A Journey to the Dark Web Part 1
To begin, I think I should explain to some readers the difference between the Deep Web and the Dark Web. The Deep Web is a place that is accessible online by the use of special web browsers such as Tor that contains less than legal things such as drugs, human trafficking, and hitmen for hire. The Dark Web is pretty much everything that is no longer available by conventional means, such as military websites and other sites that have not been incorporated into the current internet architecture. With that in mind, I would like to convey to you all my story of my (accidental) journey into the unknown space known as the Dark Web.
I’m a computer technician by profession. I work for a company that is contracted by local businesses and private consumers to set up internet connections, install software, and repair any sort of computer problems they can come up with. So, naturally, I get all kinds of crazy stories and problems that these people can come up with. I swear, some of these people just don’t know how to work a computer, even in this day and age. Anyway, one day I get a call from a local business complaining that their internet is acting up and that they “must have a virus.” So I shake my head, thinking that someone must have unplugged a network cable or downloaded a Trojan horse accidentally, get up and drive over to the business to address the problem.
As soon as I arrive, the man who called me immediately spots me and starts going on and on about hackers and how much he hates Microsoft windows and how many viruses it creates and all that nonsense that I usually receive when addressing business problems. He leads me to his computer and I pull out my laptop and sit down in front of it and begin to work. He tells me “good luck” and walks away to go do whatever it is he does in his downtime.
I open up the browser he uses (IE, no surprise) and it opens to about:blank (doesn’t even have a home page??). So, I try connecting to google.com, 404 error. Alright well I know that google.com definitely exists so there’s a problem with his internet connection. I open his Network and Sharing Center to see if I can use the built in troubleshooter to diagnose the problem, but I give myself a well-deserved facepalm when I see that he isn’t connected to any network at all. So I search for networks and find a few wireless connections for him to connect to. They’re all WEP encrypted and I’m almost positive that he doesn’t know the key, so I break out my laptop and run a WEP cracking tool to get his computer up and running again.
As I’m waiting for my tool to find the WEP key, another network suddenly shows up on my computer, this one unprotected with an SSID consisting of a random hexadecimal string. Now, I’m extremely bored waiting for this guy to return, so I decide to connect to it and take a little look around to see where this was coming from. I connect without problems and open up my toolkit of cracking tools to see if I can find a source for this connection. As I’m having my fun, hacking away at this unprotected network, my computer freezes up, albeit only for a second or two, but this doesn’t happen much and it caught me by surprise. I shrugged it off as the poor internet speed here and kept on going. A couple minutes later, however, it happened again. And a few minutes after that, once again. Each time getting longer and longer. “Weird,” I thought to myself, “what’s with this network?” It was then that things started getting really interesting.
After the long string of pauses, my screen flickered a little bit and, out of nowhere, my browser opened by itself. Now I was worried that I had somehow infected my computer with some kind of malware by connecting to this network and I proceeded to close the browser and began to disconnect from the network before anything worse could happen. But I couldn’t disconnect. No matter how many times I clicked the little disconnect button, my computer didn’t respond, despite everything else on my screen running fine. “Fuck,” I thought to myself, “this is gonna be a long day.” And just as I was about to hit the power button on my laptop to perform a hard reset, my browser opened again. This time, with a little chat box opened…
“Hello”
I stared at the screen for a couple seconds, not quite knowing what was going on.
“I want to talk to you”
Now I had heard about these AI programs that have all these programmed responses to simulate conversation with people and I was not impressed. This was one nasty virus.
“You need to leave this network now. This is your last warning.”
Hmm. Maybe an automated security program designed to keep hackers out? I’ll have to admit, I was impressed with it. I had never seen anything like this before.
“I’m telling you one last time. Leave now.”
I don’t know what made me do it, but I responded to the program.
“Or what?”
The next response scared me more than anything in this world ever has. The program began listing information about me. My name, address, telephone number, credit card information, my parent’s names, their address. My heart sank in my chest and all the color immediately left my face. I couldn’t move. I just sat there, paralyzed with fear. But what came next was even worse.
“Don’t look at me like that”
My webcam was on.
“You really shouldn’t stare, [h3man4694], you might see something you regret.”
Suddenly, the most horrifying images you could ever imagine flashed on my screen. Images of disemboweled humans, human sacrifice, detached limbs, cannibals eating people, video clips of mass suicides and firing lines. My heart was racing, my body was shaking in utter fear of the images I was being shown. They’re seared in my brain, these were things that no one should ever see. I mustered the strength I had left and hit the power button on my computer and slammed it shut. I ran to the bathroom and threw up a couple times. I was drenched in sweat. I could barely compose myself.
It took me about 20 minutes to go back to my computer and, even then, I had a hard time getting near it. I looked over at my client’s computer and it was connected to the wireless network I was cracking earlier. It was working fine now. Just then, my client returned and thanked me for fixing his internet. I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed my laptop and left.
