On the Resilience of the Dark Net Market Ecosystem to Law Enforcement Intervention

Description

Declaration of Authorship Abstract Impact Statement Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1.1 Dark Net Markets and Dark Net Technologies 1.1.1 Accessing a DNM 1.1.2 Creating an Account 1.1.3 Acquiring Funds 1.1.3.1 Multisig Transactions 1.1.4 Making a Purchase 1.1.5 Product Shipment 1.1.6 Feedback 1.1.7 Forums 1.2 Who Uses DNMs? 1.3 History of Law Enforcement on the Dark Net 1.4 Contributions 2 Literature Review 2.1 Dark Net Markets 2.1.1 Marketplace Studies 2.1.1.1 Collecting Data 2.1.1.2 Validating Data 2.1.1.3 Linking Vendors 2.1.1.4 Categorising Products 2.1.1.5 Calculating Sales 2.1.2 User Behaviour 2.1.2.1 Interview and Survey Studies 2.1.2.2 Forums 2.1.2.3 DNM Analysis 2.1.3 Law Enforcement and the Dark Net 2.2 Related Contexts 2.2.1 Legal Highs 2.2.2 Malware, Carding, and Cybercrime as a Service 2.2.3 Hackers 2.3 Resilience Theory 2.3.1 Psychology 2.3.1.1 Resilience in Individuals 2.3.1.2 Community Resilience 2.3.2 Ecology and Sociology 2.3.3 Engineering 3 Research Question and Hypotheses 3.1 Resilience Definition 3.2 Adverse Events 3.2.1 Impact on Ecosystem 3.2.1.1 Ecosystem Hypotheses 3.2.2 Impact on Users 3.2.2.1 User Hypotheses 4 Data 4.1 Gwern Branwen Dataset 4.1.1 Information Extraction 4.1.2 Data Validation 4.1.2.1 Summary 4.1.2.2 Review Data 4.1.2.3 Ecosystem Coverage 4.1.3 Forums 4.2 Silk Road 2.0 Dataset 4.3 Reddit Data 5 Methodology 5.1 Cross Market Study 5.1.1 Linking Vendor Accounts Across DNMs 5.1.2 Measuring Vendor Lifetimes 5.1.3 Collecting Product Information 5.1.4 Measuring Vendor Reputation 5.1.5 Identifying Events 5.1.6 Continuing to Trade 5.1.7 Vendor Movement 5.2 Silk Road 2.0 Study 5.2.1 Creating the Network 5.2.2 User Information 5.2.3 Network Analysis 5.2.4 ERGM Analysis 5.3 Reddit Study 5.3.1 Measuring the Community 5.3.2 Measuring the Impact of Events 5.3.2.1 Quantitative Approach 5.3.2.2 Qualitative Approach 6 Results of Cross Market Study 6.1 General Statistics 6.1.1 Vendors 6.1.2 DNMs 6.2 Analysis of the Impact of Events 6.2.1 Operation Onymous 6.2.2 Evolution Exit Scam 6.2.3 DNM Closure 6.2.4 Vendor Movement 6.2.5 Summary 7 Silk Road 2.0 Results 7.1 General Statistics 7.1.1 Network Analysis 7.1.2 UK Only Network Analysis 7.2 Temporal Analysis 7.2.1 How Does the Population Respond to Events? 7.2.2 How Does the Shape of the Network Change Over Time? 7.3 Vendor Buyer Relationships 7.3.1 What Makes Vendors Popular? 7.3.2 Can Vendor Behaviour Influence Buyers to Leave the Market? 7.3.3 Bad Transaction Experiences 8 Reddit Forums Results 8.1 General Statistics 8.1.1 /r/DarkNetMarkets 8.1.1.1 Network Analysis 8.1.2 /r/dnmuk 8.1.3 /r/Ebay 8.1.4 Subreddit Comparisons 8.2 Evaluation of Law Enforcement Interventions 8.2.1 Activity 8.2.2 Content Analysis 8.2.2.1 Operation Hyperion 8.2.2.2 Operation Bayonet 9 Discussion 9.1 Hypotheses 9.1.1 User Resilience 9.1.2 Ecosystem Resilience 9.2 Limitations 9.2.1 Cross Market Study 9.2.2 Silk Road 2.0 Study 9.2.3 Reddit Forums Study 9.3 New Findings and Future Work 9.4 Recommendations for Law Enforcement 10 Conclusion 10.1 Cross Market Study 10.2 Silk Road 2.0 Study 10.3 Reddit Forum Study 10.4 Findings A Validation Metrics B Username Matches C List of Subcategories D List of Common Words E Reputation F Timeline G CDF Plots of Advertised and Observed Listing Values H ERGM Results I ERGM Results Bibliography