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Show HN: my weekend project, understanding the Silk Road anonymous marketplace
This was more of a sandbox to play with Raphael and Flot than anything else but I think there are some interesting statistics in there. It'd be awesome to do this over time but I really don't have the spare time required.
- rickyconnolly 15y agoNice bar charts. How were they made?
- xeno56 15y agoLooks like jquery.flot was used from glancing at the source http://code.google.com/p/flot/ http://code.google.com/p/flot/
- toyg 15y agoNote that the data is heavily skewed -- 77% of all SR listings apparently are for one UK seller, who probably just had the misfortune to pick that day to flog his wares. You'd need to automate data retrieval and average it over a few months to get a better picture. (edit: listings, not transactions; thanks archivator for the correction)
- archivator 15y agoYou mean the listings are heavily skewed - this is not about transactions but listed items on the marketplace.
- jerguismi 15y agoInteresting data to scrape would be the reviews. Since the reviews are tied to the actual sales, it could give some kind of estimate what kind of sales volume we are talking about.
- leeHS 15y agoWow, this is pretty interesting. Perhaps you should approach Interpol and see if they would be interested in funding further development? http://www.interpol.int/en http://www.interpol.int/en
- leeHS 15y agoTo the down-voters. I had not considered that my suggestion could negatively impact your drug sales. My sincerest sarcastic apologies
- archivator 15y agoThe reason you're getting downvoted may be related to the fact that this is not data Interpol would be in the least interested in. What they need are actual transactions/shipments/links to people, not some rather shallow stats extracted from a month-old copy of listings. I'd be really impressed if someone actually runs a Bitcoin client that correlates transactions with prices from SR. Since most sellers select prices in USD, the values in BC are usually not nice and round. Then, you could start creating a profile of Bitcoin users and link them with given certainty to SR accounts. Now, that might be of interest to Interpol/local agencies.
- omouse 15y agoThat's a stupid idea; helping law enforcement do their jobs. THey have large budgets, they can figure this shit out on their own and there's no need to help them oppress your fellow human. Drug laws in most countries are insanely stupid where non-violent drug offenders are locked up for a long time with violent offenders.
- eli 15y agoYou should consider that not everyone agrees with your opinion. That doesn't make them stupid.
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- feydr 15y agoit's a total shame people have to resort to markets like this -- let's have a bar chart comparing the number of murders in a war sponsored by the US to the number of overdoses from drugs
- adgar 15y agoAre you serious? Extremely few people "resort to this." The Silk Road is absolutely miniscule compared to the overall drug market. I'm willing to bet that if I asked every person in my 5-floor walkup, I'd come out with a list of dealers comparable in size to the silk road.
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- stfu 15y agoSo there is a total of just about ~50-80 sellers? I guess most bigger cities have far more drug sellers than Silk Road. But I would love to see more timeline based developments, i.e. if the market is shrinking or expanding etc. Otherwise great weekend project!
- adgar 15y agoBigger cities? Hell, there were more than 50 dealers at my college alone. It had 4,000 students and was several hours from any metropolitan area to speak of. Then again, the selection probably doesn't compare to the Silk Road or other services.
- yuvipanda 15y agoInteresting. I didn't know India was well represented there...
- mmaunder 15y agoHow is payment received and goods delivered? Since you can't ship goods and take delivery via Tor it seems absurd to use strong encryption for communication when you're so vulnerable taking delivery. I haven't used silk road so I might be missing something, but I'd love to learn how they get around that.
- sneak 15y agoPayment is done primarily with Bitcoin. Goods are delivered primarily using the post (and rubber gloves).
- wcoenen 15y agoPayment is done with bitcoin. For the delivery, I think the idea is that even if the package is intercepted and your address is on it, it cannot be proven that you actually ordered it. I don't know if such a defense would hold up. It might depend on local laws. But it does make sense because otherwise you could get your enemies into trouble just by sending them unwanted illegal goods.