ghettomaster: The dark web was never reliant on remaining a secret. Rather, the theory is that it’s design allows anyone using it to remain anonymous by keeping any trace back to the real world, such as user IP addresses, obscured. This is why your local drug dealer can still use it.

Now there has been some work to allow authorities to get around that, but I’m not sure to what level that has been achieved.

TOR has been compromised for quite some time.