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Thousands of 'dark web' sites taken down by hackers

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Thousands of 'dark web' sites taken down by hackers

 

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Twenty percent of the Dark Net was taken offline last week, a hacker or group of hackers claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous has reportedly compromised a private web hosting service responsible for more than 10,000 "dark web" sites, according to security researchers.

 

The hidden web hosting service Freedom Hosting II was said to have been hacked by unknown actors, resulting in the harvesting of all its hosted sites' files and its database - around 80 gigabytes of data. A message posted since last week on the sites hosted by the service detailed the hack and made the files available to the public.

 

According to the message, which now replaces the homepages of the affected "dark web" sites and their host, more than half of the information obtained by hackers was "child pornography," which Freedom Hosting II claims to have a "zero tolerance policy" for. Other materials exposed by the data breach include numerous references to botnets (automated computer networks used in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, send out spam and/or steal data), email addresses, usernames and password credentials from the affected sites.

 

Some estimates from last October report that Freedom Hosting II (which replaced the now defunct Freedom Hosting) was responsible for hosting up to 20% of "dark web" sites, which are accessed through the anonymized Tor network.

 

Despite the severity of the breach, it is unlikely that the average internet user will be affected. That is because the "dark web" refers to websites not accessible by normal browsers or indexed on traditional search engines.

 

Instead, the "dark web" (sometimes termed "deep web") consists of various networks of private sites that exist on the same internet all users share at home and work but are accessible only through the use of special software or access configurations. The most well-known method for accessing the sites is via the Tor network, an intricate collection of servers originally created in partnership with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory which is used to anonymize user traffic.

 

Sites on the dark web are often used for legitimate purposes, even though they are not reachable by standard web browsers and do not show up in searches. In the past, dark web resources have been used to protect the privacy of political and social activists, avoid oppressive government regimes and allow for communication with otherwise unreachable segments of the internet.

 

However, some dark websites are used for more nefarious purposes in a loose collection of locations sometimes called the "darknet." These sites use the same resources to hide illegal activities from law enforcement, particularly concerning black markets in weapons, malicious software, drugs and pornography. Technewsworld

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It is my impression that the new Windows 10 Operating System reports back to Microsoft, what its users are doing online and where they go while they are doing it. Surfing the dark web, is no longer as private as it used to be, not with Microsoft looking over your shoulder............

By the same token, some antivirus programs block users from accessing websites which have been predetermined to be "pirate sites".

Hacking or Ransomeware attaches itself to computers which do not have antivirus programs installed to resist it.

 

I don't have a resident antivirus program on my PC - the only software package I use is Spy Emergency each time I install any new software on my partitioned "C" hard drive - however I do use Deep Freeze with "C" drive locked, so when my PC packs up or I cop a virus on "C", just rebooting my computer, resets it back to my original (virus, trojan and malware free) setup.

 

All downloads go to my partitioned hard drive "D", where I unpack them - however I move stuff to 2TB hard drives - no cloud storage for me. My hard drives are on hand. They take up very little storage space and are about the same size as a small paperback book, however, it is easy enough to reduce the hard drive sizes, simply by using laptop SATA hard drives instead.

 

I originally purchased one portable 2TB hard drive and comes with leads to connect to power and PC via the USB) which I stripped down and removed the plugin 2TB SATA hard drive, then purchased other similar 2TB hard drives on the internet. It is easy enough to turn off a hard drive, remove it from the plugin enclosure and replace it with another 2 TB hard drive for whatever I store on that drive.

 

I backup each hard drive with another hard drive, so for each subject matter, I have 2. Occasionally a hard drive will crash, so the backup becomes the original hard drive and I use that drive to clone another as its backup. QED.

DWS.exe, which is a free internet download, cleans all of the Microsoft programs which spy on you and validate that you have an original licence to use their operating system.

