How does the dark web work?

While the regular internet is built for speed and efficiency, the dark web is built for obfuscation.

It operates as an overlay network, meaning it is a private network built on top of the existing public internet infrastructure, but it requires specific tools like  Onion Router (Tor)—to access.

So, the dark web’s primary mechanism is Onion Routing.

In a standard web connection, your computer connects directly to a website’s server, making your IP address visible to that server.

In Tor network, your data takes a much more circuitous path.

When you use a Tor browser, it creates a circuit consisting of three volunteer-run servers (nodes):

Entry Node:

1. Your computer connects to this first.
2. It sees your real IP address but doesn’t know what you are looking for.

Middle Node:

1. This node receives data from the entry node and passes it to the exit node.
2. It knows where the data came from and where it is going next, but it never sees your original IP or final destination.

Exit Node:

1. This is final node.
2. It decrypts last layer of data and sends it to the target website.
3. It knows destination, but it has no idea who sent the request.

Why Onion Name?

The name “Onion” comes from how the data is packaged.

Before your request leaves your computer, the Tor browser wraps it in three layers of encryption, much like the layers of an onion:

• First layer can only be decrypted by Entry Node.
• Second layer can only be decrypted by Middle Node.
• Third layer can only be decrypted by Exit Node.

Because each node only has key for its specific layer, no single computer in the chain ever knows both source (you) and the destination (the website) at the same time.

These sites use the .onion top-level domain instead of .com or .org.

No Central Registry:

• Unlike regular domains, .onion addresses are not bought from a registrar like GoDaddy.
• They are generated cryptographically based on a public key.

Double Anonymity:

• When you visit a .onion site, traffic never leaves the Tor network.
• There is no “Exit Node” connecting to open internet.
• Instead, user and website meet at a Rendezvous Point inside the network.
• This ensures that website owner’s physical location and IP address stay hidden, just like the user’s.

Why dark web is so slow?

If you’ve ever used dark web, you’ll notice it feels like the internet from the 1990s.

This isn’t because the servers are bad; it’s a side effect of the security:

• Your data might go from a laptop in New York to a server in Germany, then to Singapore, and then back to a server in London.
• Encrypting and decrypting three separate layers of data at every hop adds significant latency (delay).

Limitations

Even with this sophisticated routing, dark web is not 100% anonymous.

• If you visit a website that doesn’t use HTTPS (the padlock icon), the person running the Exit Node can see your unencrypted data.

• Websites can sometimes identify you based on your screen resolution, installed fonts, or specialized browser settings rather than your IP address.

• Powerful entities (like government intelligence agencies) that monitor a large enough portion of the global internet can sometimes use timing attacks to correlate when a packet enters Tor network and when a corresponding packet exits it.