Child sexual abuse material on the darknet: a script analysis of how offenders operate

Leclerc, Benoît; Drew, Jacqueline M.; Holt, Thomas J.; Cale, Jesse; Singh, Sara

doi:10.52922/ti78160

Cited by 3 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In addition to the abovementioned crimes, crime script analysis has been used more recently to discuss criminal activity on the Dark Web. For example, Leclerc et al (2021) identified the following three stages (i.e., crime set-up, crime completion, and crime continuation) of crimes involving child sexual abuse content on the Dark Web. Van der Bruggen and Blokland (2021b) likewise studied child sex trafficking on the Dark Web with crime script analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the Name of Dark Web Justice: A Crime Script Analysis of Hacking Services and the Underground Justice System

Choi

Lee

2023

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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The Dark Web serves as a key venue for peddling illegal goods and services, from stolen possessions and drugs to illicit activities. The concurrent increase in Tor network usage and the development of cryptocurrency has led to the creation of major black market sites. One of the most popular illicit services offered on the Dark Web is hacking, which includes website/social media account hacking, Denial-of-service attacks, and custom malware. At the same time, the Dark Web community has formed its own justice system leveraging the layer of anonymity that exists between underground community users and the cybercrime ecosystem. Existing studies predominantly focus on the major drug market operating on the Dark Web, firearm sales, sexual exploitation, and money laundering. To address the gaps in the current research as well as the relative nascency of an underground justice system to monitor hacking services on the Dark Web, this study attempts to broadly capture the dynamic nature of hacking services, which requires continuous research to identify new trends and develop effective responses. The study aims to examine the characteristics and the operations of the hacking service market and the underground justice system on the Dark Web via an in-depth examination of Dark Web forums with a crime script analysis vis-à-vis thematic analysis. The study defines the crime script as that which includes pretrial, mid-trial, finalization, and exit stages. This research sheds light on Dark Web justice courts’ procedures and the courts’ implications for shaping the future of the Dark Web.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the Name of Dark Web Justice: A Crime Script Analysis of Hacking Services and the Underground Justice System

Choi

Lee

2023

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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“…In addition, law enforcement can use the Dark Web to establish anonymous tip lines, carry out sting operations, and to conduct online surveillance of Dark Web communities (Chertoff & Simon, 2015). Although clearnet web browsing via Tor is much more common (Jardine, 2018a, 2018b), there remains a lack of scholarship on the legal uses of the tool; most studies focusing on drug markets (Dolliver, 2015; Dolliver & Kenney, 2016) or abuse material (Leclerc et al, 2021).…”

Section: Studying the Dark Webmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Onion Router, more commonly known as “Tor,” is the world’s most popular web anonymization tool. By providing access to the “Dark Web,” where illicit and illegal content are typically found, Tor has earned a reputation for being an application utilized by drug dealers (Dolliver, 2015; Dolliver & Kenney, 2016), terrorists (Weimann, 2016), and people seeking child abuse material (Leclerc et al, 2021). This oversimplification belies the myriad of other legitimate use-cases for online anonymity tools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Real-World Use of the Onion Router

Ghazi‐Tehrani

2023

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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Since its inception, The Onion Router (TOR) has been discussed as an anonymizing tool used for nefarious purposes. Past scholarship has focused on publicly available lists of onion URLs containing illicit or illegal content. The current study is an attempt to move past these surface-level explanations and into a discussion of actual use data; a multi-tiered system to identify real-world TOR traffic was developed for the task. The researcher configured and deployed a fully functioning TOR “exit” node for public use. A Wireshark instance was placed between the node and the “naked” internet to collect usage data (destination URLs, length of visit, etc.), but not to deanonymize or otherwise unmask TOR users. For 6 months, the node ran and collected data 24 hr per day, which produced a data set of over 4.5 terabytes. Using Python, the researcher developed a custom tool to filter the URLs into human-readable form and to produce descriptive data. All URLs were coded and categorized into a variety of classifications, including e-commerce, banking, social networking, pornography, and cryptocurrency. Findings reveal that most TOR usage is rather benign, with users spending much more time on social networking and e-commerce sites than on those with illegal drug or pornographic content. Likewise, visits to legal sites vastly outnumber visits to illegal ones. Although most URLs collected were for English-language websites, there were a sizable amount for Russian and Chinese sites, which may demonstrate the utilization of TOR in countries where internet access is censored or monitored by government actors. Akin to other new technologies which have earned bad reputations, such as file-sharing program BitTorrent and intellectual property theft or cryptocurrency Bitcoin and online drug sales, this study demonstrates that TOR is utilized by offenders and non-offenders alike.

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“…Several studies have examined crime scripts for sexual acts involving child victims due to the interaction required between victims and offenders during the course of the offense (Leclerc et al., 2011; Leclerc et al., 2021; van der Bruggen & Blokland, 2021). Crime script analyses of physical contact offenses suggest offenders directly engage in strategies to gain victims’ trust (Leclerc et al., 2011).…”

Section: Situating Sextortion Within Image‐based Sexual Abuse and Chi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The process of offending when CSAM content is involved appears to differ from offline contact offenses. The offender must navigate both physical and virtual environments to complete specific offense activities (Leclerc et al., 2021; van der Bruggen & Blokland, 2021). CSAM consumers and forum users tend to prepare for the offense by ensuring they are in a private physical space, creating accounts, searching for CSAM content, setting up access to the Dark Web, and entering the Dark Web (Leclerc et al., 2021; van der Bruggen & Blokland, 2021).…”

Section: Situating Sextortion Within Image‐based Sexual Abuse and Chi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Minor‐focused sextortion by adult strangers: A crime script analysis of newspaper and court cases

O'Malley,

Holt,

Holt

et al. 2023

Criminology & Public Policy

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SummarySextortion is a form of image‐based sexual abuse in which an offender threatens to distribute sexually explicit images, videos, or information to gain victim compliance. In some sextortion incidents involving minor children, offenders are adult strangers who coerce victims into self‐producing child sexually abusive materials (CSAM). Despite the growing concern regarding minor victims of sextortion, there is a lack of empirical investigation of adult offenders who exclusively target minor children for the production of CSAM and the steps and decisions these offenders take to commit sextortion. Utilizing a sample of 130 minor‐focused sextortion cases gathered from news media and court documents, the current study employed crime script analysis and inductive qualitative methodology to investigate how adult offenders commit sextortion. The results indicated that adult offenders specifically targeting minor children move through several crime scripts: preparation, entry, instrumental actions, crime commission, and exit.Policy ImplicationsMinor‐focused sextortion perpetrated by adult offenders is executed in stages, each with accompanying preventive solutions. Investing in education that teaches youth to recognize grooming, develops safety practices online, and removes barriers to reporting should be a priority for schools and parents. Increased adoption of technology and policies that would allow social media platforms to detect CSAM, remove fraudulent accounts, and streamline reporting would also disrupt these crimes.

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Child sexual abuse material on the darknet: a script analysis of how offenders operate

Cited by 3 publications

References 24 publications

In the Name of Dark Web Justice: A Crime Script Analysis of Hacking Services and the Underground Justice System

In the Name of Dark Web Justice: A Crime Script Analysis of Hacking Services and the Underground Justice System

Mapping Real-World Use of the Onion Router

Minor‐focused sextortion by adult strangers: A crime script analysis of newspaper and court cases

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