I don't believe you've been to the same parts of the dark web as me if 4chan is even if the running for top 10 worst sites you've seen. There are literally doz

I don't believe you've been to the same parts of the dark web as me if 4chan is even if the running for top 10 worst sites you've seen. There are literally dozens of websites on the darknet that source much of the content that is disturbing on 4chan and act as exchange points for such content. However, both you and the article are correct that there's nothing particularly surprising or disturbing about this -- there are plenty of other dark corners of the internet where such things lurk. The interesting parts of the dark web are the same parts as the normal web -- the deep web. Just like with the normal internet, you need to know where you're going and a few of the right knocks before you see anything really interesting. On the open internet, a few magic nondescript addresses, a few specific keys that are indistinguishable from random ones -- and suddenly, you're playing fluid dynamics engineer on someone's hardware instead of just reading about fluid dynamics. Similarly, there are dark net sites that are essentially access portals to other places on the internet, are generally not advertised to people (and so don't make the news rounds like Silk Road or Tor Wiki or Freedom Hosting), and are considerably more interesting than things like hosting child pornography, selling drugs, or instructing on how to make bombs (which is what most of the surface dark net consists of). Everything else is just showrooms and advertising posters.