Every article on this website is written by a real person, with their name on it. Here is who that is.
Ehtijad Ali
Founder, writer and editor
Email Ehtijad: ehtijadalee@gmail.com
Ehtijad Ali started DeepHiDX because most writing about the dark web is either frightening or dishonest, and often both. The plan here is simpler: take a confusing subject, find the real documents behind it, and explain it in words normal people can follow.
He writes across the whole site, from the Glossary and the Timeline through to the longer pieces in Investigations and Conspiracy Files.
Main topics: Dark Web & Deep Web, Dark Web History, Privacy & Anonymity, Cybercrime, OSINT & Digital Investigations.
How he works: start with the original document, explain how the thing actually works, and say clearly where the proof stops. He has a particular habit of chasing famous statistics backwards to find out where they really came from, which is often nowhere.
He is also the person who reads your emails, including the ones telling him he got something wrong.
Latest articles by Ehtijad Ali
- Operation Bayonet: 3 Brilliant Steps That Took Down AlphaBayHow police secretly ran one dark web market to catch users of another.
- Telegram Cybercrime: 5 Simple Reasons It Rivals the Dark WebWhy criminals moved stolen data to a chat app.
- What Do Hackers Do With Stolen Data? The Full JourneyThe path your data takes from a breach to fraud.
- Do VPNs Make You Anonymous? What a VPN Really HidesWhat a VPN protects, and what it does not.
- How to Find Where a Photo Was Taken: 7 Simple CluesHow investigators locate a photo.
- How Do Ransomware Gangs Work? 6 Roles Inside the Ransomware BusinessRansomware gangs explained like a business.
See every article in the author archive.
How to judge this site
We want to say something honest here, because it matters more than any biography.
Do not trust a name. Trust the sources. Every fact on this site links to where it came from, so you can go and check it yourself.
A long list of qualifications at the top of a page proves nothing. Anyone can type one. What actually proves something is whether the article shows you its evidence, and whether the website admits it when it gets things wrong.
So we built the site that way instead:
- Our Fact-Checking Policy tells you exactly what checking every fact goes through.
- Our Sources & Research page lists every place we get information from, so you can go straight there.
- Our Corrections Policy promises that mistakes stay visible on the page forever, instead of being quietly deleted.
- Our Editorial Policy explains what we refuse to publish, and why.
We also do not claim qualifications we cannot show you. If that ever changes, we will say what they are and where you can verify them.
What a name on an article means
When you see a name at the top of a piece here, that person:
- Did the research and wrote it.
- Checked every fact against a source they opened themselves.
- Read it again looking for anything unfair or unsafe before it went live.
- Is still responsible for it, which means updating it when things change and correcting it when it turns out to be wrong.
We never invent extra writers to make the site look bigger than it is. And no article here is published straight from an AI without a human checking it. Section 8 of our Editorial Policy explains our position on that in full.
Want to write for us?
We are open to researchers, investigators and journalists who work in these areas. We want original research, stories built on real documents, clear explanations, and properly sourced history.
We are not looking for opinion columns, lists of the best VPNs, or anything that reads like an advert.
Send a short outline to ehtijadalee@gmail.com, along with the sources you plan to use. Everything published here has to meet the same standards, and those are not negotiable.
Get in touch
Questions, disagreements and corrections all go to the same place: ehtijadalee@gmail.com. The Contact page explains how to reach us safely if your message is sensitive.