They certainly don't imagine finding poetry. Or short stories. Or creative nonfiction. That's a preconception the founders of The Torist, the first literary magazine on the encrypted network Tor, hope to correct.

"There's no reason our innocent activities—creative or mundane—should be wiretapped, and there's every reason they shouldn't be," G.M.H., the anonymous co-founder of The Torist, wrote in an email to WIRED. In this post-Snowden, post-Panama Papers era, G.M.H. sees The Torist introducing encryption to a broader audience—and giving people another entry point to the dark web.

The Poetry of Anonymity

G.M.H. and his co-founder, University of Utah communications professor Robert W. Gehl, met on the dark-web social network Galaxy. The two avid readers (G.M.H.'s pseudonym is inspired by 19th century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins) recognized the possibilities an encrypted literary platform presents. Using literature to bridge the gap between the dark and the "clear" webs, they reasoned, could push cybersecurity further into the mainstream.