Trust in the world of cybercrime

For cybercriminals, the anonymity of the Internet offers not only opportunities but also challenges. Where one does not truly know whom one is doing business with, it makes it difficult to assess trustworthiness or to retaliate should dealings go sour and agreements need to be enforced. This creates a large deficit of trust, beyond even that common among conventional criminals, and makes cybercriminal transactions very unstable. As a result, it might be expected that cybercriminals would often act alone. But, in reality, cybercriminals collaborate quite widely. This is the puzzle that this article addresses. In order to overcome the major challenges of online anonymity, and to capitalise on its benefits, cybercriminals have developed a range of mechanisms that buttress trust. These include mechanisms relating to (1) establishing cybercriminal identities; (2) assessing cybercriminal attributes; and (3) extra-legal governance.     

Understanding markers of trust within the online stolen data market: An examination of vendors’ signaling behaviors relative to product price point

Research Summary

The current study examined 1055 stolen data products across 40 vendors on the Open and Dark Web to determine whether different product- and vendor-level behaviors predicted vendors’ trustworthiness as reflected in their product price point. Understanding the mechanisms that convey trust in the underground marketplace is crucial as it could help law enforcement target serious actors and disrupt the larger marketplace. Findings suggest the online stolen data market may resemble an uninformative cost condition where buyers are unable to accurately differentiate credible sellers due to the obscure nature of signaling behaviors.

Policy Implications

Law enforcement would benefit from designing fake shops and deceptive forum posts that transmit mixed signals to complicate market participants’ process of interpreting trust signals as intended. These interventions would generate high levels of risk that encourage both buyers and sellers to exit the online illicit marketplace without needing law enforcement arrests. Law enforcement could also target prominent market facilitators to generate a larger disruption that prevents actors from continuing their illicit behavior.     

个人安全保障与宪政

中国的传统文化注重“安身”与“安心”，并以信任为社会稳定的基石。但是，追求“信任之治”走到极端，就会反过来，变成对一切都不相信或者在客观上制造对一切的不相信。为什麽这麽说？因为人与人之间的实质性信任需要以情投意合或价值共识以及话语共同体为前提，具有排除异质的一元化倾向。为此，在组织和制度的运作上必须采取“用人不疑，疑人不用”的方针，即为了确保信任不被辜负，首先必须把不可信任的因素剔除，这样才能获得彻底的安心。     

Generalized trust and wealth

The relation between economic inequality and trust is studied in a model where the ability to elicit trustworthiness from unrelated people depends on own wealth as well as the distribution and mean of population wealth. In equilibrium, the rich trust but betray while the poor do not trust but are trustworthy. Homogenizing wealth around its mean leads to a zero-trust outcome if mean wealth is sufficiently low, to full trust if mean wealth is large. More effective enforcement technologies increase, more effective counter-enforcement technologies decrease trust. Economic inequality reinforces itself through the trust and betray incentives it induces, suggesting a beneficial role for redistributive policies.     

Building Trust: Social Capital, Distributive Justice, and Loyalty to the Firm

Trust is essential to successful business relations, particularly to the efficient operation of law firms. Trust fosters productive working relationships, favorable reputations, and a lucrative clientele. This paper contributes to research on law firm development through a consideration of social dynamics within law firms beyond traditional emphases on trading relationships and community solidarity. We introduce a social capital perspective on the evolution of trust and its consequences for commitment to the law firm. We argue that trust, specifically in the form of perceived distributive justice, is created and nurtured through social integration among law firm members. Yet, for women, who continue to be denied full access to these social networks and professional rewards, trust is undermined. Exclusion and emerging distrust prompt women to contemplate leaving their respective firms. This paper examines the bases of differential levels of trust and their impact on lawyers'intentions to leave practice.     

