Beneath the web pages indexed by Google lies an online world that few know exists. It's a realm of huge, untapped reserves of valuable information containing sprawling databases, hidden websites and murky forums. It's a world where academics and researchers might find the data required to solve some of mankind's biggest problems, but also where criminal syndicates operate, and terrorist handbooks and child pornography are freely distributed. Interested? You're not alone. The deep web and its 'darknets' are a new battleground for those who want to uphold the right to privacy online, and those who feel that rights need to be sacrificed for the safety of society. The deep web is also the new frontier for those who want to rival Google in the field of search." The melodrama is tempered, though: "The deep web isn’t half as strange or sinister as it sounds. In computer-science speak, it refers to those portions of the web that, for whatever reason, have been invisible to conventional search engines such as Google. Read more: Slashdot