Who runs the Web?

[$nake-Eye$]

Hey Tech Calgunners,

All this talk about Parler.com being shutdown by Amazon Web Service/Servers brings to mind a question...

If the majority if not the entirety of the Web/Net is run on servers for Amazon or Google, or Microsoft, or some other famous big tech company, where’s does the infamous “Dark Web” (where all sorts of illegal and sordid activities happen) run?

Independent servers? Anonymous network?

Curious minds want to know...

[five.five-six]

“Dark Web” is a bunch of bull Schiff.


There are private servers and message boards (think like calguns but on a smaller scale) that use the same WAN with encrypted links and verified logins but it isn’t some mysterious place.

You and I could set up our own “dark web” this evening.

Parlor is more than welcome to purchase their own hardware and connect right back up.


Not saying that what Bezos did wasn’t Schiffty and probably should fall under antitrust laws but there’s nothing preventing parlor from building a server farm.

[The War Wagon]

pope algore?

[JohnnyMtn]

The companies that control the Internet are those who host sites on cloud-based servers as well as the companies that host the DNS.

[SkyHawk]

The people who **really** run the web are the people who control the routing policies at Tier 1/Tier 2 ISPs, IXPs, CDNs, the backbone. Anyone can stand up DNS, web etc but if the traffic never gets there, it wont matter.

These are the people who can shut off Amazon, Google etc. But the internet is resilient by design, so it would take a very unified effort to effect such a thing.

[five.five-six]

Originally Posted by SkyHawk

The people who **really** run the web are the people who control the routing policies at Tier 1/Tier 2 ISPs, IXPs, CDNs, the backbone. Anyone can stand up DNS, web etc but if the traffic never gets there, it wont matter.

These are the people who can shut off Amazon, Google etc. But the internet is resilient by design, so it would take a very unified effort to effect such a thing.

The people who could shut off Amazon own CNN.


I’ve said too much.

[Silence Dogood]

Pretty sure a bookie in New Jersey runs him but he hasn't been a winner since 1990.

[ibanezfoo]

Technically whoever controls the lines it all runs on. As far as servers and all that, anyone can hook a server up to the internet. All the BS we are experiencing is simply people giving up their freedom to these corporations. Cloud services simply means you turning over all control of your data to someone else. Run your own server, the way we used to do, and its not an issue.

Hopefully this is an eye opener for companies around the world.

Cloud services have good marketing teams.

[ibanezfoo]

Originally Posted by SkyHawk

The people who **really** run the web are the people who control the routing policies at Tier 1/Tier 2 ISPs, IXPs, CDNs, the backbone. Anyone can stand up DNS, web etc but if the traffic never gets there, it wont matter.

These are the people who can shut off Amazon, Google etc. But the internet is resilient by design, so it would take a very unified effort to effect such a thing.

Yup. And the government wouldn't like that if they couldn't watch your internet traffic if it were to be shut down.

Every meet me room in any datacenter I've been in for the last 15 years has had a locked government room that all the traffic gets mirrored to.

My current company actually builds these data centers now.... I can't talk about any of it of course.

[brogrammer]

where’s does the infamous “Dark Web” (where all sorts of illegal and sordid activities happen) run?

Independent servers? Anonymous network?

Tldr; Visit https://www.torproject.org/ there you can download a modified Firefox Web-browser (just like regular ol' Mozilla Firefox except modified to be able to use specialized URLs called "onion links") You don't have to be a rocket scientist and it's always handy to have it around!

The "Dark Web" as it's generally referred to runs on a decentralized network of "nodes" (basically like a spider-web or linking together users of its software around the world) in a computer software practice known as Onion Routing

A very basic explanation: data is passed between these nodes pseudo-randomly until it either reaches its destination within the dark-web or "exits" via a special node called an "exit node" where "public" or "top-level" web traffic is "ported" into the "dark web".

The "software" most commonly used for this is entitled Tor and is based on open-source code that (I believe- can't cite this so confirm for yourself) was conceptualized by the US Navy R&D

Today the Tor browser and software are developed and maintained by a 501c3 Org that gets US Fed Funding for scientific research (so present company and civil libertarians form your own opinions )

That's the reader's digest version - does not go into how much of the internet is "owned" or "operated" by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc.