Trust on the Dark Web

Feb 7, 2019
Cover: PhD thesis Lukas Norbutas

Why would anyone engage in risky business with a total stranger? In this project, we analyze how criminals cooperate on Dark Web markets and forums. We use rational choice and game theoretical explanations of individual trust and study effects of reputation, information diffusion and rule enforcement on exchanges in Dark Web criminal networks. We use text mining techniques, discrete choice modeling, and advanced social network analysis on unique longitudinal data of online exchanges on the Dark Web.
This project is funded by an NWO Research Talent 2015 grant, no. 406-15-106 for PhD candidate <a href=“https://www.nscr.nl/en/author/lukas/"target=_blank>Lukas Norbutas, who defends his thesis on March 6, 2020.

Cybercrime
Professor / Senior Researcher

Trained as a quantitative sociologist, specialized in geographic and environmental criminology, interested in understanding why crime happens where and when it does and rigorous testing of its explanations and the policies and practices to prevent it.

Related

Publications

Believe it when you see it: Dyadic embeddedness and reputation effects on trust in cryptomarkets for illegal drugs

Large-scale online marketplace data have been repeatedly used to test sociological theories on trust between strangers. Most studies …
Lukas Norbutas, Stijn Ruiter, Rense Corten
Project Source Document DOI

Reputation transferability across contexts: Maintaining cooperation among anonymous cryptomarket actors when moving between markets

BACKGROUND: Buyers and sellers of illegal drugs in cryptomarkets have been found to overcome trust issues created by anonymity and the …
Lukas Norbutas, Stijn Ruiter, Rense Corten
Project Source Document DOI