Long Live the Dark Web

Mobile solutions have disrupted the dark web and may be sending it into an early grave…

The dark web is in decline. Once the preferred means for anonymizing users’ online activity, the dark web has now been supplanted by encrypted mobile applications and alternate solutions. Similarly, aggressive law enforcement actions have shuttered many of the dark web’s largest forums, making it a much more fleeting and much less secure destination for criminal activity. As a result, the number of users accessing dark web sites has dropped.  

Instead, many users are connecting through the dark web via mobile applications on Android and iOS, rather than to the dark web via standard browsers, to obfuscate their internet traffic. Indeed, the number of users accessing the Tor network has increased, even as the number of users accessing hidden service sites—the “dark” part of the dark web—has dropped. Moreover, encrypted applications like Telegram, Signal, and Wickr.me have lowered the barrier to entry for secure communication and illicit transactions. 

As a result, just like many other industries, the dark web has been disrupted by technological innovation and aggressive competition, triggering a gradual decline and turning the so-called invisible internet even more opaque. 

In our newest Nsight paper, The Decline of the Dark Web: How Mobile Solutions have Disrupted the Dark Web, Ntrepid Academy examines dynamics that have prompted the dark web’s decline. These factors include: 

• The lack of centralized information, coupled with a lack of trust in fellow dark web users, has made it difficult for the dark web community to collectively evolve, or create a set of tools equivalent to those on the clear web. 

• In an environment where Tor and the dark web once offered some control over the information users shared over the internet, secure messaging apps facilitate communication between users, prevent unintended parties from intercepting content, and have a low barrier to entry. 

To read the Nsight paper, please reach out to your Ntrepid POC. 

Interested in learning how to access and operate on the dark web? Unsure about what makes the dark web “dark”? Want to know what’s really on the dark web? Sign up for one of Ntrepid Academy’s open-enrollment webinars at: ntrepidcorp.com/academy.