The concept of the "deep Internet" appeared on the network due to the existence of an anonymization system in the form of free software called TOR (The Onion Router).
Operating principle
TOR is based on the second generation of the so-called "onion routing" - a system of proxy servers (nodes) scattered across all continents, which allows you to establish an anonymous network connection protected from eavesdropping. In fact, this system is a huge anonymous network that transmits data in encrypted form through many virtual tunnels. In addition to anonymization, TOR is also capable of providing protection against various traffic analyzing mechanisms, with the help of which it is possible to find out trade secrets and business contacts hidden from public access.
The TOR system was created by the US Navy Research Laboratory in conjunction with a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Free Haven project aimed at developing a secure decentralized storage system. In 2002, it was decided to transfer the source code of the secret development to independent programmers, who very quickly wrote a client application for it and published the source code under a free license. From that moment on, anyone could add their own lines of code to the system and test it for bugs and backdoors. At the moment, the TOR system has more than 339,000 lines of program code written mainly in C ++, C and Python, while the system is constantly being improved and supplemented with new comments. The network itself consists of about 5000 nodes, the number of its users exceeds 2 million people.
Using
Officially, the TOR network is used by many civil society organizations, law enforcement agencies, companies and corporations, military departments, social workers to ensure confidentiality and preserve the integrity of data.
Individuals use this network to bypass Internet censorship, create their own anonymous media and sites through services that hide the real location of web resources. Journalists and well-known global media use TOR to communicate with informants and dissidents
Also, the TOR network is actively used by all kinds of scammers, drug dealers, weapons, fake documents, etc., nationalists, hackers and pedophiles. It is worth noting that TOR is still unable to provide absolute anonymity, and therefore law enforcement agencies regularly catch the users described above and their clients.
