Feeling a little overexposed on the Web? You’re not alone, and for many folks that’s just the problem being tracked by Hewlett-Packard security guys who have some new insights on an old networking idea.

Forbes is reporting that a couple of Web security guys from HP – Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood – will showcase their idea at July’s BlackHat security conference.

The researchers, who previewed their concept to Forbes, say their model works like a private Internet on top of the existing public one: People share files and messages via the Internet medium, but without the kind of public-facing personally identifiable information that Internet protocol addresses provide.

“What we’ve done is taken the idea of a darknet and moved it into the browser platform,” says Wood, the HP Web security researcher who developed the idea over the last several months, told Forbes. “This is really like a darknet for everyone. If you can use the Internet, you can use a darknet.”

Darknets are nothing new. These closed networks for sharing information securely have been around almost as long as the Internet itself. In the past, the term was used in reference to any network of computers that wasn’t connected to the bigger one run by the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Current darknets usually rely on some sort of third-party technology. The model Hoffman and Wood are previewing is notable in that it uses the latest in rich Internet technologies to make using a darknet as simple as browsing a Web site. That innovation should drastically reduce the barrier to sharing secure information over darknets.

HP won’t give the specifics of its implementation, but here’s how the idea works: Someone navigates to a Web site that serves up some JavaScript code that runs in the user’s browser. That code uses the local storage capacity built into the latest version of browsers like Google’s Chrome and Internet Explorer. As a result, each user gives up some local storage that holds redundant, encrypted slices of data that together are coordinated and shared by the darknet. As a whole, the information exists so long as the darknet exists.

Sound useful? Or does it sound insidious?

The question is: Will those who turn to the Dark Side use the technology for good or for evil?

My guess: Both.

To read the full Forbes story, click here.

Tags: browsing, darknet, Forbes, Hewlett-Packard, Internet, privacy, security