In this article, the author will question the seemingly obvious boundary between civil disobedience, as conceptualised by Rawls and Arendt, and several examples of criminal, or simply annoying, activities which don't meet their criteria, such as the case of the ‘Top 50'. The ‘Top 50' are multi-problem Dutch-Caribbean men, who refuse to adapt to predominant norms in Dutch society. IThe author argues that political aspects of their behaviour should be acknowledged, even if they engage in criminal behaviour and don't present explicit political goals. Firstly, she questions the way in which Rawls based his definition on a centralistic conception of governmental power and contrast it with Foucault's conception of normalising power, in which power is diffuse and cannot be restricted to the enactment of formal laws. Secondly, she discusses what the minimum requirements are to be able to classifyacts as civil disobedience. Rawls and Arendt draw a clear line between criminal behaviour and civil disobedience, but their requirements may be too strict. We might miss signals of injustice if actions that do not meet these criteria are excluded from the political discourse. The conclusion is that comparing Arendt's and Rawls' conception of civil disobedience with the behaviour of a marginal migrant group may be useful in questioning the boundaries of this concept and in making it more inclusive. A wider conception of civil disobedience may help to explain the meaning of deviant behaviour in terms of social critique and to challenge the traditional understanding of civil disobedience.
Introduction: Few studies have examined the sales of stolen account credentials on darkweb markets. In this study, we tested how advertisement characteristics affect the popularity of illicit online advertisements offering account credentials. Unlike previous criminological research, we take a novel approach by assessing the applicability of knowledge on regular consumer behaviours instead of theories explaining offender behaviour.Methods: We scraped 1,565 unique advertisements offering credentials on a darkweb market. We used this panel data set to predict the simultaneous effects of the asking price, endorsement cues and title elements on advertisement popularity by estimating several hybrid panel data models.Results: Most of our findings disconfirm our hypotheses. Asking price did not affect advertisement popularity. Endorsement cues, including vendor reputation and cumulative sales and views, had mixed and negative relationships, respectively, with advertisement popularity.Discussion: Our results might suggest that account credentials are not simply regular products, but high-risk commodities that, paradoxically, become less attractive as they gain popularity. This study highlights the necessity of a deeper understanding of illicit online market dynamics to improve theories on illicit consumer behaviours and assist cybersecurity experts in disrupting criminal business models more effectively. We propose several avenues for future experimental research to gain further insights into these illicit processes.
This article examines the network structure, criminal cooperation, and external interactions of cybercriminal networks. Its contribution is empirical and inductive. The core of this study involved carrying out 10 case analyses on closed cybercrime investigations – all with financial motivations on the part of the offenders - in the UK and beyond. Each analysis involved investigator interview and access to unpublished law enforcement files. The comparison of these cases resulted in a wide range of findings on these cybercriminal networks, including: a common division between the scam/attack components and the money components; the presence of offline/local elements; a broad, and sometimes blurred, spectrum of cybercriminal behaviour and organisation. An overarching theme across the cases that we observe is that cybercriminal business models are relatively stable.
