Cybercrimeology

Episode Notes:

• Dr. Tom Holt discussed the nascent stages of cybercrime research during his doctoral studies, highlighting its evolution into a more recognized and competitive field.
• He emphasized the growth of cybercrime studies and the challenges of carving a niche within an expanding academic and professional landscape.
• Dr. Holt pointed out the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration between social sciences and computer science as crucial for advancing cybercrime research.
• The importance of online subcultures and ideological spaces in cybercrime dynamics was discussed, noting their influence on criminal activities and group formations.
• He delved into the realm of ideologically motivated cyber attacks, underscoring the need for better legal and enforcement frameworks to address such threats.
• Dr. Holt provided examples of cyber attacks by extremist groups, showing a strategic shift towards cyber tactics for ideological, not financial, reasons.
• The conversation highlighted the critical role of comprehensive data in understanding the scope and nature of cyberterrorism and ideological cyber attacks.
• Reflecting on his career, Dr. Holt offered insights on the importance of continuous learning and interdisciplinary collaboration for researchers in the cybercrime field.

About our guests:

Dr. Tom Holt

https://cj.msu.edu/directory/holt-thomas.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-holt-3242a322/

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

Cassandra Cross & Thomas J. Holt (2023) More than Money: Examining the Potential Exposure of Romance Fraud Victims to Identity Crime, Global Crime, 24:2, 107-121, DOI: 10.1080/17440572.2023.2185607

Holt, T. J., Turner, N. D., Freilich, J. D., & Chermak, S. M. (2022). Examining the Characteristics That Differentiate Jihadi-Associated Cyberattacks Using Routine Activities Theory. Social Science Computer Review, 40(6), 1614-1630. https://doi.org/10.1177/08944393211023324

Thomas J. Holt, Jin Ree Lee, Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, Johannes M. Bauer, Ruth Shillair& Arun Ross (2022) An Exploratory Analysis of the Characteristics of Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks, Terrorism and Political Violence, 34:7, 1305-1320, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2020.1777987

Thomas J. Holt, Joshua D. Freilich & Steven M. Chermak (2022) Examining the Online Expression of Ideology among Far-Right Extremist Forum Users, Terrorism and Political Violence, 34:2, 364-384,DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2019.1701446

Other:

Wait for wisdom, Learn to listen, Succession is Success.

Notes:

• Dr Chang's background in law and sociology led him to specialize in criminology, particularly cybercrime, after observing its emerging relevance.
• He chose to pursue his PhD in Australia due to scholarship opportunities and the chance to work with a leading cybercrime researcher.
• Dr Chang discusses virtual kidnapping, a scam where victims are manipulated into isolating themselves, enabling scammers to demand ransom from their families.
• He highlights the challenges of combating cybercrime, including jurisdictional issues and the need for international police collaboration.
• Dr Chang emphasizes the importance of public awareness and education to prevent scams, as well as better victim support systems.
• The interview also touches on the role of financial institutions in preventing scams and the potential future threats posed by technologies like AI and ChatGPT in cybercrime.

About our guests:

Dr Lennon Chang

https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/lennon-chang

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

1. Chang, L. Y.-C., Zhong, L.-Y., & Grabosky, P. (2020). Virtual Kidnapping: Online Scams with ‘Asian Characteristics’ During the Pandemic. In Crime and Justice in Digital Society (pp. 112-113). ResearchGate. Note: APA format typically requires publisher information, which is not provided in this excerpt.

Other:

The intro an outro was drafted using generative AI. I think it gave a different flavour.

Notes:

1. The software developed by Bryce Westlake, Russell Brewer and colleagues aims to assist law enforcement agencies in identifying perpetrators of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offences by using multiple biometric markers.
2. The unique function of the software is its capability to synthesize, triage, and systematically review all evidence holdings that law enforcement might seize, thereby automating the process and speeding up investigations.
3. The software can ingest a variety of media files, extract multiple biometric features from those files, and identify subjects contained within, matching them across data sets, reducing investigator exposure to CSAM and speeding up the investigative process.
4. One of the key aspects addressed by the software is the ability to identify new content, overcoming the limitations of current reactive methods used in combating CSAM (i.e. matching file hashes).
5. The software is leverages social networking analysis and other techniques to assist investigators to identify links between offenders, victims, places and objects, potentially opening new avenues or focusing detective work.
6. The project aims to connect law enforcement agencies nationally and globally, enabling them to share information and collaborate on cases, despite the challenges posed by different laws and data transmission regulations.
7. The software's ability to systematically catalog and review all available data provides a more comprehensive and unbiased  investigative process as choices about which media is reviewed, reducing the impact of investigator intuition and fragmented intelligence.
8. The software has received funding for research and development, leading to the creation of a functional prototype for law enforcement  in Australia and they are now looking at having it implemented by police more widely. 
9. The development of AI technology has a positive impact on the  technology, as new matching tools are "plug and play".
10. One of the challenges faced in implementing the software is convincing law enforcement to adopt new technologies and methods, as they may be hesitant to change from established routines, despite the potential benefits of the new system.

