Is Geminispace part of the dark web?
A silly question, perhaps, but some definitions of the dark web include content accessed via nonstandard protocols, which Gemini and gemtext certainly are.
Obviously the intent of Gemini is completely different from the common idea of the dark web, but it isn't indexed by (mainstream) search engines and can't be viewed with mainstream browsers.
Jan 06 · 4 months ago · 🤔 1
6 Comments ↓
🌆 skyjake [mod...] · Jan 06 at 19:35:
Geminispace is not particularly "dark": it isn't hidden, obfuscated, nor anonymized, and you can certainly view it through a web portal/browser just fine:
— https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/bbs.geminispace.org/s/Geminispace/36361
If you want to apply web-oriented labels, which may not be that useful, I would classify Geminispace as part of the deep web. (Insofar as "web" is actually understood as the "internet" and not just the World Wide Web.)
There are some Gemini servers with Tor (I have seen some with .onion domain name on Usenet), but generally they aren't.
🐦 wasolili [...] · Jan 07 at 01:19:
The defining feature of the dark web is that access is via an anonymization network, so gemspace is mostly not part of the dark web, although there are have been some capsules served via tor/i2p, so those are part of the dark web.
"deep web" is the phrase for content not accessible through public search engines. gemspace as a whole wouldn't qualify for this since there are gemspace crawlers and web search engines inadvertently crawl it via gemini-to-html proxies.
not if you browse in light mode :p
I prefer the term "twilight web" myself. Not dark, but not very obvious either. Yggdrasil isn't exactly dark either, but darker than Geminispace, and also part of the Twilight Lands.
Now when you enter the areas explicitly devised to keep everything shut, anonymous and invisible, that's where things start going actually __dark__.
🎧 my-adventures-at · Mar 17 at 21:16:
Wasn't Google going to try and index Geminispace at one point? Wander if that ever happened? I hope nothing!