Independent Internet researcher Gwern Branven posted on his website a comprehensive archive of data from the so-called "darknet" trading platforms, which he carefully collected since 2013. The amount of data is about 50 GB in the archive (and more than 1.6 TB in unpacked form). Among them are online stores, forums, bulletin boards and other sites that were located on the "hidden services" of Tor and sold all sorts of interesting, and therefore prohibited, goods.
In total, the sample included 89 stores, 37 forums, and 5 other sites that the tireless researcher, risking his reputation in front of law enforcement agencies, visited and downloaded on a daily basis. The archive is available for download as a torrent.
This research, according to the author, was inspired by the emergence of the first large-scale Silk Road store, the owner of which was recently arrested and convicted. When the store ceased to exist in 2013, its small-scale competitors flooded into the vacuum - and that's when all the fun began. The development of the darknet prompted Guern to collect detailed information in order to further study it.
Thanks to the dedication and altruism of the researcher, now absolutely anyone interested in data processing can study and shovel these valuable mountains. What can be done with such interesting data? The researcher himself advises the following:
In total, the sample included 89 stores, 37 forums, and 5 other sites that the tireless researcher, risking his reputation in front of law enforcement agencies, visited and downloaded on a daily basis. The archive is available for download as a torrent.
This research, according to the author, was inspired by the emergence of the first large-scale Silk Road store, the owner of which was recently arrested and convicted. When the store ceased to exist in 2013, its small-scale competitors flooded into the vacuum - and that's when all the fun began. The development of the darknet prompted Guern to collect detailed information in order to further study it.
Thanks to the dedication and altruism of the researcher, now absolutely anyone interested in data processing can study and shovel these valuable mountains. What can be done with such interesting data? The researcher himself advises the following:
- collecting information about sellers and reviews about them
- compiling popularity charts for various substances
- calculation of black market cash turnover, commissions, and revenue
- correlation of cash flow with transactions recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain
- calculating losses related to fraudsters pretending to be sellers
- develop strategies for timely detection of such scammers
- analysis of popular topics on forums
- analysis of data that contributes to user deanonymization (GPS tags in photo metadata, reuse of nicknames and email addresses both on the darknet and on the Internet, etc.)
- just an interesting pastime
