The Hidden Wiki is the dark web url Wikipedia of the Dark Web. It provides a comprehensive directory of.onion links, from drug marketplaces to financial services.
It also lists onion links to sites that aren’t censored. Its transport protocols offer resistance to pattern recognition and blocking by censors. It is people powered and offers a high level of privacy.
What is i2p?
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymizing network that creates its own internal internet to prevent outside attackers from monitoring or observing your online activities. I2P uses a mixnet (a network of peer-to-peer connections) to route your traffic around the world and to protect your privacy from adversaries that may be trying to intercept your communications.
The I2P software is free and open source, so there are no big corporations or universities behind it that could be pressured to introduce backdoors or other weaknesses into the code. As a result, the team that develops and maintains I2P is distributed and mostly volunteer, with many coders all over the world reviewing the work of the rest of the community.
When you install the I2P software, the first thing it does is to bind itself to your local network and register your computer as an I2P router. Then it starts up the i2pd daemon which manages the I2P network and connects you to other I2P users. The daemon will run in the background on your computer and you can interface with it via a web browser at 127.0.0.1:7657.
There are a number of different plugins available to extend the functionality of I2P. These include IRC, file transfer, email, a web server and more. Most are available on the main I2P router page but others can be installed using the configplugins page http://127.0.0.1:7657/configplugins. Plugins are usually in the form of an xpi2p or su3 file that needs to be uploaded to your router.
I2P is very similar to Tor, although the two have slightly different aims. I2P is more focused on providing anonymous services within the network, such as eepsites, than it is on using itself as an alternative to access the Clearnet. It is technically possible to use I2P to outproxy the clearnet, but that is not a common use case.
Because I2P uses a mixnet to route your traffic, it is not as secure as a VPN. It is possible for a hostile actor to defeat any of the factors that make up the mixnet, or even all of them combined, in order to obtain your information. A hostile actor would need to have a lot of resources to do this, though.
What is the purpose of i2p?
i2p enables users to surf the internet without leaving traces on the regular web. It offers a full range of services including instant messages, email, and torrent downloads. The software uses a variety of encryption methods to ensure that only the intended recipients can read the data. I2P also promises built-in protection from bad actors such as cyber criminals who may try to intercept communications.
To use i2p, you must first install the software on your computer. Then, you must configure it to connect to the I2P network. Once connected, your computer will make temporary encrypted tunnels to other I2P computers. These connections are secured by a protocol known as garlic encryption, which encrypts multiple messages before sending them over the tunnel. This makes it difficult to collect statistics, monitor tunnel activity, or perform traffic analysis.
In addition, I2P tunnels are uni-directional. This means that data only flows one way – from your computer to the destination I2P computer. This makes it much more difficult to correlate a tunnel exit with a particular website visit. Additionally, I2P messages are often delayed by a significant amount of time. This makes it harder for observers to determine when a user is using I2P and can potentially compromise their anonymity.
I2P is similar to Tor in that it provides a way to browse the surface web anonymously, but it is much more mature and has additional functionality that can help with privacy and security. For example, it allows users to build eepsites, which are sites that are only accessible while on I2P. This provides a level of anonymity not available on the surface web.
I2P is free and open source software. You can find out more about it by visiting its official website or reading its documentation. There are also a number of community resources, such as the I2P Planet (eepsite). You should be careful when downloading plugins from third-party sources as some of them could have malware hidden within. For this reason, it is recommended that you only use the official I2P plugin repository (eepsite). This is a list of all currently active I2P plug-ins and their authors.
Why is i2p important?
Aside from securing web browsing, I2P also provides an anonymizing layer that can protect instant messages, email, torrent downloads, and other types of network traffic. It is similar to Tor but runs within your browser and uses less bandwidth, making it more user friendly for those with limited Internet connection speeds.
As top companies compete for access to the most granular of data points relating to users' online activities, I2P serves as a powerful shield against censorship and tracking by encrypting your Internet traffic and sending it through a series of routers before reaching its destination. It can even provide a measure of protection against government spying.
In the privacy community, I2P has gained increased prominence in recent years after two high profile darknet marketplaces, Silk Road and Silk Road Reloaded, chose to host their services on the I2P network. The choice caught the attention of media and privacy communities and led to a lot of interest in how I2P compares to other anonymity networks.
The answer to that question is complicated. Unlike other anonymity networks, I2P is built on a distributed P2P model that makes it difficult for attackers to collect data and statistics. Its garlic routing protocol and unilateral tunnels also make message tracing and hacking much more difficult than on other networks.
Despite these advantages, I2P still has its drawbacks. Its smaller user base results in fewer available routers and a vulnerability to targeted attacks. For instance, a large DoS attack can render darknet sites inaccessible or slow down the whole network.
To counter this, the I2P community is working to improve user adoption of the network. This involves educating users about the technology, providing them with clear information, and developing tools that reduce the number of steps it takes to get started.
For example, new users currently have to install a launcher, browser console, and web browser in order to use I2P. Anything that can reduce this number of steps will help drive wider adoption.
For example, instead of requiring new users to manually change their network connections over to I2P, a general console application that changes all network connections would be more effective. Another improvement that could be made is ensuring that users understand how I2P works by creating a series of diagrams or videos that explain the underlying technology.
What are the advantages of i2p?
There are a number of advantages to using I2P. One of the most obvious is its ability to bypass Internet censorship and monitoring. Because I2P uses a decentralized network of devices to connect users, it is difficult for anyone to track specific IP addresses. I2P also utilizes a technique called garlic routing, which encrypts each message and sends it in different directions before reaching its destination. This makes it extremely difficult for an observer or attacker to figure out what a user is doing. Another advantage of I2P is that it does not rely on a central database, so if one device is compromised, it would not be possible to access all the information connected to that device.
I2P can also be used to access hidden services on the clearnet, known as onion sites. However, it is more common to use I2P to access eepsites within the network, rather than using it to connect to the surface web. This helps to protect against pattern recognition and location blocking by censors. I2P also offers resistance to DDOS attacks by separating traffic from the server and client.
Finally, I2P is free and open source software. This means that there is no single organization or university that could be held responsible for any flaws or weaknesses in the code. Additionally, I2P is constantly being developed and improved by a large community of volunteer coders from around the world.
In addition to its privacy benefits, I2P has a low latency and high availability. This makes it a very useful tool for people who need to work or play online with people from different locations. I2P is also compatible with a variety of software and can be used to protect against malware, phishing, spam, and other types of online threats.
While there are many advantages to using I2P, it is important to remember that it does not offer complete protection against surveillance and censorship. It is still possible for a hostile entity to defeat I2P, but this will require considerable resources and knowledge. Therefore, it is important to use a VPN in conjunction with I2P to ensure your full security. NordVPN is a great option for this, as it comes with built-in I2P support and has a strong focus on security.
