The Dark Web operated in a completely different way from the public-facing Internet.
If the Internet was a net, then whenever you wanted to investigate something, all you had to do was use a search engine, and countless results would pop up.
The so-called Dark Web, on the other hand, was like a pitch-black archive room, with every string of addresses resembling a small locked drawer.
You knew what you were looking for was somewhere on the Dark Web, but without intelligence to guide you to the right cabinet, blindly feeling around in the darkness would usually only leave you covered in dust.
There were no search engines, nor were there helpful veterans offering assistance. What kept the Dark Web running was profit—every kind of profit that could not be brought into the open.
Those activities also included certain government affairs. The most famous were probably the CIA's "black operations." Simply put, they would sometimes look for Mercenary or Black Hand operatives on the Dark Web to carry out secret assassinations or operations to overthrow foreign governments.
A great deal of dirty work that could not see the light of day and was inconvenient for the government to handle directly would also be entrusted to agents through the Dark Web.
But the Dark Web was still a web. As long as something had happened, it was impossible for it to leave no traces at all. Laurie was now convinced that the government's suppression of her boyfriend had been a series of black operations. She was investigating web addresses that had been connected to government affairs, trying to trick a little information out of In-Betweeners and agents.
It was undoubtedly like looking for a needle in a haystack. Luckily, as a journalist, her computer networking skills were surprisingly good. Otherwise, she