About our guests:

Russell Brewer

https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/russell.brewer#professional-activities

Bryce Westlake

https://www.brycewestlake.com

https://www.sjsu.edu/justicestudies/about-us/directory/westlake-bryce.php

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

Brewer R et al. 2023. Advancing child sexual abuse investigations using biometrics and social network analysis. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 668. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.52922/ti78948

Westlake B et al. 2022. Developing automated methods to detect and match face and voice biometrics in child sexual abuse videos. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 648. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.52922/ti78566

DEVELOPING AUTOMATED SOFTWARE TOOLS: To Detect Child Sexual Abuse Material Online.

https://adelaidecybercrime.org/software

Other:

This interview

About our guests:

Russell Brewer

https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/russell.brewer

Lennon Chang

https://www.deakin.edu.au/about-deakin/people/lennon-chang

Benoit Dupont

https://www.benoitdupont.net/en/

Steven Kemp

https://www.udg.edu/ca/directori/pagina-personal?ID=2003705

Rutger Leukfedt

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/rutger-leukfeldt#tab-1

Katalin Parti,

https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-sociology/faculty/katalin-parti.html

Bryce Westlake.

https://www.brycewestlake.com

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens. Harper.

https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/

Other:

I edited this one on the road, apologies if the quality is not quite what you are used to.

The next episode will be at the start of next month. 

Summary:

The main points of this episode are:

1. Celebrating the 100th episode of cybercrimeology and reflecting on the podcast's journey over the past three years.
2. Discussing the use of new technologies, such as AI, for analyzing and understanding the podcast's content.
3. Analyzing the podcast's content using natural language processing and summarization techniques to identify recurring themes and research topics.
4. Identifying common themes in the podcast, including abuse in relationships, privacy invasion, law enforcement in cybercrime, social engineering, and age-related factors in cybercrime.
5. Discussing various research methodologies covered in the podcast, such as technographs, online experiments, and survey research.
6. Highlighting the dedication of guests who share their time and research without any financial incentives.
7. Answering questions about the process of creating each episode, including research, interviews, editing, and production.
8. Discussing the volume of work represented by 99 episodes totaling over 5 hours of content and involving 96 guests.
9. Reflecting on the impact of the podcast and its growth over the past three years, including achieving 100,000 downloads.
10. Looking forward to the future of the podcast and the potential for new technologies to enhance its content and reach.

About our guests:

Alloy:

https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/text-to-speech

voicing generations from

ChatGPT

https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

The BART model:

https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/model_doc/bart

The DistilBERT model:

https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/model_doc/distilbert

Results:

Which terms were spoken about the most and what was the sentiment around those ? 

Was there a change in the sentiment of the podcast after the end of  pandemic conditions, assuming that the pandemic ended at the end of Q3 2021? 

The model is given by:

yi∼Normal(μi,σ)yi​∼Normal(μi​,σ)

where

μi=β0+βafter_event⋅xiμi​=β0​+βafter_event​⋅xi​

Here, the parameters are defined as follows:

• β0β0​: Intercept, with a Student's t-distribution prior with 3 degrees of freedom, a location parameter of 0.8, and a scale parameter of 2.5.
• βafter_eventβafter_event​: Coefficient for the predictor variable (after_event), with a flat prior.
• σσ: Standard deviation of the response variable, with a Student's t-distribution prior with 3 degrees of freedom, a location parameter of 0, and a scale parameter of 2.5.

This provided the results as follows:

Population-Level Effects:

           Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS

Intercept       0.37      0.06     0.26     0.48 1.00     3884     2917

after_event     0.39      0.08     0.23     0.54 1.00     3561     2976

Family Specific Parameters:

     Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS

sigma     0.38      0.03     0.33     0.44 1.00     3608     2817

Other:

The model overlooked Mike Levi's contribution to the History series.  That is a bit unfair.  

