The “Deep Web”
Many Internet surfers are probably unaware that less than 1% of the Internet has been indexed by search engines. (No one knows the exact fraction.) This enormous, largely unknown mass of many terabytes of information is often called the “Deep Web” or the “Dark Web”. Some parts of it are indeed “dark” in that they are terrorist, criminal, or pornographic networks. But many other parts are perfectly legitimate.
I have previously posted about how new technologies may bring some of this hidden information to light. Recently, Andy Beckett wrote an article in the Guardian (UK) about the dark side of the Internet:
The darkweb”; “the deep web”; beneath “the surface web” – the metaphors alone make the internet feel suddenly more unfathomable and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: “darknet”, “invisible web”, “dark address space”, “murky address space”, “dirty address space”. Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a “darknet” is an online network such as Freenet that is concealed from non-users, with all the potential for transgressive behaviour that implies, much of “the deep web”, spooky as it sounds, consists of unremarkable consumer and research data that is beyond the reach of search engines. “Dark address space” often refers to internet addresses that, for purely technical reasons, have simply stopped working.
And yet, in a sense, they are all part of the same picture: beyond the confines of most people’s online lives, there is a vast other internet out there, used by millions but largely ignored by the media and properly understood by only a few computer scientists. How was it created? What exactly happens in it? And does it represent the future of life online or the past?
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