TY - GEN
T1 - An analysis of underground forums
AU - Motoyama, Marti
AU - McCoy, Damon
AU - Levchenko, Kirill
AU - Savage, Stefan
AU - Voelker, Geoffrey M.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Underground forums, where participants exchange information on abusive tactics and engage in the sale of illegal goods and services, are a form of online social network (OSN). However, unlike traditional OSNs such as Facebook, in underground forums the pattern of communications does not simply encode pre-existing social relationships, but instead captures the dynamic trust relationships forged between mutually distrustful parties. In this paper, we empirically characterize six different underground forums - - BlackHatWorld, Carders, HackSector, HackE1ite, Freehack, and L33tCrew - - examining the properties of the social networks formed within, the content of the goods and services being exchanged, and lastly, how individuals gain and lose trust in this setting.
AB - Underground forums, where participants exchange information on abusive tactics and engage in the sale of illegal goods and services, are a form of online social network (OSN). However, unlike traditional OSNs such as Facebook, in underground forums the pattern of communications does not simply encode pre-existing social relationships, but instead captures the dynamic trust relationships forged between mutually distrustful parties. In this paper, we empirically characterize six different underground forums - - BlackHatWorld, Carders, HackSector, HackE1ite, Freehack, and L33tCrew - - examining the properties of the social networks formed within, the content of the goods and services being exchanged, and lastly, how individuals gain and lose trust in this setting.
KW - online social networks
KW - underground forums
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=82955190605&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=82955190605&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2068816.2068824
DO - 10.1145/2068816.2068824
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:82955190605
SN - 9781450310130
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC
SP - 71
EP - 79
BT - IMC'11 - Proceedings of the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference
T2 - 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC'11
Y2 - 2 November 2011 through 4 November 2011
ER -