Who could have guessed back in the 1950s that the first communication over internet protocol sent from the University of California, Los Angeles to the Stanford University Research Center could transform into part of the core fabric of today's society? Well, what started with APRANET – the early version of the modern Internet – has now become what we call the World Wide Web - an absolute necessity for the modern functioning of our economies, communication, militaries, educational systems, governments and other institutions.I won't bore you with the details of how the Internet works, but there is a concept relevant to the Internet that is not new but is not very well known. It is something known as the Deep Web or Hidden Web. The conventional web that most people use every day is known as the Surface Web, therefore the Deep Web is a more appropriate name than the Hidden Web. But what exactly is the Deep Web? Basically, it is the Internet content not listed by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, and this feature has many insidious implications. How many website addresses can you recall off the top of your head - 50, 100? For the rest, you can only reach them by indicating the necessary parameters to your preferred search engine. So when a site address is not listed on these engines, there is no easy way for a conventional user to reach those sites. That is why, when a DMCA notice is sent, or a law enforcement agency wants to shut down a site, the very first thing they do is to compel search engine providers to remove the sites from their system. When they do, these sites became part of the Deep Web. First of all, other than common knowledge such as DNS (Domain Name System), virtual private networks (VPNs), proxies and TOR systems, this article will not impart any knowledge of how to access different parts of the Deep Web, but will only try to dissolve some of the illusions surrounding it. Indeed, there are many legends and myths concerning the Deep Web, and while some of them are true, the rest is, at best, mere speculation, or utter rubbish at worst.After you have reached the first level of the Deep Web – yes, there are a couple of levels to it – you will access banned sites and gain illegal access to copyrighted materials. This is what is commonly called the Bergie Web. The ease of accessing some addresses on the Bergie Web causes some conflict over whether it should be included in the definition of the Deep Web, but since you need to go out of your way to get there, we can consider it as such.To enter further into the Deep Web, you will probably need to use a browser system known as The Onion Router (TOR). Think of TOR as an extensive proxy system. As a computer connects to the Internet, it is given an Internet protocol (IP) address, which is required for a computer to access the web, something akin to a club badge. Every time you enter, you have to show your "badge" to the bouncer – the bouncer being the DNS. But since systems know our IP addresses, every time we access another IP, it is recorded and can be recovered later or monitored. That is where proxies come in. By adding a mask of another IP address, we can theoretically surf anonymously on the web. However, by controlling the proxy node we use, our anonymity can be shattered. Therefore, TOR uses a number of nodes to bounce our IP around; so, unless all of the nodes are controlled by a single entity, determining a person's actual IP becomes a tiresome act. I want to highlight, however, that not all proxies are used to simply mask the one's IP.After that info dump, you may be wondering why someone would need to conceal their IP to access the next level of the Deep Web. It is because many illegal activities are found at this level. Drugs and weapon marketplaces, advertisements for a killer for hire – although most of them are baits by the FBI – and child pornography are all there for those who seek it, but that is not all. There are extensive manuals available there about many things including hacking. There are gambling platforms too. For example, the infamous Silk Road is located here, where individuals or organizations buy and sell the items mentioned above. It became so popular that the FBI launched an extensive manhunt and caught a man named Blake Benthall, who is the alleged owner of the 21st century bazaar. I have to mention Bitcoin at this point as well. Thanks to its untraceable nature, it reigned as the most preferred currency of the Deep Web and especially the Silk Road. To let the numbers do the talking, you might check the plummeting of the U.S. dollar-to-Bitcoin exchange rate on Oct. 2, 2013, following an FBI crackdown on the site. Many illegal organizations ranging from violent activist groups, terrorist cells and hacker groups also use this level to operate. In fact, last years' big hack of celebrity pictures and their leak on the Internet originated from one such hacker group. Allegedly, a group of hackers used the Deep Web to trade their hacked celebrity pictures – often nude – and the pledge to become part of such a circle was to provide members with newly-hacked media. But after the group expanded into selling the pictures for Bitcoins, the rest of the Internet and the world became aware of the existence of these photographs. Apparently, a person who bought the pictures by paying the requested amount of Bitcoins decided to leak them.The next level of the Deep Web can allegedly only be accessed by a Closed Shell System and it is rumored to contain secret and possibly world-changing experiment results, artificial intelligence, human trafficking and so on. But these are only based on a supposed wiki page; thus, without any way to confirm, I believe this is where the things said about the Deep Web enter the realm of fantasy. It is also believed that many secret agencies also operate from here, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pulled most of its documents from this level and published them via WikiLeaks.The last level is the where speculations go wild. Named after the deepest area of the earth, the Mariana Web is not really accessed by anyone. In my opinion, it represents our desire to define a range of things, and Mariana is the end of the web. Aside from that, however, the rest is just conspiracy theories.The web is a vast universe indeed, perhaps the crown jewel of this century's human civilization, but we have to remember one thing: it is a tool just like a pitchfork, and we can use it to cultivate something incredible or simply stab someone with it. Therefore, demonizing the web can be a convenient way to shrug off or to blame the shortcomings of society. But at the end of day, the responsibility of our actions solely falls on our shoulders.