Instead of .com or similar, web addresses on the dark web end in 'd.onion'

The dark web can expose anonymous users to potentially dangerous environments

Browsing the dark web requires onion routing, which prevents visitors from being identified and the locations from which they connect from being traced. This has been useful to activists in environments affected by political oppression or instability. However, those unfamiliar with navigating the space may encounter malware and network attacks from denizen hackers.

The dark web cannot be stumbled upon by accident

Many pages on the dark web are not publicly broadcast and are available only to relevant parties on a need-to-know basis. Although some online directories list the URLs for these webpages, connecting to them still requires specialized software, as these pages block connections from traditional web browsers such as Chrome.

A US Department of Defense research lab developed the technology for the dark web

Although encryption existed to mask the content of communications across the internet before the 1990s, those managing overseas network infrastructure could determine a spy's affiliation based on where they saw data sent to and received from. To keep this information secret, the US Naval Research Laboratory developed onion routing, which enabled anonymized web browsing. The release of the technology to the public obscured sensitive communications further by growing the volume of anonymous data.

A 2020 study suggests just 6.7% of Tor network users visit sites on the dark web

It did not distinguish between visits to malicious sites and traffic to legitimate institutions with .onion domains, such as the BBC or Buzzfeed, and thus claimed that 6.7% of anonymized users engage in nefarious activity. The low percentage still highlights that most users of the technology underlying the dark web do not use it to browse the hidden portion of the internet.

The dark web makes up about 0.01% of all the data on the internet

The surface web (5%-10%) consists of indexed sites—those traditional search engines have visited and stored so users can discover them via web search. The remaining 90%-95% makes up the deep web, which is not indexed and includes email and banking portals that require login credentials. The dark web is unindexed and requires anonymizing software to visit.

As of April 2022, a million people access Facebook on the dark web monthly

While those using an anonymized web browser, such as Tor, have been able to access the social network's .onion site since 2014, the announcement marks a major milestone by the tech giant, which has worked to ensure its users can bypass restrictions by various governments and continue visiting the site.

Accessing the dark web is legal in the US, the EU, and most countries worldwide

As long as users do not pay for illegal goods or services or acquire illegal content, they cannot be prosecuted. Those on the dark web include academics, researchers, and cybersecurity experts gathering threat intelligence on cybercriminals, cyberterrorists, and state actors, as well as protesters, activists, and grassroots organizers.

Watch an ethical hacker provide a tour of the dark web

Cybersecurity researcher John Hammond explores the effectiveness of a dark web search engine, leaks from ransomware group data breaches, and a categorized index of dark web links, including some that are alleged to host malware. Many dark web sites are no longer active or host scams to fool unsuspecting visitors.

Explore content on the dark web safely with the Ahmia search engine

Endorsed by the Tor project, the 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit responsible for the software needed to navigate the dark web, Ahmia allows users to search known onion sites while blocking illegal and harmful content. Through the search engine, activists can learn where to anonymously send files to media outlets.

Onion routing disguises internet traffic in layers resembling a nesting doll

Data is encrypted at least three times before being sent to a node—a server that can only decrypt one layer. Then, the underlying encrypted data is relayed to another node, and the process repeats until all layers are decrypted. Thousands of possible nodes make it extremely difficult to trace activity within the system.

Fraud and identity theft are among the most common dark web-related crimes

Credit card information, driver's license or passport scans, and login credentials are among the data bought and sold on dark web marketplaces, which can appear there without users' knowledge through data breaches. Medical records can fetch higher sums of money for their potential use in blackmail and insurance fraud.

Domains were like real estate in the dot-com era

In the early days of the World Wide Web, users needed to type URLs directly in the search bar to navigate to webpages (as opposed to the more general keyword search that browsers use now). This made simple, short, and intuitive domain names a hot commodity. So having a domain name, like Pets.com or Rent.com, that was easy to find and understand was like owning prime real estate on the WWW. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

How the Domain Name System works and how it provides a directory for the internet

DNS translates domain names, such as join1440.com, into numerical IP addresses, such as 192.0.2.1, which computer systems use to determine what content a user is looking for across the World Wide Web, making navigation easier for the vast majority of users. Web outages can occur if the DNS servers making these translations become inaccessible.

View the ecosystem of global services, organizations, and agencies behind the internet

Through an open, transparent, and collaborative model built on open standards development and shared global ownership, the internet is kept freely accessible amid evolving international policies. Key organizations, such as IANA, which allocates IP addresses and fulfills administrative functions for the Domain Name System, function as non-profit organizations.

Web3 is the successor to our current version of the Internet

Web1 (existing roughly from 1990 to 2005) was about decentralized and community-governed open protocols. Most of the value accrued to the edges of the network: users and builders. Web2 (roughly 2005 through 2020) was about siloed, centralized services run by corporations.

The names of comets can change based on subsequent observations

The International Astronomical Union's coded naming system uses the first letter to indicate a comet's category, which can change over time. "D" represents comets that have been lost or broken up, while "A" applies to former comets that are now asteroids or dwarf planets.

Pizzagate alleged a neighborhood pizza joint was hosting a sex trafficking scheme

During the 2016 presidential elections, Comet Ping Pong Pizza became the subject of a conspiracy theory that the Clinton family used the space as a front for kidnapping and trafficking children. The hoax began on the message board 4chan after the public became aware that the shop's owner was a Democratic donor.

This online magazine runs on a solar panel, sometimes going offline

The publication's solar-powered server in Barcelona means the site goes dark when clouds roll in. It's designed as an intentional statement about energy and digital infrastructure. The magazine features essays advocating for the adoption of pre-industrial or low-energy solutions to modern problems.

Has your information been compromised on the internet?

Have I Been Pwned allows you to search across multiple data breaches to see if your email address or phone number has been compromised.

View the codenames given to Linux kernel releases, from 'Woozy Numbat' to 'ninja sloth'

While each version is assigned a code, such as 6.8.0-rc7, animal codenames provide more memorable, fun identities for each version. Some Linux distributions have also adopted this philosophy and have used alliterative nicknames to convey the distro's characteristics, such as Ubuntu's "Warty Warthog," described as "functional if not pretty."

Fan fiction relies on tropes and subgenres

Fan fiction sites often appear to be littered with inscrutable codewords, with stories labeled as "AU," "drabble," or "PWP." These alert readers to elements of a fan fiction: "AU" is an alternative universe narrative; "drabble" is a very short story; "PWP" stands for "plot? What plot?"

Sexy radishes, big-time LOL

This kind of high-quality content is exactly the reason why Al Gore invented the internet. Open this post see the best collection of sexy radishes in the world!

What is Silicon Alley?

The term "Silicon Alley" refers to an area in New York City once known for its high-tech startups, especially during the dot-com boom. Silicon Alley ran from New York City's Flatiron District through Soho to the Financial District. After the dot-com bubble burst, tech companies spread out through the rest of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Learn more about the area and how it compared to Silicon Valley in this article.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Onion stuck with satire

Although other comedians believed anything lighthearted in the wake of the attacks was inappropriate, The Onion, a satirical newspaper, decided to do what it always did. That issue’s top story was a headline that would go down in comedy history.

Decentralized autonomous organizations organize on the blockchain

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are typically formed with a specific goal in mind. ConstitutionDAO, for instance, was made to raise funds to buy a copy of the US Constitution (it failed).

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.