While the dark web differs from the clear web in the substance of the content found there, the types of content are broadly identical in form.
We can distinguish seven typical forms of dark web site:
1 – forums and blogs
2 – trading sites
3 – news sites
4 – libraries
5 – code repositories (repositories),
6 – file hosting sites,
7 – directories and search engines,
This first part covers the first four types of content.
1 – Forums and blogs
The dark web allows complete freedom of tone. It is only logical, then, that a significant share of it should consist of spaces for individual expression (blogs) or community exchange (forums).
In form, dark web blogs are hardly different from those on the clear web. Some are fairly minimal and make do with an off-the-shelf template — the blogs hosted by Torpress, for instance. Others, though, are far more elaborate both functionally and visually.
Greek blog hosted by Torpress
Conditions of access to the Unethical Division site
Dark web forums, whatever the subjects discussed on them, are run in strikingly different ways. Some are not moderated at all: anyone can write anything, using (or usurping) any pseudonym. That was notably the case with the late Trollodrome and its present-day avatars.
Running a forum this way inevitably leads to excesses: defamation, doxing, abuse…
It also encourages massive bursts of unsolicited advertising, which quickly make the forum unreadable and even unusable.
Conditions of access to the Unethical Division site
Home page of the Trollodrome – Reborn, gone since August 2018
Conversely, some forums apply a very strict policy on moderation and on access alike. On many forums, registration is subject to the moderators’ approval.
It is sometimes conditional on draconian requirements, such as being sponsored by an existing member. Another possible requirement is writing a personal introduction demonstrating what the candidate can bring to the forum. A user’s account may also be deleted if they do not regularly post messages useful to the community.
2 – Trading sites
Many dark web sites offer goods or services in exchange for payment.
This can take the form of:
- an individual shop;
- a marketplace where multiple sellers operate;
- or a site accessed by paid subscription.
The Poison Shop, an individual shop
UnderMarket 2.0, a multi-seller marketplace
There is a wide variety of commercial offers.
Among the most widespread we may cite:
- dealing in private data or hacked bank accounts;
- selling weapons, drugs, fake banknotes, fake identity documents or fake diplomas;
- paid hacking courses;
- trade in child sexual abuse material.
Unscrupulous sellers are far from rare on the dark web. We therefore very often see marketplaces equip themselves with a transaction assurance service, known as escrow. That service is usually provided by a member of the community. It consists in this third party receiving and holding the amount of a transaction until the buyer has confirmed receipt of what they bought. This ‘trusted third party’ is paid by commission on the transactions they guarantee. It can occasionally happen that an escrow takes advantage of their position to hold up a great many transactions unduly before disappearing with the whole amount.
The escrow system on the DeepMarket site
3 – News sites
As on the clear web, the dark web has sites that relay information. Their editorial line is often strongly marked, at the far left as at the far right. There are, however, more neutral sites, including mirrors of clear web news sites. Others have no identifiable editorial line, such as the Saufça site.
Home page of the Saufça site
There are also sites specialising in news about the dark web itself, or about anonymisation technologies.
4 – Libraries
Large quantities of books in electronic form can be found on the dark web. Unlike trading sites, the content on offer is not necessarily sensitive. Censored works and dangerous content certainly turn up — manuals on making explosives or building flamethrowers on the Anarchist Bookstore site, for example.
The Bibliothèque Dissidente site
Some of the works offered
on the Anarchist Bookstore library site
Conversely, entirely innocuous works can also be found. In that case it is the disregard for copyright that appears to justify these libraries’ presence on the dark web. Stock market listings journals from the 1990s, for instance, can be downloaded from a German library’s site.
As you can see in the image opposite, one French site even offers the complete collections of several comic series (Astérix, Achille Talon, Ric Hochet…), school textbooks and many issues of the magazine Science et Vie Junior.
The various types of content catalogued here map out only part of the dark web landscape.
In a forthcoming article we will cover the other types of content, such as:
- search engines;
- code repositories;
- and file hosting sites.