Where there were multiple guests, I did not include them all in the database, hence "no specific guest listed"

Notes:

- Rutger Leukfeldt discusses his background and how he became involved in cybersecurity research. - The importance of cybersecurity education and the new cybersecurity bachelor program at Leiden University. 

- The need for a multidisciplinary approach to cybersecurity, which includes not only technical skills but also social and legal aspects. 

- Hack_Right is a program designed for juvenile offenders in the Netherlands who have committed cyber-dependent crimes. The program aims to provide education and support to help young offenders turn away from cybercrime and develop positive skills and behaviors. Dr Leukfeldt  emphasizes that the program is not about Russian hackers or fraudsters who make millions, but rather about those kids who are experimenting and need help. He also mentions that the program was evaluated through a research study conducted by the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), which found that the program was effective in reducing recidivism among young offenders who participated in the program. 

- Regarding interdisciplinary research, Dr Leukfeldt explains that it can be difficult because different disciplines have different traditions and expectations when it comes to research. For example, one discipline may prioritize publishing in academic journals, while another may prioritize presenting at conferences. This can create practical issues for a team that is trying to work together, as different members may have different timelines and goals. Additionally, traditional reviewers may not be familiar with other fields, which can make it challenging to defend interdisciplinary research against criticism. Rutger notes that these challenges can be overcome through effective communication and collaboration, but they do require effort and a willingness to work across disciplines.

- Rutger emphasizes the importance of being constructive and thoughtful in providing feedback. He suggests that reviewers should not only point out flaws in a paper but also offer suggestions for improvement. Additionally, he notes that good reviewers should try to approach a paper with an open mind and be willing to learn from it, even if they are not experts in the field. By doing so, reviewers can help to ensure that research is rigorous, relevant, and impactful. Rutger encourages everyone to strive to be that kind of reviewer who provides constructive feedback and helps to improve the quality of research.

About our Guest:

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/rutger-leukfeldt#tab-1

https://nscr.nl/en/medewerker/dr-rutger-leukfeldt/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rutgerleukfeldt

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

J. A. M. Schiks, Susanne van ’t Hoff-de Goede & Rutger E. Leukfeldt (2023) An alternative intervention for juvenile hackers? A qualitative evaluation of the Hack_Right intervention, Journal of Crime and Justice, DOI: 10.1080/0735648X.2023.2252394

Loggen, J., Moneva, A., & Leukfeldt, R. (2024). A systematic narrative review of pathways into, desistance from, and risk factors of financial-economic cyber-enabled crime. Computer Law & Security Review, 52, 105858.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2023.105858

Other:

Dutch police send young hackers to intern at IT companies

https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/18/dutch-police-send-young-hackers-intern-companies

20 Companies Pledge Support for the Hack_Right Program

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/20-companies-pledge-support-for-the-hack-right-program/

Notes:

- Dr. Benoît Dupont has written a book on the ecology of cybercrime, which was born from his frustration with the segmentation of research on cybercrime within criminology and between disciplines. 

- The book argues that all research on cybercrime should be connected because we all live in the same digital ecosystem. - There are many hurdles and obstacles in the way of making positive change in the fight against cybercrime, but Dr. Dupont is optimistic about our chances. 

- Residual cybercrime will always subsist, but it can also help identify vulnerabilities in technologies that the industry hasn't identified, which can help improve security. 

- It's important to address the needs of victims of cybercrime, which is often forgotten. 

- The government has the data or the tools to generate the data but needs to work with the private sector and academia to make sense of the data and agree on a roadmap for anti-cybercrime and anti-cybercrime control and prevention.

About our Guest:

Dr. Benoît Dupont

https://crim.umontreal.ca/repertoire-departement/professeurs/professeur/in/in15263/sg/Benoît Dupont/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benoit-dupont-9369702/

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

Dupont, B., Grabosky, P., & Shearing, C. (2003). The Governance of Security in Weak and Failing States. Criminal Justice, 3(4), 331-349. https://doi.org/10.1177/146680250334001

Berg, J., Nakueira, S. & Shearing, C. 2014. Global Non- State Auspices of Security Governance. In: Bersot, H. & Ariigo, B. Eds. The Routledge Handbook of International Crime and Justice Studies. Routledge, 77-97

Other:

“Much time and energy have been devoted by taxonomists to isolating morphological patterns of species and subspecies and determining the geographic ranges of each. This is only a stepping stone to further progress in many lines- units around which accumulations of knowledge could be formed for comparison with one another. Until such units are stabilized so that they can be recognized, specific knowledge cannot accumulate - it will of necessity be generalized because, without such standardization, one worker cannot add to the specific knowledge of others.” pp.3.

