Over winter break, a friend of mine told me about her foray into the dark net, something I thought only existed in science fiction movies. But it is very real and very, very cool.

The Tor Project was originally developed for the US Navy with the intention of building a browser that could protect government communications from hacking attempts through a program called onion routing. To put it as simply as possible, onion routing makes it possible for a user to be completely anonymous. Onions prevent networks from knowing where and to whom computers are communicating; they only know that communication is happening.

I’ve spent the last few weeks floundering through Tor. The browser is not beginner-friendly, and I’m someone who has trouble working her iPhone, let alone maneuvering within the dark net. I’ve got some of the basics covered; I found the (now basically defunct) Silk Road, an online black market whose creator is now in jail. I won’t get into the crazy that was DreadPirateRoberts; that’s what Google is for, and the Silk Road’s downfall has been well documented (though I will point out that one of his crimes was hiring HIT MEN to take out pretty much anyone he didn’t like, because assassins and black markets are real life and I still can’t wrap my head around it). I also learned what a PGP (Pretty Good Protection) key is, and maybe someday I’ll figure out how to get one. Baby steps.

I’m a big fan of Internet privacy, though some people may disagree with me. And I understand the drawbacks. Complete anonymity means users can say, do and buy anything they want with little-to-no fear of being caught. At worst, this could be child porn or, as Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht showed, mother-effing hitmen. At best, it could be used as an untraceable Wikileaks. The dark net is an oasis for people looking to escape the ever-apparent big brothering of the NSA. Despite all its pitfalls, you can’t deny the good of that.

Obviously this is pretty jumbled, because I’m still stumbling through all this information that came through the floodgates. I guess I’m just excited about the idea of being untraceable. But really, who isn’t?