What is the dark web?

The dark web is a part of the Internet made up of websites not indexed by search engines and theoretically possible to visit with complete anonymity.
It is used mainly for illegal activity.
Websites on the dark web cannot be found with normal search engines and instead must be accessed through certain browsers.
These special kinds of software grant the user anonymity by randomly routing data through encrypted servers, which disguises the data’s origins.
The birth of the dark web can be traced back to March 2000, when Irish grad student Ian Clarke created a software application called Freenet.
The platform allowed for anonymous and decentralized communication…
… an idea which the United States government built off of with the development of a similar encryption network called The Onion Router in 2002.
Although a U.S. intelligence agency created The Onion Router—known by its acronym Tor—as a tool to communicate anonymously…
… the software was eventually made open-source and maintained by a nonprofit called the Tor Project.
The Tor network grew in popularity with privacy advocates, journalists, and those living under repressive governments.
However, despite these positive uses, the anonymity of the Tor network began to be used as a shield for illegal activity.
The term dark web first appeared in a 2009 article to describe the illegal applications of the network, including sales of drugs, guns, and stolen information.
The rise of cryptocurrency allowed for the possibility of anonymous financial transactions…
… leading to the creation of what is believed to be the first dark web black market, called the Silk Road, in 2011.
But despite its high profile, the dark web makes up an incredibly small portion of the Internet, estimated to include as little as 0.01 percent of the entire World Wide Web.