 

As I use Windows 7 SP1, which Microsoft tried to remove countless times from my computer - but were unable to do so because of Deep Freeze - they then cancelled all of my Windows 7 OS keys, which I had paid for and came with the original CD's - but DWS.exe removes all of those Microsoft blocks, however you still have to use a key to makw Windows 7 an original working copy on your PC, even if it was once a key which Microsoft later blacklisted - DWS.exe will probably work much the same with other Windows OS's, but you should not update your computer from Microsoft and get it all back again, use Deep Freeze instead to protect your computer, or put in your own antihacking programs.

 

Most software that you instal with a keygen or crack comes with its own backdoor into your computer, so afterwards, use a software program like Spy Emergency or Emergency Kit which is a free anitvirus program and is not intrusive at all, until you run it.

Let me assure you that what is not Law today can very easily become Law tomorrow, just on a signature by some Politician and personally, I don't want Microsoft or anyone else having my surfing history on file, to be used against me as is deemed fit, then.

 

AND this is an interesting article on Data Retention being illegal:

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2016/12/21/curia-rules-ip-act-illegal/1
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Bigbenn, interesting approach!!  I want to know more about the spy emergency and the deep freeze. Have you been using this setup successfully for very long?  

 

You know here in the USA they don't need to write laws to enable data collection, but then the laws don't really apply to the government agencies anyway.They take what they want and if is brought up or they are questioned by congress they just lie. If the lie comes out later no one cares and if they did it wouldn't matter, it's the government !  what are you going to do !  There is no difference between the bad guys(hackers that break in and steel your $$) and  the countless government agencies that we thought were created to protect us, they are both breaking in and spying on us ,recording us , setting the stage for entrapment so they can steel anything they want from us including this so called freedom. The same people who watched the terrorist blow up buildings in New York ! 

 

Sorry about the rant here, it must have been the data collection thing.

 

sp1q 

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what browser do u use.. im curious?? ur approach is pretty thorough i must say.. i do agree that windows 10 is a spyware trap for the end user that is ignorant.. windows 7 is the choice to use for sure.. i use a different program for u can say freezing ur C: drive..  :sun:

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Hi all,

 

I don't come this way often, but here I am again.

 

Spy Emergency is a Netgate Program and you can find it on the internet with a serial, I purchased mine however, it was very reasonable.

 

What I like about Spy Emergency is that it does not interfere with the downloads I make and unpack, whereas I have found that many other antivirus programs not only block you from some of the websites you might want to go to, but also finds the stuff you need inside the WinRar file, to well, you know and kills it off quick. Duh!!

 

I always close Spy Emergency so that it does not detect, well you know, when I am installing new software and then I run it afterwards to clear out any backdoors and spyware I have introduced during the new software setup process (there is always a lot).

 

Deep Freeze (Standard) locks the registry of "C" Drive and if you have partitioned your hard drives D, E, F, G and so on, unless you unfreeze those partitions at Deep Freeze installation, they will remain locked, which you don't want.

 

At Deep Freeze (Standard) setup, you have to reboot your PC and afterwards, you will be asked for a password and you can tick and untick those drives you want to use and those you want frozen - "C" Drive has all of your OS and support programs on it, so "C" is the drive or partition you need to lock and leave all other Drives or partitions unlocked.

 

If you don't put the password in straight away, press down Shift, Ctrl, Alt and F6 together, to open Deep Freeze and then put in the new password and whenever you freeze or unfreeze Deep Freeze this is how you must do it.

 

Deep Freeze makes "C" drive impregnable from anything you download and unpack and install - once you reboot your PC, you will find everything you downloaded to "C" has gone for good.

 

Thus store on "C" everything you use on a day to day basis and download to "D" of a partitioned drive and unpack everything in "D", as both the partition and Deep Freeze on "C", act as barriers for all viruses and backdoors and worms and Hackware, getting onto your "C" Drive - if you run Spy Emergency after unpacking new software to unfrozen "C", you will get rid of viruses, backdoors, etc, before locking "C" and using it frozen and safe.

