Dear PropellerHeads: OMG! I think I just accidentally bid on Olivia Pope on the Darknet and now terrorist organizations are expecting me to cough up over 2 billion dollars. Help!

A: My response can be best laid out in 3 parts:

I think you are under the impression that you are in a recent episode of Scandal.

My guess is it would be a little hard for you to accidentally stumble upon a terrorist's bidding war for a high profile U.S. citizen on the Darknet.

Since I am pretty sure my think-tank of nerdery can't really help you, I am just going to address the only part of your concern that is mildly relevant to the PropellerHeads - the Darknet.

So let's handle some vocabulary:

The Surface Web - This is the web you and I and everyone we know searches regularly. This includes really anything that is easily browsed or searchable using standard search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

The Deep Web - This is the web that is not easily searchable using standard search engines (the aforementioned, Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). The Deep Web does have some search engines like Freenet, TorSearch, and Deep Web Technologies, but it's really impossible to catalog all of the information on the Deep Web so many of these types of engines or projects tend to fold.

The Darknet - Or, "Dark Web" is a subsection of the Deep Web that is not easily cataloged or searchable, and has a certain amount of anonymity attached to it because of how your computer communicates with other computers (see Onion Network).

Onion Network - When doing traditional searching, your computer connects directly with a server to retrieve information. Using an Onion Network to search basically breaks that direct connection by bouncing it around to several sources before retrieving or relaying information. This, in turn, makes it impossible, or at least very difficult to track your moves.

There will be a test later, so work on the flashcards.

So why the Darknet and where did it come from? The U.S. military, duh. The U.S. Navy originally developed the technology and the military, governmental agencies, and law enforcement are still among its top users.

Who else uses the Darknet? Assuming you did really stumble into an episode of a TV show, you already know that criminals, sex traffickers, and terrorists are among the most publicized users. But journalists, whistle-blowers, activists, politicians, and many other groups with not-necessarily-as-seedy intentions take advantage of its veil of anonymity as well.

Perhaps you stumbled on this online bidding war by downloading Tor (torproject.org). An acronym for "The Onion Router" (refer back to your flashcards), this is a popular service that is downloadable and will help you surf the Darknet.

Tor may be the most popular Onion Network but not the only one; the Freenet Project (freenetproject.org) and I2P (geti2p.net) both have had some growing popularity.

So this all seems easy, right? Perhaps let's just take a poke around. A word of warning, although you may not need to be a techy to get in, there are a lot of people in this space that you may not want to run into. Beware of your clicks and where they might take you and who might be waiting to reply.

So why all this talk about the Darknet?

My guess is it's showing up more and more in mainstream, non-techy media. For example, in the last couple of months I can cite three popular shows that featured the Darknet as a supporting cast member.

Starting in the second season (and carrying over into the third), House of Cards has a whole storyline about a hacker, a journalist, the Darknet, conspiracy and everything else you look for in a suspenseful series about political intrigue and with a techy bonus...score.

And let's not forget your original question and that our favorite gladiator was kidnapped and had the most brilliant idea to auction herself off to the highest international bidder, using the Darknet. I'm pretty sure it was handled, but you might want to change your name, find a remote island, and forget your old life...B613 and all.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.