A geographical analysis of trafficking on a popular darknet market

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces, located on the darknet, that facilitate the trading of a variety of illegal goods, mostly drugs. While the literature essentially focus on drugs, various other goods and products related to financial or identity fraud, firearms, counterfeit goods, as well as doping products are also offered on these marketplaces. Through the analysis of relevant data collected on a popular marketplace in 2014–2015, Evolution, this research provides an analysis of the structure of trafficking (types and proportions of products, number of vendors and shipping countries). It also aims at highlighting geographical patterns in the trafficking of these products (e.g. trafficking flows, specialisation of vendors and assessment of their role in the distribution chain). The analysis of the flow of goods between countries emphasises the role of specific countries in the international and domestic trafficking, potentially informing law enforcement agencies to target domestic mails or international posts from specific countries. The research also highlights the large proportion of licit and illicit drug listings and vendors on Evolution, followed by various fraud issues (in particular, financial fraud), the sharing of knowledge (tutorials) and finally goods, currencies and precious metals (principally luxury goods). Looking at the shipping country, there seems to be a clear division between digital and physical products, with more specific information for physical goods. This reveals that the spatial analysis of trafficking is particularly meaningful in the case of physical products (such as illicit drugs) and to a lesser extent for digital products. Finally, the geographical analysis reveals that spatial patterns on Evolution tend to reflect the structure of the traditional illicit market. However, regarding illicit drugs, country-specificity has been observed and are presented in this article

Vaccines and more: The response of Dark Web marketplaces to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

Early analyses revealed that dark web marketplaces (DWMs) started offering COVID-19 related products (e.g., masks and COVID-19 tests) as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic started, when these goods were in shortage in the traditional economy. Here, we broaden the scope and depth of previous investigations by considering how DWMs responded to an ongoing pandemic after the initial shock. Our dataset contains listings from 194 DWMs collected until July 2021. We start by focusing on vaccines. We find 248 listings offering approved vaccines, like Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca, as well as vendors offering fabricated proofs of vaccination and COVID-19 passports. Then, we consider COVID-19 related products. We show that, as the regular economy has become able to satisfy the demand of these goods, DWMs have decreased their offer. Next, we analyse the profile of vendors of COVID-19 related products and vaccines. We find that most of them are specialized in a single type of listings and are willing to ship worldwide. Finally, we consider a broader set of listings mentioning COVID-19, in order to assess the general impact of the pandemic on the broader activity of DWMs. Among 10,330 such listings, we show that recreational drugs are the most affected among traditional DWMs product, with COVID-19 mentions steadily increasing since March 2020. We anticipate that our results will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and law enforcement agencies focused on the study and safeguard of public health

Computer Forensics: Dark Net Forensic Framework and Tools Used for Digital Evidence Detection

As the development of technology increases and its use becomes increasingly more widespread, computer crimes grow. Hence, computer forensics research is becoming more crucial in developing good forensic frameworks and digital evidence detection tools to deter more cyber-attacks. In this paper, we explore the science of computer forensics, a dark web forensic framework, and digital evidence detection tools

Furanylfentanyl. ANNEX 1. Technical report on N-phenyl-N- [1-(2-phenylethyl)piperidin-4-yl]furan- 2-carboxamide (furanylfentanyl).

This publication presents the data and findings of the risk assessment on furanylfentanyl (N-phenyl-N-[1-(2-phenylethyl)piperidin-4-yl]furan-2-carboxamide), carried out by the extended Scientific Committee of the EMCDDA on 23 May 2017. The Risk Assessment Report, which was submitted to the European Commission and the Council of the European Union on 23 May 2017, examines the health and social risks of the drug, information on international trafficking and the involvement of organised crime, as well as a consideration of the potential implications of subjecting the drug to control measures. Furanylfentanyl is the fourteenth new psychoactive substance to be risk assessed under the terms of Council Decision 2005/387/JHA. On the basis of the Risk Assessment Report - and on the initiative of the European Commission - on 15 November 2017, the Council decided that furanylfentanyl should be subject to control measures across the Member States. This decision was adopted in the final stage of the three-step process - early warning, risk assessment and control of new psychoactive substances - established by the Council Decision 2005/387/JHA. This legal framework allows the EU institutions and Member States to act on all new and potentially threatening narcotic and psychotropic drugs which appear on the European drug scene, with the EMCDDA and Europol, in collaboration with their respective networks playing a central role in the early detection of such substances as well as the harms caused by their use - information that underpins risk assessment, and, ultimately, decision-making

Blockchain based ecosystems: a complex systems approach

Since the development of Bitcoin in 2008, blockchain-based technologies have flourished and several applications have been created, such as smart contracts, NFTs or cryptocurrencies. The blockchain allows for different kinds of transactions to be verified in a decentralized way, without the need for an intermediary, allowing new socio-technical ecosystems to be born and grow. Transactions are stored publicly, anonymously and openly on the blockchain, granting unprecedented access to data on human (collective) behaviour and socio-technical systems. The question thus arises: can we use this data to characterize these systems, and possibly to further our understanding of human behaviour? In this thesis, we address this question by studying different blockchain-based ecosystems through a combination of different datasets. Firstly, we study Dark Web Marketplaces (DWMs), online illicit markets on the dark web using cryptocurrencies for payments, and we characterize how they first reacted and then adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic using web scraping data. Secondly, we exploit a unique dataset of Bitcoin and proprietary transactions to characterize the buyer-seller network on DWMs and regulated e-commerce platforms. Thirdly, we study a comprehensive dataset of scientific publications to investigate the evolution of the concept of decentralization, pillar of blockchain-based ecosystems, in time. Then, we extend the literature on DWMs by studying the wider ecosystem of direct interactions between users, a network we can study only thanks to blockchain data. Finally, we analyse the trade of NFT collectibles on the largest open marketplace available, characterizing the role of rarity in determining market trends. Overall, this thesis presents a series of pioneering studies improving our understanding of blockchain-based socio-technical systems, thanks to unique comprehensive large scale datasets giving us unprecedented access to the history and behaviour of these ecosystems. We hope researchers will extend this work to improve our understanding of these systems and more generally human behaviour

Quantifying and modelling online decentralised systems: a complex systems approach

Cryptocurrencies are unique examples of decentralised socioeconomic systems. All the transactions, trading, and development are traceable and publicly available. Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, was introduced in 2009 launching a market of more than 2500 cryptocurrencies and has a value of more than 200 billion dollars. In comparison to the rising importance of cryptocurrencies in the financial world, the research on cryptocurrencies is still limited. In this thesis, we analyse three novel datasets namely, cryptocurrencies’ market data, cryptocurrencies’ Wikipedia page views and edits, and illicit transactions on Bitcoin. We study the cryptocurrencies ecosystem, including the market dynamics, the social attention and the transaction network. We find that the ecological neutral model can capture the market dynamics, hinting at the extent to which technological differences between cryptocurrencies are considered in investment decisions. We also investigate the relationship between information production and consumption and cryptocurrency market dynamics. We find that a small community of tightly connected editors is responsible for most of the production of information about cryptocurrencies in Wikipedia. Finally, we assess dark markets’ Bitcoin transactions showing the ability of the markets to adapt to multiple closures, including law enforcement raids. We expect that our contribution will be of interest to researchers working on either cryptocurrencies or complex systems. We anticipate that adopting a complex systems approach, will spark more research that interweaves both the technological and socioeconomic aspect of cryptocurrencies