Going down the elevator with my laptop under my shoulder was terrible, I just wanted to leave this place and get my laptop replaced as soon as I could. 5th floor, 4th floor. Come on…come on…3rd floor, 2nd floor. Come on god damnit! Ping! Ground floor. Open up, come on…and just as the doors opened, from behind me, a whisper.
“You really shouldn’t stare, [h3man4694]”
I’m a computer technician by profession. I work for a company that is contracted by local businesses and private consumers to set up internet connections, install software, and repair any sort of computer problems they can come up with. So, naturally, I get all kinds of crazy stories and problems that these people can come up with. I swear, some of these people just don’t know how to work a computer, even in this day and age. Anyway, one day I get a call from a local business complaining that their internet is acting up and that they “must have a virus.” So I shake my head, thinking that someone must have unplugged a network cable or downloaded a Trojan horse accidentally, get up and drive over to the business to address the problem.
As soon as I arrive, the man who called me immediately spots me and starts going on and on about hackers and how much he hates Microsoft windows and how many viruses it creates and all that nonsense that I usually receive when addressing business problems. He leads me to his computer and I pull out my laptop and sit down in front of it and begin to work. He tells me “good luck” and walks away to go do whatever it is he does in his downtime.
I open up the browser he uses (IE, no surprise) and it opens to about:blank (doesn’t even have a home page??). So, I try connecting to google.com, 404 error. Alright well I know that google.com definitely exists so there’s a problem with his internet connection. I open his Network and Sharing Center to see if I can use the built in troubleshooter to diagnose the problem, but I give myself a well-deserved facepalm when I see that he isn’t connected to any network at all. So I search for networks and find a few wireless connections for him to connect to. They’re all WEP encrypted and I’m almost positive that he doesn’t know the key, so I break out my laptop and run a WEP cracking tool to get his computer up and running again.
As I’m waiting for my tool to find the WEP key, another network suddenly shows up on my computer, this one unprotected with an SSID consisting of a random hexadecimal string. Now, I’m extremely bored waiting for this guy to return, so I decide to connect to it and take a little look around to see where this was coming from. I connect without problems and open up my toolkit of cracking tools to see if I can find a source for this connection. As I’m having my fun, hacking away at this unprotected network, my computer freezes up, albeit only for a second or two, but this doesn’t happen much and it caught me by surprise. I shrugged it off as the poor internet speed here and kept on going. A couple minutes later, however, it happened again. And a few minutes after that, once again. Each time getting longer and longer. “Weird,” I thought to myself, “what’s with this network?” It was then that things started getting really interesting.
After the long string of pauses, my screen flickered a little bit and, out of nowhere, my browser opened by itself. Now I was worried that I had somehow infected my computer with some kind of malware by connecting to this network and I proceeded to close the browser and began to disconnect from the network before anything worse could happen. But I couldn’t disconnect. No matter how many times I clicked the little disconnect button, my computer didn’t respond, despite everything else on my screen running fine. “Fuck,” I thought to myself, “this is gonna be a long day.” And just as I was about to hit the power button on my laptop to perform a hard reset, my browser opened again. This time, with a little chat box opened…
“Hello”
I stared at the screen for a couple seconds, not quite knowing what was going on.
“I want to talk to you”
Now I had heard about these AI programs that have all these programmed responses to simulate conversation with people and I was not impressed. This was one nasty virus.
“You need to leave this network now. This is your last warning.”
Hmm. Maybe an automated security program designed to keep hackers out? I’ll have to admit, I was impressed with it. I had never seen anything like this before.
“I’m telling you one last time. Leave now.”
I don’t know what made me do it, but I responded to the program.
“Or what?”
The next response scared me more than anything in this world ever has. The program began listing information about me. My name, address, telephone number, credit card information, my parent’s names, their address. My heart sank in my chest and all the color immediately left my face. I couldn’t move. I just sat there, paralyzed with fear. But what came next was even worse.
“Don’t look at me like that”
My webcam was on.
“You really shouldn’t stare, [h3man4694], you might see something you regret.”
Suddenly, the most horrifying images you could ever imagine flashed on my screen. Images of disemboweled humans, human sacrifice, detached limbs, cannibals eating people, video clips of mass suicides and firing lines. My heart was racing, my body was shaking in utter fear of the images I was being shown. They’re seared in my brain, these were things that no one should ever see. I mustered the strength I had left and hit the power button on my computer and slammed it shut. I ran to the bathroom and threw up a couple times. I was drenched in sweat. I could barely compose myself.
It took me about 20 minutes to go back to my computer and, even then, I had a hard time getting near it. I looked over at my client’s computer and it was connected to the wireless network I was cracking earlier. It was working fine now. Just then, my client returned and thanked me for fixing his internet. I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed my laptop and left.
Going down the elevator with my laptop under my shoulder was terrible, I just wanted to leave this place and get my laptop replaced as soon as I could. 5th floor, 4th floor. Come on…come on…3rd floor, 2nd floor. Come on god damnit! Ping! Ground floor. Open up, come on…and just as the doors opened, from behind me, a whisper.
“You really shouldn’t stare, [h3man4694]”
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