I don't think deep web means what you think it means.  It means web pages and content that is generated dynamically, so it doesn't show up on search engines.  When I check on my server database, for example, that is a dynamically generated page and is considered part of the deep web, even though only a small percentage of it deals with experiments on homeless people. 

The dark web is just servers who take efforts to hide their IP address, likely to make it hard to know exactly where the servers are physically located.  This could be done for a wide variety of reasons, but it's true that some do this for legal reasons.  A person hosting a gambling website is not allowed to do that within the United States, so someone who is doing that may try to make it difficult to prove their server is located there.  By hiding that information, if caught they may be able to lie and claim their server is actually located in another country that does not have the same gambling laws.

Yeah, I think that's the one you're thinking of.  I'm sure you could find yourself on the dark web and not necessarily have it be about those sorts of bizarre activities.  Just like dark alleys in a city, some illegal activity happens in the alleys, but you may have to walk through quite a few before you find it.  I imagine everyone focuses on that illegal/strange stuff when they think of the dark web, but a lot of it is probably perfectly legal stuff that is being hidden for all sorts of reasons.  I am only guessing though, so it's possible the dark web is 99% crazy experiments and illegal activity.

hi.
to access the dark web install the tor browser, do a google search and you will find it's website. the dark web is composed of addresses that are encripted and have the .onion extension, the easiest way to access it is to open tor and search in google for the hidden wiki or for dark web search engines. you will find many things there but the results that you get from search results are far from the best so you will have to go through a lot of trial and error to find what you want, it's even possible that you won't find what you're looking for because onion sites constantly disappear and new ones are created due to laws.
there was a period when I was fascinated with the dark web and I found some prety crazy stuff there, actually you can buy just everything using a bitcoin address and a third person that ensures that the deal is safe, you can buy products that range from all kinds of drugs, meth, weed, mushrooms, to more dangerous things like fire arms. there are websites that even have machine guns and rocket launchers, heck I even saw a tank listed once. you can also buy fake things like fake IDs, fake money and replicas of well known brands. there is also all kinds of nasty businesses like zoophily or pedophily videos. you can also run into fanatics, activists and terrorists that want to recruit new members for their organizations.
The dark web is not for the faint hearted so if you just want to go and take a look it's fine but do it with caution and never buy anything, or talk on their forums, you can run into all kinds of people, even murderers so be cautious. I don't advise downloading of any content aswell, there are sites that claim to have hacking tools and such but you can never be sure that it's not a nasty virus.

Right. Okay. some clarification and a strong warning.
The deep web and dark web (or darknet) are not the same thing, as has been previously stated. However, they are very closely linked. the deep web is full of dynamically generated content, its true. However, many .onion domains are considered part of both the deep and dark web networks due to the fact that normal search engines cannot search their pages. However. the dark web (which I think is what the original poster was going for) is in fact full of websites such as the silk road (recently taken down) where you can buy anything from small time drugs to assassinations. There are also videos, spiware instructions, hack tools, free cash generators...You get the picture.
Now, for the warning.
No matter how secure and safe you think your connection or computer is, there is always someone that can break down any data you send over the dark web. There are people that are paid to find anybody browsing around places they shouldn't be (I'm not talking hidden wiki or dark faq here folks) and either kill, kidnap, or do even worse things to these people. They can find your address. They will find you, eventually. So my advice would be *never* to brows the dark web under any circumstances at any time. If you're not scared yet, you need to go look at some of the many examples of truly, and I mean truly, messed up things on this part of the internet. Coincidentally, the dark web is said to take up aproximetly 4 times more space than the actual internet. That's a lot of data.

Dark must mean hidden, because, there's a lot of illegal activity going on on the internet the search engines can see.

I think part of the problem is that no one really knows what the line is between the deep and the dark web. And in a lot of cases, they intersect, and are two parts of the same whole. So all of it gets sensationalized, and the media has a field day with it.

Of course there are shady things that go on on this part of the internet. But, although I've never investigated it myself, I would venture a guess and say that it can't all be bad. I think a lot of it is probably for folks who can't access the web as freely as most of us can, so they turn to this network to circumvent oppression in their governments and countries.

