Flow My FE the Vendor Said

Exploring Violent and Fraudulent Resource Exchanges on Cryptomarkets for Illicit Drugs

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3757640
AutoresKim Moeller (Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, autor correspondente), Rasmus Munksgaard (0000-0002-2306-3309, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Jakob Demant (0000-0003-3333-224X, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Ano2017
Volume61
Fascículo11
Páginas1427-1450
Data de publicação2017-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764217734269
OpenAlexW2756219762
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas37
Referências citadas41

A growing share of illicit drug distribution takes place using cryptomarkets that use encryption and anonymization technologies. The risks of law enforcement intervention and violence are lower here than in off-line traditional drug markets, but with the technological innovations follow new opportunities for stealing and fraud. The sites themselves fall prey to theft and hacking attempts, administrators abscond with users' funds, and malicious sellers regularly cheat buyers. In this study, we explore the types of theft and fraud that occur on cryptomarkets using multiple data sources: formalized community resources (e.g., guides, tutorials), ethnographic observations of user forums, thematic identification of forum posts using unsupervised text classification, and an expert interview. We find system-based violent predatory resource exchange similar to robberies and process-based fraudulent resource exchange similar to rip-offs. We discuss these offenses conceptually as extensions of common drug-related crimes in the digital world. This contributes to the research on how cryptomarkets work and can improve crime-prevention efforts

Business · Computer security · Criminology · Cybercrime · Encryption · Hacker · Identity Theft · Internet privacy · Intervention (counseling) · Law enforcement · Organised crime · Political science · Process (computing) · Resource (disambiguation) · Sociology · The Internet · Vendor · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies · Law · Marketing · Psychology · Spam and Phishing Detection