The sour entanglement has become synonymous in recent times with nefarious goings on , in which people seek for drug , grease-gun , and even tiddler porn can plug into anonymously . But despite a flurry of   interest on   the privileged workings of the “ other ” side of the Internet , there has been little research into just how link up the sullen WWW actually is .

A new study , pre - release   onarXiv , has produced the most comprehensive map of the sites listed on the dark web   to date . What the squad foundis a piece   surprising : It turns out that the dark web is n’t really a World Wide Web at all , it ’s more akin to a series of dreary islands . They found that the vast majority of sites listed on the dark vane sit down in isolation , completely cut off from all other web site lean on the gloomy web or the man wide connection ( WWW ) .

The researchers looked at the major domain names within the saturnine web , primarily focusing on the .onion domain , which is analogous to .com on the WWW . From this start point , they then created an algorithm to watch over the track as page link up from one site to the next .

The chief finding from the study was that only 13 percent of all sites listed on the dark vane actually link to another site , imply that the other 87 percent are completely close off from all other internet site . “ The terminal figure ‘ glum web ’ is timeworn , but base on our analysis , the ‘ connection ’ is a misnomer,”write the authors . “ It is more accurate to look at it as a set of sinister silos . Unlike the web , the dark web is a station of isolation . ”

The next interrogation was to try and figure out why . The investigator hint that there could be a couple of intellect why sites listed on the saturnine web fail to connect with others . Either the passing nature of the dark internet , in which page are always coming into macrocosm and then go away without a trace , means that there is niggling point in linking to sites , or simply those who apply the dark web are fundamentally unlike than those using the seemingly more social WWW .

To answer this , they looked at what sites the   dark connection page that do   link to other sites linked to . They regain that dingy websites were equally likely to link to site on the WWW as they were to other dismal web pages , eliminate the unsound nature of the dark WWW as the reasonableness why so few sites listed are connected to others .

The writer conclude : " We evoke that hoi polloi create morose web site are , on mediocre , simply less societal than those create website on the www . "