5 ms·

What amazing work! I am very interested in doing research with Tor and a dataset like this could make my job a heck of a lot easier. I have a legal question tho

What amazing work! I am very interested in doing research with Tor and a dataset like this could make my job a heck of a lot easier. I have a legal question though: Are your scrapes text only? Before I work with this dataset, I want to make sure that there's no possibility it contains illegal images (child porn).

mslev 11y ago
Lower down on the page, he says he did scrape at least one site with such images, although he specifically only took text. Can't verify that this was the case for all scraped sites.
fineman 11y ago
How about ascii art? Actually, this is an interesting topic. Poisoning a dataset. CP would work for private security investigators, and to poison against government investigators you could use leaked classified secrets. Could you work around this by operating on the files on VPS you don't own, streaming a very low-res ('Basilisk'-proof - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story) ) remote desktop image.
- curiousg 11y ago
  Possession laws are pretty strict and hard to decode. I wouldn't want to be the test case in court. The idea of "poisoning" a dataset is an interesting theoretical. But in practice, I just want to judge the likelihood that the dataset is poisoned by the presence of images. If it is then there's not much I can do with it.
  - setuptools 11y ago
    Yes, this absolutely needs to be clarified by Gwern. This is a very dangerous thing to link researchers to if it contains any illegal content.
    - fineman 11y ago
      Nonsense. Gwern doesn't need to do anything for anyone. It's an interesting issue, and a way investigators may be attacked, but it's their responsibility alone. There exists data. This is that data. The data may bite. Touch the data at your own risk.
    - tomcam 11y ago
      Um... Dark market
    - tomcam 11y ago
      Um.. It says Black Market right on the tin.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Indeed, a warning that it may contain illegal content would be about as sensible as the standard "Warning: may contain nuts" label on a tin of nuts.
        tedks 11y ago
        What is illegal in a download of an online drug marketplace? Are pictures of drugs banned where you live?
        mikeash 11y ago
        It's a general black market, not just drugs. For example, one of the sites described on that page is PEDOFUNDING, "A crowdfunding site for child pornography." Now the dump isn't supposed to contain any images, but it's hard to be 100% sure. In any case, whatever risk there might be seems to be clearly implied in the name and description there.
        tedks 11y ago
        FreeeOW, that's what I get for skimming the list I guess.
- njloof 11y ago
  Does ASCII art have victims? Other than its audience, I mean.
  - fineman 11y ago
    Technically it could be translated from more traditional pictures. (Instead of being an original creation.)
gwern 11y ago
They are generally not text only. I feel that images are useful to allow browsing the markets as they were and may be highly valuable in their own right as research material, so I tried to collects images where applicable. (The forums usually did not support any kind of image upload other than avatars, so this is more relevant to the markets than forum scrapes.) As far as CP goes, there should be essentially zero CP anywhere in the archive. DNM users almost universally loathe CP, and no market has ever dared to permit sales. (You may find this funny: CP is so taboo, on the DNMs like elsewhere, that it's been used in at least one attack - SR2's DoctorClu/Brian Farrell infamously attacked a rival market's forum by posting CP to it.)
- userbinator 11y ago
  DNM users almost universally loathe CP, and no market has ever dared to permit sales. These users are willing to do so many other illegal things, but the thought of being known as a pedophile or supporting pedophilia in any way, is completely abhorrent to them? Interesting datapoint.
  - RickHull 11y ago
    > These users are willing to do so many other illegal things, but the thought of being known as a pedophile or supporting pedophilia in any way, is completely abhorrent to them? I'm pretty sure the distinction is that voluntary transactions have no victims, and DNM folks care more about morality and ethics than legalities.
  - pluma 11y ago
    Morality is not binary. That someone is fine with some things that are illegal does not mean that they are fine with everything that is illegal.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    It's quite usual for career criminals to have a detailed and complicated worked-out ethical system, where that is a victimless crime but that is reprehensible.

mslev 11y ago

Lower down on the page, he says he did scrape at least one site with such images, although he specifically only took text. Can't verify that this was the case for all scraped sites.

fineman 11y ago

How about ascii art? Actually, this is an interesting topic. Poisoning a dataset. CP would work for private security investigators, and to poison against government investigators you could use leaked classified secrets. Could you work around this by operating on the files on VPS you don't own, streaming a very low-res ('Basilisk'-proof - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story) ) remote desktop image.

curiousg 11y ago
Possession laws are pretty strict and hard to decode. I wouldn't want to be the test case in court. The idea of "poisoning" a dataset is an interesting theoretical. But in practice, I just want to judge the likelihood that the dataset is poisoned by the presence of images. If it is then there's not much I can do with it.
- setuptools 11y ago
  Yes, this absolutely needs to be clarified by Gwern. This is a very dangerous thing to link researchers to if it contains any illegal content.
  - fineman 11y ago
    Nonsense. Gwern doesn't need to do anything for anyone. It's an interesting issue, and a way investigators may be attacked, but it's their responsibility alone. There exists data. This is that data. The data may bite. Touch the data at your own risk.
  - tomcam 11y ago
    Um... Dark market
  - tomcam 11y ago
    Um.. It says Black Market right on the tin.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Indeed, a warning that it may contain illegal content would be about as sensible as the standard "Warning: may contain nuts" label on a tin of nuts.
      - tedks 11y ago
        What is illegal in a download of an online drug marketplace? Are pictures of drugs banned where you live?
        mikeash 11y ago
        It's a general black market, not just drugs. For example, one of the sites described on that page is PEDOFUNDING, "A crowdfunding site for child pornography." Now the dump isn't supposed to contain any images, but it's hard to be 100% sure. In any case, whatever risk there might be seems to be clearly implied in the name and description there.
        tedks 11y ago
        FreeeOW, that's what I get for skimming the list I guess.
njloof 11y ago
Does ASCII art have victims? Other than its audience, I mean.
- fineman 11y ago
  Technically it could be translated from more traditional pictures. (Instead of being an original creation.)

gwern 11y ago

They are generally not text only. I feel that images are useful to allow browsing the markets as they were and may be highly valuable in their own right as research material, so I tried to collects images where applicable. (The forums usually did not support any kind of image upload other than avatars, so this is more relevant to the markets than forum scrapes.) As far as CP goes, there should be essentially zero CP anywhere in the archive. DNM users almost universally loathe CP, and no market has ever dared to permit sales. (You may find this funny: CP is so taboo, on the DNMs like elsewhere, that it's been used in at least one attack - SR2's DoctorClu/Brian Farrell infamously attacked a rival market's forum by posting CP to it.)

userbinator 11y ago
DNM users almost universally loathe CP, and no market has ever dared to permit sales. These users are willing to do so many other illegal things, but the thought of being known as a pedophile or supporting pedophilia in any way, is completely abhorrent to them? Interesting datapoint.
- RickHull 11y ago
  > These users are willing to do so many other illegal things, but the thought of being known as a pedophile or supporting pedophilia in any way, is completely abhorrent to them? I'm pretty sure the distinction is that voluntary transactions have no victims, and DNM folks care more about morality and ethics than legalities.
- pluma 11y ago
  Morality is not binary. That someone is fine with some things that are illegal does not mean that they are fine with everything that is illegal.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  It's quite usual for career criminals to have a detailed and complicated worked-out ethical system, where that is a victimless crime but that is reprehensible.