Abstract
The core of this article is a detailed investigation of the dispute resolution system contained within Darkode, an elite cybercriminal forum. Extracting the dedicated disputes section from within the marketplace, where users can report bad behavior and register complaints, we carry out content analysis on these threads. This involves both descriptive statistics across the data set and qualitative analysis of particular posts of interest, leading to a number of new insights. First, the overall level of disputes is quite high, even though members are vetted for entry in the first instance. Second, the lower ranked members of the marketplace are the most highly represented category for both the plaintiffs and defendants. Third, vendors are accused of malfeasance far more often than buyers, and their “crimes” are most commonly either not providing the product/service or providing a poor one. Fourth, the monetary size of the disputes is surprisingly small. Finally, only 23.1% of disputes reach a clear outcome.
Highlights
In recent years, social scientific research on cybercrime has grown
One particular area of cybercrime scholarship that has blossomed is the study of the online organisation of financiallymotivated cybercriminals
New types of data derived from cybercriminal forums and marketplaces may have spurred the growth of this niche field
Summary
Social scientific research on cybercrime has grown. One particular area of cybercrime scholarship that has blossomed is the study of the online organisation of financiallymotivated cybercriminals. For all the studies using forum data, detailed analysis of the name and shame sections and dispute resolution in these marketplaces has not been carried out.
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