It's an interesting and informative article, overall. But the dance around "good" vs "bad" uses is a little funny. It seems to include the WikiLeaks portal under non-illicit purposes. Some governments disagree. And it highlights the Facebook service as "particularly useful in nations where the use of the social media platform is unavailable or illegal". My point? What's legal or illegal depends on who's making the call.
Dark Net and Deep Web gets a mention every now again in a docudrama or movie, so it is seen as either cool or scary by the average Joe. Shadow Net got a lot of ink when pirated movies, music and videos were distributed in large volumes before their public release. Probably this is when the term 'shadow net' was used in mainstream media. However, it is still a mystery or total unknown to the public at large. Wired has some good articles on Shadow Nets, including Government sponsored ones, like NASA's ESnet. Energy boards will have to move in this direction too as the current infrastructure can not ward off security threats and breaches or deal with a rapidly evolving digital society. The dark net template is no secret.
CSI Cyber and Criminal Minds TV talk about it all the time. Many of their episodes include some lengthy aspects of how formidable a thing it is to overcome. I can't think of any prime time TV shows where the deep web is portrayed for its good side. Always one sided, but then that is media around here.
