Typical sensationalist journalism. This murky dark web, the only use of which is kiddie porn, is thousands of times bigger than the "good" Internet. The same journalists think "hacker" is a dirty word.<p>See Ian Clarke's response: <a href="http://blog.locut.us/main/2009/11/25/the-guardian-writes-about-freenet.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.locut.us/main/2009/11/25/the-guardian-writes-abo...</a>
Subtitle:
<i>In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography</i><p>Excerpt:
<i>You find the Freenet website, read a few terse instructions, and answer a few questions ("How much security do you need?" … "NORMAL: I live in a relatively free country" or "MAXIMUM: I intend to access information that could get me arrested, imprisoned, or worse"). Then you enter a previously hidden online world. In utilitarian type and bald capsule descriptions, an official Freenet index lists the hundreds of "freesites" available: "Iran News", ...</i><p>So, something they left-handedly acknowledge (by listing "Iran News" first): The fact that political activism can get you "arrested, imprisoned, or worse". And, in some places, being gay (for example) is about as forbidden as being a pedophile, though I don't think it should matter what consenting adults choose to do together in that regard.<p>As I understand it, the countries that are the biggest exporters of illegal drugs are countries that are typically very poor and have no legitimate means of making adequate money. As I understand it, during Victorian/prudish eras, prostitution thrives. Prostitution tends to do more poorly when men can get laid without paying cash for it because "normal" women will put out more readily. I think there is an abundance of evidence that being overly controlling, dictatorial and judgmental tends to have the opposite effect of what is theoretically desired and tends to promote "bad behavior" -- in part by categorizing so many things as "forbidden", thus causing some rather ordinary activities to be denounced as "bad".
There's a fair bit of confusion about the various forms of "darkness" in the article. It's very easy to get the impression that Freenet is many times bigger than the public web. Incidentally, I wonder if VPN connections to intranets are counted in the 500x figure.