It's like anything else. There is no more or less crime on the deep web as there is in any slum, seedy back alley or mafia headquarters just because somebody wanted more ratings, and is using this latest discovery to cash in on reeling in vulnerable populations.

I feel strongly about this, because there are plenty of people out there who think that just because a certain technology exists, every single aspect is bad or evil. A funny thing happened a few weeks ago that just made me want to either bang my head against a wall repeatedly, or give up on humanity in general. My sister's boyfriend sat us all down, and in a very serious tone began telling us to watch out for scammers. I was already beginning to roll my eyes at this point, but I held my tongue. Then, he proceeded to tell us (me, my sister, and my parents) about this scam that involved someone posing as an agent from the FBI who demands that you pay them $500 in ITunes gift cards, or some other type of gift card, or you'll end up in federal prison. At that point, I was like, what the actual fuck on a stick? How can anyone be that stupid? He said that, since he works at Best Buy, he often sees panicked citizens coming in, tearing their hair out because they need to purchase all these gift cards. Now, come on. Have we really sunk that low? Look, if it's real money that they want, then that's one thing. I still wouldn't fall for such a thing, because why the hell would the FBI call you on the phone? If you've done something bad enough to raise the ire of the federal government, they're going to descend on your ass with SWAT teams, helicopters, and guns blazing. I can see how someone who's not up on the latest technological trends might think a cash transfer would make sense, but They're sure not going to call you demanding gift cards!

That rant aside, I really, really wish that people would stop blackening the name of the internet just because bad things might happen from time to time. And, let's face it, from time to time is an accurate assertion, given the amount of innocuous things that go on every single second. The world is not going to hell in a handbasket just because the deep web exists, and no, I don't think anybody on this particular topic implied that, but I live with doomsayers who hate modern technology, so this kind of thing always illicits a rampage from me.

yeah, perhaps the best illustration would be p2p sharing.  the media and all of its owners hate torrents and will not disguise said hatred, but I've heard that certain linux distributions can only be found through torrenting.  As linux is freely distributed, this is hardly illegal.  Obviously, if you've ever torrented, you know that finding illegal content is so simple that if you're afraid of downloading anything illegally, your best bet is probably not to torrent.

Another example of a file that is much easier to get via torrenting is the driver pack solution. This is a constantly growing archive for pretty much any Windows driver or peripheral that you can think of, although, as I said, it's continuously being added to. And while they do offer a direct download link, I think it's kinder to download such a huge file via torrent, as I don't even want to imagine the load that would put on that server.

And don't even get me started about the fact that unsigned artists have often freely allowed their music to be distributed through torrenting. I think there was, or is, a website called Jamendo, I'm unsure of the spelling, where plenty of artists would do just that.

I don't think anyone was saying that torrent sites are part of the deep web. hell, searching for the latest Justin Beber album is as easy as searching for it on Google with a + torrent adendum. Actually, this is becoming harder to do, due to the fact that many of the big name torrent sites are being taken down, but that's another topic entirely. It was just being pointed out that the media loves to criticize stuff that is not all bad, just because a few bad apples might spoil it from time to time.

Hi!
I have been interested in DW for a verry long time, I even wanted to investigate it, but person who I really like forbide me this, yea: I can install TOR and do it, but do I really want to?
Post 17:
These torturing videos are named RedRooms. They work in a way like pg13 for example. There's voting what murderer will do, how much and if the guy will be killed will he/she will be raped ETC ETC. You can find articles of how to make a bomb or grenade? You can download forbidden books, saint books, you can get verry much info about satanism, you can change your ID, if for example the police is seeking you. As I've stated before: I would try it, but do I really want to?

Somehow, I find it hard to imagine that one... clarification here.

The deep web is not the same thing, as has already been said before. The deep web is simply searching on any site that uses its own searching system EG: Even searching for a topic on this forum is considered deep web surfing. Searching library archives, itunes, amazon, whatever, are all considered to be deep web searches... the web area that requires the tor protocol and encription is known as the dark web. These are not terms made up just by the media. Google the subject, and there will be many articles explaining the difference using this exact terminology.