Recently, international authorities successfully shut down a massive and notorious deep web site Infraud. The site was built as a hub for cybercriminals to buy and sell anything from stolen credit information to hard and software used to hack ATMs remotely. At this time, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, a total of thirty-six of the site’s users have been apprehended since the February 2nd arrest of the first key organizer.

If this story sounds frightening, it is because it is. But, unfortunately, it is tame in comparison to many of the other activities that are commonplace on the the deep web where these people were plying their trade.

Most people who are familiar with the deep web, or dark web, or darknet, or any other title used to describe the extra layer of the internet that is inaccessible to search engines and is only accessible through the TOR browser; only know it by collections of horror stories that are floating around the “surface web” so to speak.

But there is far more to it than that. The deep web, as mentioned, is an umbrella term referring to the parts of the internet that cannot be reached with the use of search engines. This is to say, all of the web addresses are either encrypted or password protected and can only be accessed by way of the TOR browser software. Even after doing this, a person on the deep web still is unable to easily traverse the massive sea of websites as there is no defined search engine and very little direction of any kind. Some site URLs change by the hour or even by the minute to help avoid detection, which is largely the appeal for many regular users.

It should go without saying that people tend not to visit the deep web to look up new banana bread recipes. Unlike many things with as bad of a reputation as it has, the deep web has truly earned its reputation. It is, after all, a completely free and unchecked medium. Drugs and other illegal items are commonplace as well as many things that are not worth discussing in polite company.

Everything is done both anonymous and indirectly both to avoid law enforcement as well as a form of protection from the person being interacted with. A common sentiment among people who visit the deep web is that the danger of being caught by the police pales in comparison to getting caught by a fellow user of the TOR browser.

While situations like the shutdown of Infrared are not uncommon, law enforcement cannot monitor the deep web nearly as easily as they can the surface web due to the secretive nature discussed. Sites can be shut down, but this ultimately does little as the site will almost certainly be up under a different and equally secure URL within the hour. This is why processes like the shutdown of Infrared is such a time-consuming ordeal.

There is often nothing to connect individuals to the crime until after the URL is known and being actively monitored, and even then it is rare that the actual person at the keyboard is ever found. And this is all referring to massive international groups that draw the attention of equally large government organizations with the resources to track these people at all. Organizations such as Infrared are not the ones that make users of the deep web feel they have to cover their webcam with tape. Local law enforcement is powerless against individual problems caused by the use of the deep web.

Very few people ultimately visit the deep web, but those that do are able to act unchecked and anonymously. Even people who don’t visit the deep web can suffer at the hands of those that profit off of it, such is the case for what is estimated to be thousands of potential victims of Infraud’s products and services.