 

Apart from Spy Emergency, I don't use any antivirus program. Lets face it, when I unpack a file, I want all of the contents to be there, not deleted automatically by the antivirus program I would otherwise be running, if I were not using Spy Emergency.

 

If you look for Deep Freeze Standard in Google, you should be able to locate and download it.

 

With Deep Freeze, I can reboot my PC (and often do) by pulling the power cord. If you do that with an unprotected PC, you might scramble its brains and it won't ever start up again. (I did that once and killed off an unprotected hard drive) By the same token, Microsoft tried really hard to change my Windows 7 OS to Windows 10 on the sly and were not able to succeed - in the end they acknowleged that I was running Deep Freeze and stopped them in their tracks - Deep Freeze is that good.

 

If you want to change back from Windows 10 to Windows 7, I would suggest installing a new SATA hard drive in your PC if it is a Tower or a Desk Top, however if you are using a portable and the hard drive is not easily accessible under one of the screw on covers on the back, then unless you know how to disassemble a laptop, it is currently too hard for me to do (unfortunately).

 

You can download Windows 7 from Microsoft and use KMSpeco to register it, if need be.

 

As you probably know, Microsoft also changed the format of Windows 10, so some older programs won't run any more - I have Windows 10 on a hard drive and can switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10 in 60 seconds, by changing drives and unplugging- plugging in the new SATA drive (2 SATA plugs)

 

You can strip the Microsoft Spyware out of Windows 10 by running DWS.exe which you can download from the internet, however you have to have dotnetFX40 full, set up on your PC (deleting later versions) to do so - download from Microsoft.

 

If you have Glary's Utitilties on your PC, go to the desktop icon and right click your mouse and "open file location", 3rd from top, then send shortcuts to your desktop for Registry Repair, Track Eraser, Disk Cleanup and run the programs after you have finished internet surfing for the day - you will be amazed at how much spyware you strip out on a day to day basis, because while Windows 7 & 10 spy on you, so do your

browser(s).

 

If you hover your cursor over the toolbar at the bottom of the page you will get an upright arrow. Right click, go to properties and unlock toolbar (no tick) autohide toolbar (tick) and use small icons (tick) - now you can cut and paste icons from your desktop to the bottom toolbar, which will hide itself until you cursor down to it, when it will reveal itself - helps to move icons from the desktop.

 

As I have multiples of programs on my desktop, I have created new yellow folders (right click on your monitor screen and select new, folder) and put software icons into the software folder and TV check links into its folder, for simplicity and ease of internet use. Hope that makes sense.

 

I use JDownloader to download everything. JDownloader will download tubes, which are TV programs or Porn and "everything digitally" else to your PC, whereas most other download programs won't do this. With JDownloader, you become familiar with which internet storage sites let you download freely, so you go with them - those that don't want you to complete a query to discover if you are "human".

 

You can set the download speed of JDownloader - my download speed is 1.3mbs, but I've set JDownloader to 3.5mbs, so it will always run at its best speed - also change the download folder from "C" to "D" downloads, yellow folder (see below).

 

If you have a Hotmail or Outlook account, you probably can't access it through Internet Explorer or Firefox, so access through Google Chrome, instead.

 

I have downloaded loads of free portable browsers from the internet and as these are portable and don't plug into my OS when I run them, they are so much easier to use and turn off, when I am finished with them.

 

Principally I use IE and portable Firefox and Chrome - way to go!!

 

We are under the hammer here. Some websites I used to go to, have been blocked by a Court Ruling, however if you are looking for a particular show, go to Google and enter it there and then follow all of the links to find new websites, not blocked, to locate and download "from".

 

Hope all of this helps and answers more questions than it raises.

 

BigBenn

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Well I use Opera browser and use the VPN that is baked into the browser.

 

I also use VPN Unlimited, So I'm bouncing my connection to different places 

 

http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/511082-vpn-unlimited-lifetime-subscription/

 

I do not do anything with IE\Edge, Chrome as they all send all your info back to them (MS\Google)

 

I also use Windows 7 and Linux 

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