The most compelling part of Tor is it's without social networks, ads, or javascript. A thin presentation layer makes content or functionality the prime focus.
No third party SSO or share widgets and no need to upload a picture or give your legal name.
The userbase of each site is small enough to be an open free-form community and the volume of content (especially because things like reposts and social media don't really play) is pretty manageable and non-repetive!
Most sites are run by volunteers who aren't under the pressures of a VC round but instead just want to keep the community going. sizes are generally > 10 and < 1,000.
Worrying about convergence, SEO, "download our app/sign up for our email" dialogs, html5up pitch pages with marketing fluff, fade-to-black video ad overlays --- all that modern cruft is completely absent. It's so refreshing.
"One would think that if you're anonymous you can do anything you want. But people have their own sense, you know, of community and what we can do" he goes on... "If this is the only way they can talk to somebody, this is how they'll do it."
THAT web - the anti-establishment one - it's called Tor - a tool for the human spirit.
The "darknet" can't be that big. Tor has limited bandwidth. Total bandwidth exiting from Tor is about 7Gb/s.[1] That's about 1000 video streams for the whole world.
If by "darknet" you mean Tor hidden services, then exit relays are not used. The circuits are client->guard->middle->middle->middle->middle->guard->hidden service. The bandwidth bottleneck for hidden services is probably guards, because all relays can be used as middles. Because relays with the Exit flag are used exclusively for exiting (due to the position weights [0], e.g. Wgd/Wed/Wmd), an estimate of the guard bandwidth is the weight of those with only the Guard flag, or ~40Gbps.
It's strange how they always identify "Darknet" as Tor. There are other darknets like SIPRnet, JWICS, etc, and basically anything non-government groups want to spin up for their own purposes.
I always thought that Dark Web was sites that weren't indexed by Google, etc al., but reachable via a standard browser & Dark Net was sites reachable only via Tor. Do I have it wrong?
"Deep web" refers to sites that aren't indexed by search engines. A synonym is "invisible web"
"Darknet" refers to "overlay networks that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, often using non-standard communications protocols and ports." Tor is an example of a darknet. There are many others (someone else mentioned SIPRnet as one).
"Dark Web" refers to websites on a darknet. Dark web, by definition, is part of the deep web. Tor hidden services are part of the dark web.
Rolling Stone is wrong when it says "The Darknet (sometimes called the Dark Web)" that's analogous to saying "The Internet (sometimes called the World Wide Web)."
I have to ask, did you read through the entirety of the article before making this comment? I found it fairly balanced, compared to previous coverage I've seen.
[+] [-] kristopolous|10 years ago|reply
No third party SSO or share widgets and no need to upload a picture or give your legal name.
The userbase of each site is small enough to be an open free-form community and the volume of content (especially because things like reposts and social media don't really play) is pretty manageable and non-repetive!
Most sites are run by volunteers who aren't under the pressures of a VC round but instead just want to keep the community going. sizes are generally > 10 and < 1,000.
Worrying about convergence, SEO, "download our app/sign up for our email" dialogs, html5up pitch pages with marketing fluff, fade-to-black video ad overlays --- all that modern cruft is completely absent. It's so refreshing.
Tor's like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxqfgIDvEY [CBC Archives: The Internet 1993].
To quote @ 2:10:
"One would think that if you're anonymous you can do anything you want. But people have their own sense, you know, of community and what we can do" he goes on... "If this is the only way they can talk to somebody, this is how they'll do it."
THAT web - the anti-establishment one - it's called Tor - a tool for the human spirit.
[+] [-] Animats|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://metrics.torproject.org/bwhist-flags.html
[+] [-] ohmygodel|10 years ago|reply
[0] https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/plain/dir-spec.txt
[+] [-] mynameishere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mintplant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordsmi|10 years ago|reply
Nowadays when people say darknet they mostly just mean the marketplaces
[+] [-] MikeNomad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nommm-nommm|10 years ago|reply
"Darknet" refers to "overlay networks that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, often using non-standard communications protocols and ports." Tor is an example of a darknet. There are many others (someone else mentioned SIPRnet as one).
"Dark Web" refers to websites on a darknet. Dark web, by definition, is part of the deep web. Tor hidden services are part of the dark web.
Rolling Stone is wrong when it says "The Darknet (sometimes called the Dark Web)" that's analogous to saying "The Internet (sometimes called the World Wide Web)."
[+] [-] nols|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fiatjaf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mintplant|10 years ago|reply