Sites on Tor are accessible only with a special Web browser and are invisible to ordinary Internet surfers. government - encrypts and scatters Internet traffic through a global network of servers, effectively hiding the origin and identity of users. Tor - maintained by a foundation supported by the U.S. ( Also on POLITICO: Nude celebs? Blame the passwords) The Dark Web ranges from anonymous forums on sites not indexed by Google, like the ones used to distribute the celeb photos, some protected by passwords or other barriers established by the group members, to the vast Tor network that allows anonymous browsing on invisible sites - which is used by a wide swath of privacy-minded browsers up to good and no good alike.

In the case of the stolen photo forums, the traders were hiding in plain view - for those who knew where to look. The scandal is shining a spotlight on what is known as the Dark Web - anonymous, underground realms of the Internet that casual surfers don’t frequent and, in many cases, don’t even know how to find. It was only after one of them likely went rogue and tried to land a much bigger score that the whole trove of images went viral. But still hidden are the hackers - in this case, likely amateur stolen-photo enthusiasts who barter in pilfered images, according to security experts - who were probably trading in the off-color images for some time.

Dark scandals pack