Woodbury, A. M. (1952). Ecological taxonomy. Science, 115(2992), 3-3.

Notes:

1. Dr. Kemp initially moved to Spain and worked as an English teacher before deciding to go back to university to study a social science. He ended up choosing criminology due to the available classes in the morning.
2. While in university, Dr. Kemp became interested in corporate crime and white-collar crime, but later specialized in cybercrime due to its potential for funding and career opportunities.
3. Dr. Kemp discussed the challenges of studying in a different country and in a non-native language. He initially had limited Spanish proficiency but learned the language to a level where he could pursue a degree taught mainly in Spanish.
4. Cybercrime is still significantly underreported, with organizations often weighing the incentives and reasons not to report, such as reputational damage and potential increases in insurance premiums.
5. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face difficulties in reporting cybercrimes due to the technical abilities and resources required. The reporting systems are not conducive to SMEs, and there is a need for assistance and support from states to streamline the reporting process for smaller organizations.
6. Dr. Kemp emphasized the importance of distinguishing between reporting cybercrimes to police and criminal justice authorities versus reporting to cybersecurity providers. He noted that there seems to be more interest in private organizations reporting to other private organizations, possibly due to concerns about reputational damage.
7. Dr. Kemp highlighted the limited access to data in Spain and Latin American countries, which hinders research in those regions. He mentioned the lack of a culture of evaluation and the absence of centralized data repositories. This limitation is problematic due to the questionable generalizability of research findings from other countries to Spain and Latin America.
8. Dr. Kemp expressed the need for more longitudinal surveys to better understand the effectiveness of cybersecurity controls and tools. Cross-sectional surveys have limitations in establishing causal relationships and unraveling the timing of control implementation and incidents.
9. Dr. Kemp discussed his upcoming book on cyber fraud, which aims to bring international literature on the topic of cybercrime to the Spanish-speaking world. He acknowledged the challenge of applying research findings from other countries to Spanish-speaking contexts, particularly concerning offender characteristics and prevention measures.
10. Dr. Kemp mentioned his recent work on online victimization and older people, focusing on the impact of fear of crime and the digital divide. He emphasized the need to address older adults' concerns and promote their full participation in the digital society.

About our guest:

Dr Steven Kemp

https://www.udg.edu/ca/directori/pagina-personal?ID=2003705

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-kemp-ed/

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

Kemp, S., Buil-Gil, D., Miró-Llinares, F., & Lord, N. (2023). When do businesses report cybercrime? Findings from a UK study. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 23(3), 468-489. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958211062359

Kemp, S. (2023). Exploring public cybercrime prevention campaigns and victimization of businesses: A Bayesian model averaging approach. Computers & Security, 127, 103089.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2022.103089

Kemp, S. (2022). Fraud reporting in Catalonia in the Internet era: Determinants and motives. European Journal of Criminology, 19(5), 994-1015. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820941405

Other:

I am pretty sure I mis-pronounced ‘Girona’, my apologies to the good people from that part of the world.

About our guests:

Dr. Katalin Parti

https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-sociology/faculty/katalin-parti.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/partikat

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

PROS: Performances to Reduce Online Scams

https://liberalarts.vt.edu/research-centers/center-for-gerontology/pros--performances-to-reduce-online-scams.html

Parti, Katalin, and Faika Tahir. 2023. "“If We Don’t Listen to Them, We Make Them Lose More than Money:” Exploring Reasons for Underreporting and the Needs of Older Scam Victims" Social Sciences 12, no. 5: 264. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12050264

Parti, K. (2022). “Elder Scam” Risk Profiles: Individual and Situational Factors of Younger and Older Age Groups’ Fraud Victimization.

https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/112369/Parti_IJCIC_2022.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Boal, A. (2000). Theater of the Oppressed. United Kingdom: Pluto.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. United States: Herder and Herder.

https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf

Other:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Oppressed

My laptop died a few hours before completing this episode.  At this point I am guessing it was some kind of issue with the latest update.  It is currently a brick.  Good thing I spend a lot of time thinking about resilience otherwise this episode would not have happened.  

About our guests:

Kenrick Bagnall

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenrickbagnall/

Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:

KonCyber the Podcast

https://koncyberthepodcast.podbean.com

Other:

If I took anything from Kenrick's story, besides of course all of the policing and technical stuff,  it was that you are not too old to seek or take advice nor are you too old to start again.