In the beginning days of the public internet people only talked about the web. The other definitions and classifications of the web was not existing. You access and search all the information available through gopher, ftp or the http protocol. All the computers connected shared whatever needs to be shared on the public network. The users also accessed the full content which the content creator wanted to share. Later on blogs simplified hosting content on the public network. But this content was still searchable, thought the before creating the content you had to login to access the blogging provider services. Once you create a blog it was available to public consumption. One to one chats between users were normally not available to the general public and should be so.
Now there have been pretty various classifications and depths of the web. We all know the web which is searchable by the present search engines. Now people wanted to monetize the public network infrastructure. The ISP was always making money. Some content providers also wanted to make money. More than all these people there were people who provided infrastructure to use the public network in many other number of comfortable ways. This started the walled gardens of intermediaries who eased the use of the public network so that the number of content creators increased. For other people to access this content they should be a member of this walled garden otherwise the content here is not available to any user on the public network. Now this part of the web, i believe is larger than the visible web. What do you call this web which is behind closed doors? The term used here is the deep web. Now a banking website has to be hidden behind passwords, not content created by the general public. For the past few years majority of the content created on the internet is behind walled gardens which will not be available to the general public without keys to the locked doors.
Ok, now let us get on to one more classification of the web. The dark web. This is the most sinister compared to the other two classifications. In fact i would include the dark web as a subset of the deep web. Why, because both are not accessible by normal browsers which are used to access the visible portion of the public network. Anonymity and privacy are the corner stones of the internet. The visible network does not ensure either of it. So, is it a requirement for the visible network. Yes and No. Yes, it is requirement for people wanting to share knowledge and thereby getting the identification required. No, because the public network infra is also used for private communications among individuals and groups. There are applications which are trying to bring anonymity and privacy on the visible area of the internet. These again are resulting in walled gardens. The same application cannot be used to create content which is searchable on the visible internet. Though the content might be marked as public, it is public to all people inside the walled garden. It is solving only one issue that of ensuring anonymity and privacy for private communications. These technologies are not providing anonymity and privacy for content creators and consumers when required. This is solved by the portion of the public network called the dark web.
The technologies used to produce and access the dark web ensures anonymity and privacy for both the content creator and the consumer. The search engines doing searches on the dark web also have to ensure the same. Is there a requirement for such a setup? Am I the right person to comment on this? Have I got the right to write and talk about it? Should any general public talk about it? Should the general public know about it? Is anonymity and privacy a requirement only for pirates and terrorists? Should such setup be used only to buy and sell drugs, guns etc? This is the right platform for illegal porn, Should it be allowed? Is this portion of the web also to be policed? So many questions. What are the answers? Who will give the answers? Should the internet be modeled on the dark web technologies?
Now there have been pretty various classifications and depths of the web. We all know the web which is searchable by the present search engines. Now people wanted to monetize the public network infrastructure. The ISP was always making money. Some content providers also wanted to make money. More than all these people there were people who provided infrastructure to use the public network in many other number of comfortable ways. This started the walled gardens of intermediaries who eased the use of the public network so that the number of content creators increased. For other people to access this content they should be a member of this walled garden otherwise the content here is not available to any user on the public network. Now this part of the web, i believe is larger than the visible web. What do you call this web which is behind closed doors? The term used here is the deep web. Now a banking website has to be hidden behind passwords, not content created by the general public. For the past few years majority of the content created on the internet is behind walled gardens which will not be available to the general public without keys to the locked doors.
Ok, now let us get on to one more classification of the web. The dark web. This is the most sinister compared to the other two classifications. In fact i would include the dark web as a subset of the deep web. Why, because both are not accessible by normal browsers which are used to access the visible portion of the public network. Anonymity and privacy are the corner stones of the internet. The visible network does not ensure either of it. So, is it a requirement for the visible network. Yes and No. Yes, it is requirement for people wanting to share knowledge and thereby getting the identification required. No, because the public network infra is also used for private communications among individuals and groups. There are applications which are trying to bring anonymity and privacy on the visible area of the internet. These again are resulting in walled gardens. The same application cannot be used to create content which is searchable on the visible internet. Though the content might be marked as public, it is public to all people inside the walled garden. It is solving only one issue that of ensuring anonymity and privacy for private communications. These technologies are not providing anonymity and privacy for content creators and consumers when required. This is solved by the portion of the public network called the dark web.
The technologies used to produce and access the dark web ensures anonymity and privacy for both the content creator and the consumer. The search engines doing searches on the dark web also have to ensure the same. Is there a requirement for such a setup? Am I the right person to comment on this? Have I got the right to write and talk about it? Should any general public talk about it? Should the general public know about it? Is anonymity and privacy a requirement only for pirates and terrorists? Should such setup be used only to buy and sell drugs, guns etc? This is the right platform for illegal porn, Should it be allowed? Is this portion of the web also to be policed? So many questions. What are the answers? Who will give the answers? Should the internet be modeled on the dark web technologies?
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Nobody can deter me away from "free as in freedom" concept seeded by Sri RMS. See to it that u dont make fun of my belief. If u think otherwise, no need to comment.