sell their services. Let's just assume for the sake of this question that everything that is sold on the "dark web" is less than legal. (That's what Experian is implying.) Why would Experian have any special access to less than legal information, more so than anyone else? Does that make sense?

If Experian did have some sophisticated way of searching the dark web and finding less than legal databases of information, wouldn't they have a legal obligation to report their findings to the police or other government agencies, rather than offering this information as a service?

What information?

For the sake of this question, let's address the basic question of "what is the danger if your information is on the dark web?”

We all should be worried about all of our information on the deep web, just above "the evils" of the dark web.

Do a search on your name, does it bother you that your current address, age, employer, and contact information is so readily available on the public web? Does it bother you that there are so many websites on the internet, that are offering to sell you information about people?

If a hacker had downloaded an entire database of information illegally, why would they have the contents stored where someone could access it? (As Experian is implying.) Unless you are someone rich and famous where one single bit of information could be used to blackmail an individual, if a hacker steals a database, they are going to sell the entire database.

And you would trust Experian?

The phrase forbidden fruit typically refers to engaging in an act of pleasure that is considered illegal or immoral. That fits the mold of many questions I am often asked, such as what are some of the illegal or immoral websites you can find on the mysterious and mythical part of the internet known as the dark web.  The mysterious dark web, sometimes called the dark net, is the fuel for spy movies. it helped to create WikiLeaks run by the super spy Julian Assange and it allows cyber snitches like Edward Snowden share secret information. People are axious to know how to find what is hinding beneath the surface in the dark web.

According to remarks made by Roger Dingledine at a recently Philly tech conference, the overall perception of the dark web is more mythical than factual.  Roger Dingledine is an MIT-trained American computer scientist known for having co-founded the Tor Project, aka "the dark web."  Dingledine spoke at the Philly Tech Week 2017 putting some of the myths and legends of "the dark web" into perspective.

The worldwide network known as “the dark web” uses specially configured servers designed to work with custom configured web browsers with the purpose of hiding your identity. You will see the term Tor servers and web browsers to describe this private network. Tor originally stood for "The Onion Router."  The Tor Project, Inc is a Massachusetts-based research-education nonprofit organization founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Tor Project is primarily responsible for maintaining software for the Tor anonymity network.