A pair of researchers has discovered a way to use modern browsers to more easily build darknets–those underground, private Internet communities where users can share content and ideas securely and anonymously.

Billy Hoffman, manager for HP Security Labs at HP Software, and Matt Wood, senior security researcher in HP’s (HPQ) Web Security Research Group, will demonstrate a proof-of-concept for Veiled, a new type of darknet, at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas next month.

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First, a bit of a prelude. Probably 15 years ago, I was talking to someone who did marketing for a high-end bike manufacturer. He was telling me about the amount of money the company was spending to really understand what their core customers (and their competitors’ core customers) were looking for in a bike…what did they really, really want? I pointed him to a USENET group formed and populated by people passionate about bikes. “They are doing your research for you,” I said. My point was that technology now allowed people who were passionate about a product or category to form communities to explore and communicate about that love–and that smart companies should be looking to technology to better understand that bleeding-edge customer.

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We’re all social creatures, and we thrive on the interactions of others; in fact, these interactions are the primary drivers for troublemakers in communities.

I’ve read stories about how babies that are given all the proper medical attention, food, shelter to deem them “healthy” wither away to near death if they don’t get human contact and love and care. The same applies to prison; perhaps one of the more dreaded punishments is sending inmates to the “hole” for isolation from all social contact. POWs can muster the strength to survive knowing that a series of Morse code taps can signal to fellow inmates that they’re OK and cared about. How does this apply to online communities?

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