Behavioural Evidence Analysis Applied to Digital Forensics: An Empirical Analysis of Child Pornography Cases using P2P Networks

The utility of Behavioural Evidence Analysis (BEA) has gained attention in the field of Digital Forensics in recent years. It has been recognized that, along with technical examination of digital evidence, it is important to learn as much as possible about the individuals behind an offence, the victim(s) and the dynamics of a crime. This can assist the investigator in producing a more accurate and complete reconstruction of the crime, in interpreting associated digital evidence, and with the description of investigative findings. Despite these potential benefits, the literature shows limited use of BEA for the investigation of cases of the possession and dissemination of Sexually Exploitative Imagery of Children (SEIC). This paper represents a step towards filling this gap. It reports on the forensic analysis of 15 SEIC cases involving P2P filesharing networks, obtained from the Dubai Police. Results confirmed the predicted benefits and indicate that BEA can assist digital forensic practitioners and prosecutors

Personality in Computational Advertising: A Benchmark

In the last decade, new ways of shopping online have increased the possibility of buying products and services more easily and faster than ever. In this new context, personality is a key determinant in the decision making of the consumer when shopping. A person’s buying choices are influenced by psychological factors like impulsiveness; indeed some consumers may be more susceptible to making impulse purchases than others. Since affective metadata are more closely related to the user’s experience than generic parameters, accurate predictions reveal important aspects of user’s attitudes, social life, including attitude of others and social identity. This work proposes a highly innovative research that uses a personality perspective to determine the unique associations among the consumer’s buying tendency and advert recommendations. In fact, the lack of a publicly available benchmark for computational advertising do not allow both the exploration of this intriguing research direction and the evaluation of recent algorithms. We present the ADS Dataset, a publicly available benchmark consisting of 300 real advertisements (i.e., Rich Media Ads, Image Ads, Text Ads) rated by 120 unacquainted individuals, enriched with Big-Five users’ personality factors and 1,200 personal users’ pictures

Essays on Online Browsing and Purchase

Essay One: Modeling Online Browsing and Purchase of Airline Tickets Online purchases are increasingly becoming a significant portion of total purchases in most product categories. While prior research in marketing has looked at information search and purchase decisions separately, we use a joint framework to study consumers\u27 online browsing and purchase of airline tickets in a unique dataset of household-level dynamic click stream panel data. We use a three-stage model to study: i) the choice of the first website visited,: ii) the duration of browsing on travel websites before making a purchase: iii) the choice of the website where consumers will make the purchase, and how a later stage choice is affected by decisions in previous stages. We simultaneously estimate these three models which constitute a non-linear discrete-continuous equation system using a simulation-based econometric technique. We find significant effects of expected level of expenditure, prior browsing experience, prior purchase experience in determining consumer browsing and purchase behavior. We are able to quantify the differences in attractiveness of a website in getting consumers to first visit them and compare it with the conversion effectiveness of a website in terms of getting consumers who visit to make purchases. A significant impact of choice of the first site visited and browsing duration on choice of the purchase site indicates the importance of modeling these decisions simultaneously. Our results can help managers identify the major determinants of consumer browsing and online purchase behavior, some of which cannot be observed in a brick-and-mortar environment. Essay Two: Modeling Online Multi-category Purchase in Travel In this paper we investigate online purchase behavior at the basket level and model the multi-category purchases in the travel product category. While prior research in marketing has looked at browsing or individual category purchase decisions, we study consumers\u27 online purchase of airline, car rental and hotel purchases together using a unique dataset of household-level dynamic click stream panel data. We use a two-stage model to study: i) the propensity of consumers to purchase a combination of products as a basket and: ii) the choice of the website where consumers will make those purchases. We then estimate the propensity of consumers to purchase a particular combination of products in their basket from different websites. This behavior constitutes a high dimensional system of multinomial equations which are then solved using a simulation-based econometric technique. We find significant effects of site preference, loyalty, prior browsing and demographic variables in determining consumer multi-category purchase behavior. Our results can help managers identify the major determinants of multi-category purchase as well as provide insights into cross promoting as well as upselling other products to consumers who visit their website

Ensuring an Impartial Jury in the Age of Social Media

The explosive growth of social networking has placed enormous pressure on one of the most fundamental of American institutions—the impartial jury. Through social networking services like Facebook and Twitter, jurors have committed significant and often high-profile acts of misconduct. Just recently, the Arkansas Supreme Court reversed a death sentence because a juror Tweeted about the case during deliberations. In light of the significant risks to a fair trial that arise when jurors communicate through social media during trial, judges must be vigilant in monitoring for potential outside influences and in deterring misconduct. In this Article, we present informal survey data from actual jurors on their use of social networking during trial. We discuss the rise of web-based social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and the concerns that arise when jurors communicate about a case through social media before returning a verdict. After surveying how courts have responded to jurors’ social media use, we describe the results of the informal survey. The results support a growing consensus in the legal profession that courts should frequently, as a matter of course, instruct jurors not to use social media to communicate about trial. Although others have stressed the importance of jury instructions in this area, we hope that the informal survey data will further the dialogue by providing an important perspective—that of actual jurors

The Facebook Project - The Missing Box: The Racial Politics Behind the Facebook Interface

There is no race, ethnicity or nationality category available the default Facebook profile. This, combined with the fact that Facebook is a visually-driven website, suggests that Facebook serves to inadvertently or covertly perpetuate two racist or discriminatory norms: the colorblind mentality and racialized visual classification of others. This paper quickly traverses through a basic theory of identity that dictates that persons incur an on-going dialectic between individual and social identity, both on and offline. It contends that Facebook is an advantageous place to perform and portray one???s social identity and is largely visually-driven, therefore the interface is of paramount importance. Racial, ethnic, or national identity is of significance to many individuals and the lack of a place to express this is a form of discrimination. Such a category should be added to Facebook???s set of basic identity options. Guidelines for a successful implementation are provided.unpublishedis peer reviewe