What is Hidden Wiki?

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We often hear a lot about dark web/deep web and hidden wiki. One big question then spurs up on our mind is what is hidden wiki. Hidden wiki as the name suggest is a collection of information. But this information is basically about the list of websites which are part of the dark web. These kinds of websites can be accessed using the tor browser where the user information remains anonymous.

History

As the history goes, the first hidden wiki was earlier operated through an onion pseudo top-level domain which is basically accessed by using either Tor or a Tor gateway. The main page provides a community maintained link directory to many hidden services which includes money laundering, contract killing, cyber-attacks and many other illegal activities. The first iteration of hidden wiki came to prominence sometimes before October 2011, which also portrayed its association with illegal content.

The Google and other search engines have indexed around 4.7 billion websites which is just around 1% of the total internet. The remaining 99% is what is called as the Deep web or the Dark web. Now this again brinks up to us the same question what is hidden wiki then. Is it the deep web or dark web? Is both deep web and dark web the same? To answer hidden wiki is both the deep and dark web, it’s a complete union of both these webs. Although deep web and dark web are similar they do have some differences.

Deep Web

What is hidden wiki? We know that it includes the deep web. But answering to it gives rise to another question, what is deep web? The deep web is the part of the internet whose contents are not indexed by any search engines irrespective of its reasons for non-indexing. The opposite of the deep web is the surface web which is accessible by most of the search engines and is indexed. Often people get confused between deep web and dark web considering them to be the same which is inaccurate. The deep web is a broader section which includes the entire dark web too. There are various reasons by which a web can land up into a deep web. These include non-index content types like:

  • Contextual Web – these are pages with content varying for different access contexts for example the I.P. addresses of the clients.
  • Dynamic content–These include dynamic pages which are returned in response to a submitted web query or are accessed only through form.
  • Limited access content – These include sites which have limited access to their pages like those using Robots Exclusion Standard or CAPTCHAs.
  • Non-HTML/text content – Those pages including textual content encoded in a multimedia format files or specific other file formats which are not handled by search engines.
  • Private Web – These include sites that requite specific registration and login to access their resources and content.
  • Scripted content – These include pages that are only accessible through links produced by JavaScript or any other scripting programming language.
  • Software–There are certain content which are intentionally hidden from the surface internet and can only be accessible using special softwares like Tor, I2P or other darknetsoftwares. The dark web can be placed in this set of categories.
  • Unlinked content – These include pages which are not linked to pages thereby prohibiting web crawling programs to access their contents. These contents are generally referred to as pages without backlinks which are also known as inlinks.

Darknet

What is the hidden wiki? As discussed and mentioned earlier it includes the darknet/darkweb.It can be described as any overlay network which can be accessed only with specific software, configurations or authorization and often use non-standard communications protocols and ports.

The darknet has two major categories as below:

Fiend-to-Friend Network

This is a type of peer-to-peer network where users make direct connections to people they know. Authentication is provided using passwords or digital signatures. Quite unlike the private P2P, users cannot find out who else is joining in their network beyond their circle of friends. Thus, it helps to build the F2F networks in size without compromising the security by maintaining users’ anonymity.

Privacy Network

The best example to access this kind of network is Tor software by which one can access the dark net. Themajor uses of darknets include:

  • Computer crime – this include crimes like hacking, file corruption etc.
  • It is used to protect dissidents from political reprisal.
  • Used in file sharing like personal files, pornography, confidential files etc.
  • Used to sell restricted goods
  • Used to purchase or sale of illicit goods and services.

Other than the few mentioned above there are numerous ways by which darknets are used.

People today are still confused with understanding what is hidden wiki, when it is also important to understand what the ethical are and security aspects of it. But on aspect of caution it’s important to know the do’s and don’ts before exploring the dark web.

Do’s:
  • To use the dark and deep web it’s important to install the application or browser by which you can access the web among which the most commonly used is Tor.
  • One should use the directories safely and quite responsibly. The hidden wiki is a directory with huge content that provides links to Onion websites with various services, secure email, secure social networks and many more.
Don’ts:
  • One shouldn’t get confused with the Deep web and dark web since they are quite separate.
  • One shouldn’t click any suspicious links and should be safe and not partake into any criminal activities.
The Last Words

Although we still aren’t much clear about what is hidden wiki and might have a high risk yet it is a wonderful place of information and content which yet most of the world have no access to. Just a part of advice is whenever someone uses the dark web one should take all necessary step to remain anonymous and protect their privacy and security by following the required processes to uses these networks.

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