Persistence and desistance: Examining the impact of re-integrative shaming to ethics in Taiwan juvenile hackers

The Internet community has been addressing the unethical behavior of juvenile delinquents for years. Nevertheless, the concepts of hacker shame and ethics have received little empirical study from a theoretical perspective in the field of cyber criminology. Braithwaite's re-integrative Shaming Theory posits that it can restrain individuals from committing future offenses, and that those who participate in this shaming process are less likely to consider breaking the law in the first place. Among the abundance of criminological theories, the re-integrative Shaming Theory may be the most suitable theory to restrain hacker activities. This study focuses on the working relationship between nine juvenile delinquents and the shaming mechanism applied to them. However, applying this approach to reduce recidivism among computer hackers requires a great deal of time and effort. It is proposed that the state of shame or remorse is associated with the compounded affective processes of hacker ethics. The proposed solution creates a code of ethics for hackers, distinguishes right from wrong, and ensures a greater success for Braithwaite's re-integrative shaming methods. This paper discusses the problems and solutions related to the Shaming Theory, as well as their usefulness in the context of community-based restorative justice. It is argued that re-integrative shaming, without appropriate consideration for the offender's personal code of ethics, is insufficient when handling hacking offenses committed by juveniles. Our main concern is to find out how to help or encourage the offender's reintegration and re-entering into the community, and how s/he can avoid failure. It is hoped that our proposed strategy can prevent future offending behaviors by these juveniles. Implications drawn from the findings are discussed, and suggestions are offered to ensure the success of this theory when applied to juvenile hackers.     

试论社会资本视阈下我国社区慈善超市的运营机制

作为一种新型的慈善事业运作平台与机制,社区慈善超市的运营发展离不开社会资本的积累。我国社区慈善超市实际上是社会慈善和政府救助的混合体,社会资本的缺乏正是其发展受制的重要原因。因此,应正确处理慈善超市与政府的关系,构建政府、社会、公民之间的互信机制,加强制度建设和慈善超市发展的网络机制建设,增加社区慈善超市的社会资本。     

Impacts of Violent Crime and Neighborhood Structure on Trusting Your Neighbors

The current work investigated impacts of local violent crime rates on residents’ willingness to trust neighbors. Crime has been thought to “atomize” community. Many works have considered impacts of crime on local social climate or vice versa. A smaller number of works have linked crime with general judgments about trustworthiness, but there has been little work on crime and trust of neighbors. 2002 survey data of 4,133 Philadelphia residents in 45 neighborhoods were combined with census and reported crime data to address this question. Multilevel, multinomial logit models confirmed that residents’ willingness to trust their neighbors varied significantly across neighborhoods for two response category contrasts: strongly agreeing or agreeing neighbors were trustworthy, each relative to strongly disagreeing. As expected, residents in neighborhoods with higher crime rates judged their neighbors as less dependable, even after controlling for local participation. Neighborhood crime and status impacts both depended on the contrast considered and on how status and crime were disentangled. Results align with some earlier works showing contingent effects of crime on ties, or contingent effects of ties on crime. Results extend earlier works by simultaneously focusing on one critical and central assessment of neighbors, showing important differences across response categories, and simultaneously finding extraneighborhood impacts.     

Establishing Trust during the Formation of Technology Alliances

Technological innovation occurs as much between organizations as within. In such knowledge-sharing alliances, interorganizational issues influence the alliance in combination with interpersonal interactions. Calls for establishing trust and trustworthiness often feature in alliance research, but they can be elusive for managers. Using a case study of the formation of a technological alliance in the robotics industry, we illustrate a model and propositions focused on partner search and alliance negotiation, linking previously proposed trustworthiness categories with the concepts of organizational justice. In particular, we suggest that procedural justice in alliance formation may be more important to alliance progression than perceptions of distributive justice.     

Trust in digital records: An increasingly cloudy legal area

Trust has been defined in many ways, but at its core it involves acting without the knowledge needed to act. Trust in records depends on four types of knowledge about the creator or custodian of the records: reputation, past performance, competence, and the assurance of confidence in future performance. For over half a century society has been developing and adopting new computer technologies for business and communications in both the public and private realm. Frameworks for establishing trust have developed as technology has progressed. Today, individuals and organizations are increasingly saving and accessing records in cloud computing infrastructures, where we cannot assess our trust in records solely on the four types of knowledge used in the past. Drawing on research conducted at the University of British Columbia into the nature of digital records and their trustworthiness, this article presents the conceptual archival and digital forensic frameworks of trust in records and data, and explores the common law legal framework within which questions of trust in documentary evidence are being tested. Issues and challenges specific to cloud computing are introduced.     

