Drug Traders on the Dark Web

The talk looks at how drug buying and selling works on dark web marketplaces, drawing on research into the Finnish and Polish markets. The speaker, a cultural scholar, explains that the work relies mainly on a dataset of about three million posts from a defunct image board, supplemented by data from other sites. The speaker outlines the channel types involved, from crypto markets and vendor shops to image boards and invitation-only messaging groups, and notes that the trade is moving toward closed apps.

The middle of the talk covers how participants try to establish trust where almost any claim can be faked. Fake reviews and escrow systems both have weaknesses, so sellers lean on store reputation, nationality-based rules and convenience. Most buyers are recreational users, and many show weak operational security, reusing names from other platforms. Expert knowledge clusters around stolen hardware, fraud and harm-reduction discussions, while the clumsiest posts often come from people asking for help with those same topics.

The closing section reports that the pandemic and the war have had little lasting effect on the drug trade beyond temporary shortages. For researchers, the talk stresses careful handling of personal data, since third-party names in posts can make large portions of a dataset unusable. The curated dataset has been opened to other researchers on request, subject to review of their intended use.