Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Computer Science - Internet, New Technologies, grade: 1,3, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: The intention of this thesis is to provide its reader with a tangible idea about the rapidly changing landscape of the internet. The reader furthermore is presented with an insight into the highly criminal and complex world of the deep web, the internet hidden from the publicly accessible internet. Various threats, how political activism works on the internet, cybercrime on the normal internet and the deep web are explained amongst others. In order to create a thorough thesis this work starts from the historical beginnings of the early hacking ommunity and then gradually moves on to contemporary developments within the internet. Additionally, the involvement of states and terrorist activities are examined. Originally it was planned to include information in the form of screenshots and text about deep web drug markets and forums. However, this would have led to this thesis becoming rather sensationalistic than scientific. Therefore it is restricted to Silk Road as a representative example for illegal activities on the Deep Web. Information gathered in this work stems from scientific articles, journals, books, newspaper articles, websites and personal observations.