The Network Structure of Opioid Distribution on a Darknet Cryptomarket

Objectives

The current study is the first to examine the network structure of an encrypted online drug distribution network. It examines (1) the global network structure, (2) the local network structure, and (3) identifies those vendor characteristics that best explain variation in the network structure. In doing so, it evaluates the role of trust in online drug markets.

Methods

The study draws on a unique dataset of transaction level data from an encrypted online drug market. Structural measures and community detection analysis are used to characterize and investigate the network structure. Exponential random graph modeling is used to evaluate which vendor characteristics explain variation in purchasing patterns.

Results

Vendors’ trustworthiness explains more variation in the overall network structure than the affordability of vendor products or the diversity of vendor product listings. This results in a highly localized network structure with a few key vendors accounting for most transactions.

Conclusions

The results indicate that vendors’ trustworthiness is a better predictor of vendor selection than product diversity or affordability. These results illuminate the internal market dynamics that sustain digital drug markets and highlight the importance of examining how new anonymizing technologies shape global drug distribution networks.

     

Why do young people start and continue with ethical hacking? A qualitative study on individual and social aspects in the lives of ethical hackers

Research Summary

This qualitative interview study examined individual and social aspects in the lives of 15 hackers who started with ethical hacking before the age of 18. We examined what motivated and stimulated them to start with ethical hacking and how and why they continued. Results show that individual aspects, such as an early interest in ICT (Information and Communication Technology), the motivation to make systems more secure, and thinking of reporting vulnerabilities as a moral duty, contribute to the initiation of ethical hacking. Social aspects, such as role models, mainly play a role in the further development of the ethical hacking career. For example, peers, parents, friends, and hacker communities have a motivating and stimulating effect on young ethical hackers. Similarly, positive reactions from public and private system owners can further stimulate the development and self-image of ethical hackers.

Policy Implications

In contrast to criminal hackers, ethical hackers improve cybersecurity, for example, by reporting weaknesses or errors in computer systems. Nowadays, an increasing number of public and private organizations around the world are creating cybersecurity policies and practices around ethical hacking. The interest in hacking usually arises at an early age, making it important to gain knowledge about what stimulates and motivates young people to start and continue with ethical hacking, to inform these policies and practices. Our results show that recognition and reactions from system owners are important in the ethical hacking career. Our recommendations based on these results could stimulate more young people to take the ethical path. Simultaneously, this increases the security of public and private organizations, reducing opportunities for criminal hackers.     

法治及其社会资源——兼评苏力“本土资源”说

鉴于中国法治建设和法律实施中存在的问题,有必要重新检视苏力的“本土资源”说。中国法治建设之所以不很成功,以及现代法律制度之所以在中国社会“水土不服”,最重要的原因,不是“本土资源”被重视不够,而是“社会资源”(即社会成员之间的相互信任)供给不足。归根到底,是由于中国社会目前面临严重的信任危机。     

街道乡镇政府信任与居民的社区志愿精神——基于南京市若干城乡社区的实证调查

以南京市城乡若干社区的实证调查为研究个案,深入探讨居民对街道办(乡镇)政府的信任度对居民参与社区志愿服务的意愿与居民的社区志愿精神究竟有何种程度的影响。通过Logistic回归分析,研究结果发现居民对街道办(乡镇)政府的信任度与居民的社区志愿精神之间存在着密切的关联性。对于各级政府而言,本研究的政策含义是需要特别关注影响居民对街道办(乡镇)政府信任的各种居民背景因素,培育居民对街道办(乡镇)政府的信任感和亲切感,不断促进居民社区志愿精神的孕育与成长,从而凝聚成社区草根民主成长的动力和纽带。     

