What is a red room on the dark web? (2024)

DODGY stuff can be found on the dark web but there are some particularly disturbing corners among it.

One such rumoured place is known as the "red rooms", where sickos can apparently pay thousands to watch awful things like rapes and murders live.

But who's responsible for them?

And are they real or an urban myth?

What is the dark web?

First of all, you need to understand the dark web.

Read more about the internet

The internet actually comprises of three different layers: the surface web, the deep web and the dark web.

What we see most is the top layer, known as the surface web.

These are pages that appear using search engines like Google.

Meanwhile, the deep web are those inaccessible to search engines and hidden, usually behind password protections and authorisation.

Each time you log into one of your accounts you're accessing deep web content that doesn't appear on a search engine.

For example, work intranets, password-protected areas of online banking and draft blog posts are all stored on the deep web.

This means that if someone was to Google your name, your banking information or Amazon wishlist, they won't show up in the results.

So, the dark web is a network of untraceable online activity and websites on the internet. Theycannot be found using search engines and toaccess them you need to use specific software, configurations or have authorisation.

They are used by lots of different people to keep their web activity hidden, particularly criminals.

What is a red room?

Red rooms are said to be dodgy online spaces within the dark web, where illegal activity hides.

According to online reports, they're particularly murky areas where sickos can pay to watch live streamed videos, of rape, torture, murder, and worse.

Users apparently pay thousands, or even tens of thousands, for access to the dark clips.

Urban legends surrounds red rooms have circulated for years, but so far no evidence has emerged that they exist.

Their name is thought to have originated from the 1983 horror film Videodrome, where torture is shown live on TV in a red-painted room.

Alternatively, it's been suggested the phrase arose from "Red Rum", which spells "murder" backwards.

Are red rooms real?

Red rooms have been the subject of discussion on social media for years, but there's no evidence that they actually exist.

Even if they had cropped up in some grim corner of the internet, it's not clear how anyone could run one.

Tor – the special web browser needed to access the dark web – couldn't run the rooms, as it's too slow to support live-streamed video.

Other secretive browsers would also struggle to host the streams, as they run their web traffic through multiple servers.

One case that suggests there might be sites where people pay to view disturbing, illegal content is that of depraved paedophile Peter Scully.

The former property developer would entice impoverished children with money and gifts back to his home in the Philippines.

He then drugged the vulnerable youngsters and made films of him raping and torturing them for an international paedophile ring.

Operating a secret child p*rnography site on the Dark Web, he sold the videos for up to $10,000 per view.

In one sickening case, Aussie sex attacker Scully, dubbed one of the world’s worst paedophiles, made two little girls dig their own graves.

Who invented the dark web?

The dark web was actually made by the US government and was intended for spies so they could exchange information secretly.

US military researchers developed the technology, known as Tor (The Onion Router) in the mid-1990s and released it into the public domain for everyone to use.

The reason was so that they could stay anonymous - it would be harder to distinguish the government's messages between spies if thousands of other people were using the same system for lots of different things.

It's called The Onion Router because it uses the technique of onion routing - making websites anonymous through layers of encryption.Most websites are also hosted on the .onion domain.

Read More on The US Sun

KEEP FIGHTING Family of Edwin Castro's lottery rival breaks silence on 'true winner of $2b'

NO VOTE FOR JOE Hunter Biden's ex-biz partner branded Joe 'worst president' in leaked email

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk