Tracking Discourse Influence in Darknet Forums
This work addresses the challenge of understanding cybercriminal behavior in darknet communities, though it appears incremental as part of a hackathon effort.
The researchers tackled the problem of analyzing discourse influence in darknet forums by developing a joint visualization of semantic and temporal features, generating insights into cybercrime data through novelty, transience, and resonance metrics.
This technical report documents our efforts in addressing the tasks set forth by the 2021 AMoC (Advanced Modelling of Cyber Criminal Careers) Hackathon. Our main contribution is a joint visualisation of semantic and temporal features, generating insight into the supplied data on darknet cybercrime through the aspects of novelty, transience, and resonance, which describe the potential impact a message might have on the overall discourse in darknet communities. All code and data produced by us as part of this hackathon is publicly available.