What is The Dark Web? : The dark web is known to all as the most notorious place on the Internet. The dark web uses overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. That’s the reason why many people don’t know about its existence. Even if they do, accessing it is not a piece of cake. Every website you browse through the internet is indexed by search engines like Google. However, the dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by web search engines. They are forbidden and even governments around the world are taking necessary steps to make their people stay away from them.
Although it seems like some dungeon in sci-fi thriller movies, websites on the dark web look just as same as regular websites. The only difference is, unlike regular websites, the dark web does not possess security and authenticity. For instance, if you purchase something from Amazon by Googling it, you possess the authenticity from Google and security of your purchase from Amazon. In the dark web, this is not the case. No one gives you those when you browse through the dark web.
The term Dark Web first emerged in 2009. It became a place for any illegal activities, transactions, drug trafficking, weapons and financial related frauds. It also became a place where hackers can unload all the data that’s stolen from famous websites.
Why Dark Web is Unstoppable?
It contains some of the most violent human behavior. and criminal activities that a person can imagine. After hearing all this, you might think why the dark web is spared? .Why it is not stopped?. Its because, stopping it is almost impossible. However, controlling it is possible and government agencies all around the world are doing it every day.
The answer to the question “Why can’t it be stopped? “, lies deep within the roots of the internet. The dark web is not a single entity. It’s a distributed set of resources hosted across the machines of its users and hosting providers. The users in the dark web use a special browser called Tor to communicate with absolute anonymity. TOR was first started as a government project to secure U.S. intelligence communications online. However, it slowly opened the ways for the beginning of the dark web later. Users in it stay anonymous and cannot be tracked due to the layered encryption system. It’s not easy to find and stop someone if governments don’t know who they are.
Telegram: A Mini Dark Web
Telegram is a freeware, cloud-based instant messaging (IM) software. It was introduced to people in 2013 by Nikolai & Pavel Durov. Just like TOR, Telegram also provides end-to-end encryption for its users. By using this, users can send text and media files to anyone all around the world. As of January 2021, it crossed over 500 million monthly active users. Due to this, telegram became one of the favorite instant messengers of all time staying right next to WhatsApp.
How Telegram is becoming a Mini Dark Web:
Even though WhatsApp & Telegram shares the same idea of instant messaging, Telegram possesses a set of advantages over it.
WhatsApp VS Telegram
- WhatsApp possesses a file-sharing limit of up to 100 MB in size. Telegram lets users share files up to 2 GB large.
- Users can create a secret channel in telegram. WhatsApp doesn’t have this feature.
- Bots exist in Telegram and they can be used to manage groups and users in it.
- A telegram group can afford a maximum of 200,000 members. WhatsApp only allows 256 member capacity in a group.
- Users can send any kind of file through Telegram. WhatsApp limits video, audio, images and document file types.
Owing to these, Telegram has become an amazing app. Having fewer restrictions attracted many people. Even spammers and hackers love to dump restricted information. Telegram is slowly becoming a hotspot for sharing sensitive information that is not meant to be shared.
Telegram: Piracy Content Hotspot Post Torrents.
In Telegram, users can create a simple channel or group and can invite people to join them easily. Some of the accounts in telegram are offing a wide range of piracy content.
- Usernames and Passwords.
- Credit/Debit Card dumps.
- Premium Contents.
- Pirate Movies/Music.
- Cracked Apps
- Games
- VOD Content.
You can find everything in Telegram right now just like the torrents use to do. Sharing and downloading content in Telegram is much easier than torrents. Telegram even replaced torrents to ship pirate movies. Telegram has become popular among pirates due to the Channels feature and sharing of large files. Channel in telegram help user to broadcast both messages and data easily to a vast group of people. Even the bot management feature in Telegram plays a pivotal role in managing a huge number of users easily. In 2021, a bot was seen selling sensitive information from Facebook on Telegram. Users can use bots in Telegram like this to maintain disguise and anonymity.
Telegram Piracy: Why Telegram is Not Banned?
First of all, Telegram was created to share files between people and was not intended to encourage piracy. TOR was also created to secure information exchange. However, TOR was now used as a means to connect to the dark web. Even Telegram itself has confirmed that it is against piracy. However, the app is not under liability to take pirated content off until someone files a complaint. It is also almost impossible to track every single infringement.
Who is willing to file a complaint just because they saw a piracy movie floating around some channels in telegram? Besides, Telegram supports end-to-end encryption which makes the conversion not accessible to anyone. Hence, governments around the world cannot take actions on Telegram except blocking it through ISP’s. Some countries even opted for this as well.
They are many apps just like Telegram. For instance, WhatsApp and Signal are widely used for the same reason people are using Telegram. However, Telegram is in limelight, unlike any other app. The users of it are increasing day by day, irrespective of the existence of Piracy Content. Even Telegram also imposed strict policies against illegal content. However, that didn’t stop anyone. Several new channels are still showing up with a lot of piracy content.
Piracy in Telegram is Persistent
Although many countries possess strict rules to regulate pirated content, stopping it from its roots is not possible. Piracy is persistent. Once a file/ content is shared in the Digital World, it will be there for a long-long time. Whether Telegram or Torrents, people can download and store them anywhere. If caught by the authorities, the uploaders will be punished. The parent file can be taken down. What about the files that are downloaded? The chain of sharing starts again and even the authorities can’t break it. The only way to stop it is to stop the internet which seems highly impossible.