Professionals' Contribution to the Legislative Process: Between Self,Client, and the Public

How may professionals be made to contribute to legislative processes so that their expertise redounds to the public interest, despite the legislative product being likely to have a negative impact on their clients' wealth? Drawing on a case study of the legislative process that gave birth to Israel's recent (2002–2008) trusts taxation regime, based on five years of participant observation among the trust professional community, I find that to obtain the benefit of private‐sector professionals' expertise under such circumstances, government should have legislation drafted in a dispassionate, exclusive environment of experts rather than in the political arena; it should build professionals' trust in government by adopting an explicitly collegial approach; it should focus reform efforts on elements of the existing law so clearly inequitable as to make a refusal to contribute difficult to justify; and take care that the new regime creates a compliance practice lucrative enough to compensate for any loss to professionals consequent on its enactment. Once professionals' interests are suitably safeguarded, their loyalty to clients appears surprisingly brittle and government can successfully combine with them in the public interest.     

村社认同如何影响政治信任? ——公民参与和个人传统性的作用

【问题】政治信任是支撑政治系统运行的重要心理基础,对推进政民良性互动、提升公众的政府支持具有重要意义。村、社区是公众的社会生活共同体和国家治理的基本单元,人们对村社的认同如何转化为对政治系统的信任以及此过程受到何种条件的影响,这将是本研究尝试探究的问题。【方法】论文基于95个行政村和城镇社区的5040份有效数据,将村社认同作为高层级变量,运用多水平结构方程模型和贝叶斯可信区间估计,对所提出的跨层级的“有调节的中介模型”进行检验。【发现】村社认同对个体的政治信任水平具有显著的正向预测作用,且公民参与在二者关系中具有部分中介作用。同时,个人传统性不仅在村社认同和公民参与关系中具有显著的负向影响,也能进一步调节村社认同与政治信任的间接关系。具体来看,在不同水平的个人传统性下,村社认同差异通过公民参与对政治信任影响的间接效应表现出来。【贡献】论文从政治心理学的视角出发,揭示了“村社认同→公民参与→政治信任”这一中介作用路径,并进一步分析了个体传统性变量对上述影响机制作用发挥的边界效应,为理解和分析本土情境下公众的政治信任发生机制提供了可鉴路径,对激发公民参与、提升政治信任和推动基层治理转型的治理实践具有启示。     

Can You Build a Better Cop?

Research Summary

By drawing from psychology and economics, we present an experimental evaluation of a procedural justice training program designed to “slow down” police officers’ thought processes during citizen encounters. We find that officers who were randomly assigned to participate in training were as engaged in the community as similarly situated officers, but they were less likely to resolve incidents with an arrest or to be involved in incidents where force was used. These changes were most evident among officers who worked in areas with a modest level of risk.

Policy Implications

Police officers who are actively engaged with the public can reduce crime through general deterrence and by arresting criminals. Nevertheless, excessive discretionary arrests and the use of force by officers can reduce public trust in the police. To date, there is scant evidence as to how police departments can successfully train officers to balance enforcement and public trust in the field. Through our study, we demonstrate that a relatively minor supervisory intervention may cause substantive changes in how police and citizens interact with each other.     

A difficulty with oaths: On trust, trustworthiness, and signalling

In the wake of the Enron and Worldcom financial scandals that rocked Wall Street in 2002, the US government’s financial regulatory body, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) took the unprecedented step in June 2002 of requiring that the chief executives and chief financial officers of America’s 947 biggest companies to swear on oath that their company results and financial reports were to the best of their knowledge accurate. The one-off order was quickly followed by the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxely act, which will require many more CEOs and CFOs to certify their company reports and financial statements at regular intervals. In this paper we apply a simple signalling model to examine whether or not this type of institutional signal of trustworthiness is always efficient. We find that in the presence of signalling costs, the separating equilibrium can be socially inefficient as well as causing a general loss of trust. JEL classificationC72. D81. D82. K22