Evaluating drug trafficking on the Tor Network: Silk Road 2, the sequel

Dolliver, Diana S.

doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.01.008

Cited by 116 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Like many similar Dark Web marketplaces, drugs were the most popular commodities [39]. Other highly populated listing areas of the marketplace we analyzed were "Credit/Gift Card Fraud" and "Identity Theft" data dumps.…”

Section: Determining the Structure Of The Dark Web Marketplacementioning

confidence: 99%

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A Framework for More Effective Dark Web Marketplace Investigations

2018

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Abstract:The success of the Silk Road has prompted the growth of many Dark Web marketplaces. This exponential growth has provided criminal enterprises with new outlets to sell illicit items. Thus, the Dark Web has generated great interest from academics and governments who have sought to unveil the identities of participants in these highly lucrative, yet illegal, marketplaces. Traditional Web scraping methodologies and investigative techniques have proven to be inept at unmasking these marketplace participants. This research provides an analytical framework for automating Dark Web scraping and analysis with free tools found on the World Wide Web. Using a case study marketplace, we successfully tested a Web crawler, developed using AppleScript, to retrieve the account information for thousands of vendors and their respective marketplace listings. This paper clearly details why AppleScript was the most viable and efficient method for scraping Dark Web marketplaces. The results from our case study validate the efficacy of our proposed analytical framework, which has relevance for academics studying this growing phenomenon and for investigators examining criminal activity on the Dark Web.

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Section: Determining the Structure Of The Dark Web Marketplacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…has been an interesting case study [44], in addition to subsequent Dark Web marketplaces, like Silk Road 2.0 [20,39]. A number of studies have attempted to quantify the growth and membership of these popular and successful online communities [8,19,45,46], and also to analyze their business models [44,47].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Framework for More Effective Dark Web Marketplace Investigations

2018

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“…The Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down the Silk Road in October 2013 and its successor, the Silk Road 2, in November 2014 (Dolliver, 2015). The Silk Road 3 was launched almost immediately after but was overrun by other sites, such as Agora and Evolution, which adopted some features of the original Silk Road Van Buskirk et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many of the studies have been based on the Silk Road (e.g., Alridge and Décary-Hétu, 2016; Barratt and Maddox, 2016) and their successors, such as the Silk Road 2.0, Agora, Alphabay and Valhalla (e.g., Van Buskirk et al, 2016;Décary-Hétu and Giommoni, 2017;Demant et al, 2016;Dolliver and Kuhns, 2016;Van Hout and Hearne, 2017). Studies have employed more traditional research methods such as surveys and interviews (Barratt et al, 2014;Van Hout & Bingham 2013a, b) and newer approaches employing web crawlers (Alridge and Décary-Hétu, 2016;Demant et al, 2016;Dolliver, 2015;Aldridge, 2016;Christin, 2013;Hardy and Norgaard, 2015;. Some studies have also investigated the quality of drugs sold in the cryptomarkets (Caudeville et al, 2016;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seller’s reputation and capacity on the illicit drug markets: 11-month study on the Finnish version of the Silk Road

Nurmi

Kaskela

Perälä

et al. 2017

Drug and Alcohol Dependence

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Aims: This 11-month study analysed illicit drug sales on the anonymous Tor network, with a focus on investigating whether a seller's reputation and capacity increased daily drug sales. Design and setting: The data was gathered from Silkkitie, the Finnish version of the Silk Road, by web crawling the site on a daily basis from November 2014 to September 2015). The data includes information on sellers (n=260) and products (n=3823). Measurements: The measurements include the sellers' reputation, the sale amounts (in euros), the number of available products and the types of drugs sold. The sellers' capacity was measured using their full sales potential (in euros). Fixed-effects regression models were used to estimate the effects of sellers' reputation and capacity; these models were adjusted for the types of drugs sold. Findings: Overall, illicit drug sales totalled over 2 million euros during the study, but many products were not sold at all, and sellers were active for only a short time on average (mean=62.8 days). Among the products sold, stimulants were most widely purchased, followed by cannabis, MDMA, and psychedelics. A seller's reputation and capacity were both associated with drug sales. Conclusion: The Tor network has enabled a transformation in drug sales. Due to the network's anonymity, the seller's reputation and capacity both have an impact on sales.

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“…One can use it to make anonymous hacker attacks to various targets online, or other criminal activity [2]. During years, Internet and its usage became everyday activity in offices all around the world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blocking Tor - Insight Approach

Stanojević¹

2017

Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference - Sinteza 2017

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Abstract:Tor is a very powerful tool for avoiding restrictions of the Internet usage in local networks (companies or educational/public institutions). For example, students use it on everyday basis at university computer labs. In order to prevent such misuse from happening, most effective solutions widely known go as far as obtaining current list of Tor nodes and updating the local network security policy with thousands of IP addresses. In this paper, one more efficient and effective method is presented by analyzing Tor package source code as well as aiming at core infrastructure of Tor network. This method is much more reliable and consumes fewer resources while completing the task with success. It is used instead of not so reliable frequent Tor nodes sniffing, which is mainstream approach.

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Evaluating drug trafficking on the Tor Network: Silk Road 2, the sequel

Cited by 116 publications

References 10 publications

A Framework for More Effective Dark Web Marketplace Investigations

A Framework for More Effective Dark Web Marketplace Investigations

Seller’s reputation and capacity on the illicit drug markets: 11-month study on the Finnish version of the Silk Road

Blocking Tor - Insight Approach

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