Making the Internet’s Onion More Appetizing

TOR has gained notoriety as the Internet’s dodgiest neighborhood, where freedom fighters plot revolution and scoundrels sell drugs, swap child porn, or buy harvested organs. Now the hidden corner of the Internet is starting to gentrify as mainstream companies such as Facebook, Deutsche Telekom, and browser pioneer Mozilla seek to do business there.

TOR, an abbreviation for the Onion Router, was set up by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory more than a decade ago to let U.S. operatives communicate securely and give people in authoritarian countries anonymity online. In recent years it’s become popular with crooks, too. The network was home to Silk Road, the notorious online drug bazaar whose founder on Feb. 4 was convicted of U.S. charges of money laundering, computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics.