Data Capture and Analysis of Darknet Markets

25 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2019 Last revised: 19 Feb 2021

See all articles by Matthew Ball

Matthew Ball

ANU Cybercrime Observatory

Roderic Broadhurst

School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet); Australian National University (ANU) - Cybercrime Observatory

Date Written: February 18, 2021

Abstract

Since the advent of darknet markets, or illicit cryptomarkets, there has been a sustained interest in studying their operations: the actors, products, payment methods, and so on. However, this research has been limited by a variety of obstacles, including the difficulty in obtaining reliable and representative data, which present challenges to undertaking a complete and systematic study. The Australian National University’s Cybercrime Observatory has developed tools that can be used to collect and analyse data obtained from darknet markets. This paper describes these tools in detail. While the proposed methods are not error-free, they provide a further step in providing a transparent and comprehensive solution for observing darknet markets tailored for data scientists, social scientists, criminologists and others interested in analysing trends from darknet markets.

Keywords: cybercrime, darknet, cryptomarkets, Tor, crawler, web scrape

Suggested Citation

Ball, Matthew and Broadhurst, Roderic, Data Capture and Analysis of Darknet Markets (February 18, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3344936 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3344936

Matthew Ball

ANU Cybercrime Observatory ( email )

Acton, ACT 2601
Australia

Roderic Broadhurst (Contact Author)

School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet) ( email )

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

Australian National University (ANU) - Cybercrime Observatory ( email )

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