Although most people don’t know it, there is another internet – and it’s largely invisible.  What most casual internet users don’t understand is that our internet is based upon a set of protocols, and that what we see is designed to be seen by openly available software – web browsers.  There is, however, another side to the internet.  Based on a somewhat different set of principles, and visible only if you have the right software, it’s home to a digital underground consisting of criminals, hippies, rebels, counterculture bloggers, and the disenfranchised.  In this vast underground also lurks some true evil – pedophiles, terrorists, and others.

Even more surprising, some estimates place this “deep web” at more than 500 times the size of the visible internet.  It’s a huge, hidden, dark ‘net; and the sites aren’t indexed by Google.  For most of the denizens of this deep web, that’s exactly the way they like it.

Over at the Guardian, there’s an in-depth article on the deep web, how it started, how it penetrates countries (like China and Iran) that block off Internet access to the outside, and the software needed to get access.  It’s one of the more interesting things I’ve read in weeks, so I recommend giving it a read-through.  You can check out that article, in all it’s dark, brooding, mysterious glory, right here.

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