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Type of site | Internet directory |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Current status | Ambiguously forked |
The Hidden Wiki was a dark web MediaWiki wiki operating as a Tor hidden service that could be anonymously edited after registering on the site. The main page served as a directory of links to other .onion sites.
The first Hidden Wiki was operated through the .onion pseudo-top-level domain which can be accessed only by using Tor or a Tor gateway. [1] Its main page provided a community-maintained link directory to other hidden services, including links claiming to offer money laundering, contract killing, cyber-attacks for hire, contraband chemicals, and bomb making. The rest of the wiki was essentially uncensored as well and also offered links to sites hosting child pornography and abuse images. [2]
The earliest mention of the hidden wiki is from 2007 when it was located at 6sxoyfb3h2nvok2d.onion. [3]
A well known iteration of the Hidden Wiki was founded some time before October 2011, coming to prominence with its associations with illegal content. [4]
At some point prior to August 2013, the site was hosted on Freedom Hosting. [5]
In March 2014 the site and its kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion domain was hacked and redirected to Doxbin. [6] Following this event, the content began to be mirrored to more locations. During Operation Onymous in November 2014, after its Bulgarian hosting was compromised, the site served a message from law enforcement. [7]
There are several .onion websites hosting successors based on mirrors of the Hidden Wiki; as such, there is no longer one single official Hidden Wiki. [7] Many are hosted for accessibility reasons, due to frequent downtime and instability of the main wiki, while others were launched in order to filter links to child pornography. [8]
The deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the "surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Computer scientist Michael K. Bergman is credited with inventing the term in 2001 as a search-indexing term.
A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social networks, and anonymity proxy networks such as Tor via an anonymized series of connections.
.onion is a special-use top-level domain name designating an anonymous onion service, which was formerly known as a "hidden service", reachable via the Tor network. Such addresses are not actual DNS names, and the .onion TLD is not in the Internet DNS root, but with the appropriate proxy software installed, Internet programs such as web browsers can access sites with .onion addresses by sending the request through the Tor network.
Tor is a free overlay network for enabling anonymous communication. Built on free and open-source software and more than seven thousand volunteer-operated relays worldwide, users can have their Internet traffic routed via a random path through the network.
Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the Internet; primarily via websites, FTP connections, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The greater accessibility of the World Wide Web from the late 1990s led to an incremental growth of Internet pornography, the use of which among adolescents and adults has since become increasingly popular.
DuckDuckGo is an American software company with a focus on online privacy. The flagship product is a search engine that has been praised by privacy advocates. Subsequent products include browser extensions and a custom DuckDuckGo web browser.
Tor Mail was a Tor hidden service that went offline in August 2013 after an FBI raid on Freedom Hosting. The service allowed users to send and receive email anonymously to email addresses inside and outside the Tor network.
Lolita City was a child pornography website that used hidden services available through the Tor network. The site hosted images and videos of underage males and females up to 17 years of age. The website was hosted by Freedom Hosting, a defunct Tor-based web hosting provider.
Freedom Hosting was a Tor specialist web hosting service that was established in 2008. At its height in August 2013, it was the largest Tor web host.
The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets: overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communicate and conduct business anonymously without divulging identifying information, such as a user's location. The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.
Matt Paul DeHart is an American citizen and former U.S. Air National Guard intelligence analyst and a registered sex offender. He has made several unconfirmed claims, including that he received classified documents alleging the CIA was involved in the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States and that the government used child pornography charges to frame him for possession of state secrets.
Doxbin was an onion service in the form of a pastebin used to post or leak personal data of any person of interest.
DeepDotWeb was a news site dedicated to events in and surrounding the dark web featuring interviews and reviews about darknet markets, Tor hidden services, privacy, bitcoin, and related news. The website was seized on May 7, 2019, during an investigation into the owners' affiliate marketing model, in which they received money for posting links to certain darknet markets, and for which they were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. In March 2021 site administrator Tal Prihar pleaded guilty to his charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Grams was a search engine for Tor based darknet markets launched in April 2014, and closed in December 2017. The service allowed users to search multiple darknet markets for products like drugs and guns from a simple search interface, and also provided the capability for its users to hide their transactions through its bitcoin tumbler Helix.
HackBB was a Tor service Internet forum specializing in buying stolen credit cards, skimming ATMs, and hacking computers, servers and accounts. The site was often a destination for hacked and stolen data dumps. At some point the site was hosted by Tor hosting company Freedom Hosting.
Operation Torpedo was a 2011 operation in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compromised three different hidden services hosting child pornography, which would then target anyone who happened to access them using a network investigative technique (NIT).
Playpen was a darknet child pornography website that operated from August 2014 to March 2015. The website operated through the Tor network which allowed users to use the website anonymously. After running the website for 6 months, the website owner Steven W. Chase was captured by the FBI. After his capture, the FBI continued to run the website for another 13 days as part of Operation Pacifier.
Hurtcore, a portmanteau of the words "hardcore" and "hurt", is a name given to a particularly extreme form of child pornography, usually involving degrading violence, bodily harm and torture relating to child sexual abuse. Eileen Ormsby, Australian writer and author of The Darkest Web, described hurtcore as "a fetish for people who get aroused by the infliction of pain, or even torture, on another person who is not a willing participant". An additional motivation for the perpetrator, next to their position of power over their victims, can be the reaction of their victims to the physical abuse, like crying or screaming of pain. This reaction can stimulate the arousal of the perpetrator even more.
Boystown was a child pornography website run through the Tor network as an onion service. It launched in June 2019 and was shut down by authorities in April 2021. Four German administrators of the site confessed and were sentenced to long prison sentences in December 2022.
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