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Since the launch of the infamous Silk Road the use of cryptomarkets - illicit markets for drugs on the dark web - has expanded rapidly around the world. Cryptomarkets: A Research Companionis a detailed guidebook which offers the tools necessary to begin researching cryptomarket phenomena and the dark web trade in illicit drugs.

Specialization in criminal activities generally refers to offenders that repeat the same or similar offenses over time. While some research has found support for offender specialization, most empirical studies suggest that most offenders engage in various forms of offenses during their criminal trajectory and fail to specialize in a specific offense. The aim of this paper is to build on past research to understand the specialization of offenders involved in the online illicit trade of tobacco. To do so, we characterize the offenders involved in the online illicit trade of tobacco, the products (other than tobacco) that these vendors traffic as well as the differences between the offenders involved in the online illicit trade of tobacco and those involved only in other types of illicit trades. We find that a small share of vendors on cryptomarkets are involved in the illicit trade of tobacco. These vendors trade cigarettes, cigars and rolling tobacco generating monthly revenues of $8952 from the sales of these items. These revenues pale in comparison to these vendors’ revenues from non-tobacco product listings ($22,177) and the monthly revenues generated by other cryptomarkets vendors (over $37 million US dollars). This paper confirms the diversification of offenders involved in online illicit markets and extends past research by quantifying the degree to which these offenders are diversified.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to map research communities related to heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) and the scientific network they are part of to determine their structure and content. Design/methodology/approach – Co-authorship as the basis for conducting social network analysis with regard to degree, weighted degree, betweenness centrality, and edge betweenness centrality. Findings – A number of central researchers were identified on the basis of the number of their collaborative relations. Central actors were also identified on the basis of their position in the research network. In total, 11 research communities were constructed with different scientific content. HAT research communities are closely connected to medical, psychiatric, and epidemiological research and very loosely connected to social research. Originality/value – The first mapping of the collaborative network HAT researchers using social network methodology.

In 2011, Silk Road became the first black market, or \"cryptomarket\", for illicit drugs. This study examines two of the largest cryptomarkets which have operated, Silk Road 2.0 and Agora Marketplace. We hypothesize that cryptomarkets cater to buyers who intend to resell or redistribute the products, specifically in the form of social drug dealing, and that larger quantities will be purchased on the cryptomarkets over time. We examine these hypotheses through a descriptive and qualitative assessment of the distribution of drugs sold, and an estimated trend line based on simple linear regression. Data was collected using a custom web crawler which was supplemented with a dataset collected by independent researcher Gwern Branwen, community members and researchers in total spanning the period from February 28th 2014 to April 2015. The observed demand was primarily for quantities intended for personal use or social drug dealing. The majority of sales fell within the lower price ranges, although a significant part of the revenue was generated in price ranges that suggested business-to-business dealing. Furthermore, we found that the sizes of the purchases decreased significantly in both the case of Silk Road 2.0 and Agora Marketplace. The results suggest that cryptomarkets resemble traditional drug markets in terms of the distribution and revenues. As such, it is relevant to include cryptomarkets in discussions about potential reductions of the harmful social consequences of drug markets, as well as in general discussions about drug markets and drug trafficking.

Cryptomarkets represent a growing component of the global illicit drugs trade. Australia is over-represented in the proportion of online vendors who use these platforms to reach drug consumers. Despite the growth in online drug trading, relatively little is known about people who use cryptomarkets to sell drugs. This study addresses the knowledge gap and provides qualitative insights into this new, and little understood, cohort of offenders. The study found that vendors perceive less risk of violence and police intervention when selling drugs online and that the potential for profit exceeds that available when selling drugs offline.

Feministisk teori og forskning har argumenteret for to sammenhænge mellem køn og forskningsmetoder: Kvinder benytter oftere kvalitative metoder, og køn påvirker valget af forskningsområder. Tidligere forskning baseret på fagfællebedømte publikationer understøtter disse foreslåede sammenhænge, men anerkender bias som følge af homogeniserende mekanismer såsom akademisk professionalisering og fagfællebedømmelse. Vi komplementerer disse studier gennem en analyse af de »nedre lag af akademisk produktion«, specifikt 1.103 socialvidenskabelige specialer, hvilket giver en alternativ vinkel på studiet af køn og forskningsdesign. Vi benytter nylige innovationer indenfor digital tekstanalyse og estimerer en structural topic model for at modellere korpussets latente tematiske struktur. Ud fra denne model tester vi empirisk de foreslåede sammenhænge mellem køn, forskningsmetoder og forskningsområder. Vi finder, at de kvindelige specialestuderende er mere tilbøjelige til at benytte kvalitative metoder, og at nogle forskningsområder er kønnede. Topic modelling bliver demonstreret som et effektivt redskab til at analysere akademiske tekster. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Rasmus Munksgaard and Oskar Enghoff: Gender and choice of method among social science masters students Feminist theory and research have argued that gender and research methods are related in two ways: women are more likely to employ qualitative methods, and gender affects choice of research area. While previous research on peer-reviewed publications supports these claims, the authors acknowledge that the data is biased due to the homogenizing mechanisms of academic professionalization and peer-review. We complement these previous studies with an analysis of ”lower-level academic production”, specifically 1,103 master’s theses, providing an alternate angle to the study of gender and research design. We employ recent innovations in digital text analysis, and estimate a structural topic model of the corpora to model the latent thematic structure. Using this model, we test the proposed links between gender, research methods and research area. We find that female students are more likely to employ qualitative methods than men, and that some research areas are gendered. Topic modeling is shown to be an efficient tool in the analysis of academic texts. Keywords: Digital methods, academic production, topic modelling, gender.

PurposeDrug cryptomarkets increase information available to market actors, which should reduce information asymmetry and increase market efficiency. This study aims to determine whether cryptomarket listings accurately represent the advertised substance, weight or number and purity, and whether there are differences in products purchased from the same listing multiple times.Design/methodology/approachLaw enforcement drug purchases – predominantly cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA and heroin – from Australian cryptomarket vendors (n = 38 in 2016/2017) were chemically analysed and matched with cryptomarket listings (n = 23). Descriptive and comparative analyses were conducted.FindingsAlmost all samples contained the advertised substance. In most of these cases, drugs were either supplied as-advertised-weight or number, or overweight or number. All listings that quantified purity overestimated the actual purity. There was no consistent relationship between advertised purity terms and actual purity. Across the six listings purchased from multiple times, repeat purchases from the same listing varied in purity, sometimes drastically, with wide variation detected on listings purchased from only one month apart.Research limitations/implicationsIn this data set, cryptomarket listings were mostly accurate, but the system was far from perfect, with purity overestimated. A newer, larger, globally representative sample should be obtained to test the applicability of these findings to currently operating cryptomarkets.Originality/valueThis paper reports on the largest data set of forensic analysis of drug samples obtained from cryptomarkets, where data about advertised drug strength/dose were obtained.

Feministisk teori og forskning har argumenteret for to sammenhæ nge mellem køn og forskningsmetoder: Kvinder benytter oftere kvalitative metoder, og køn påvirker valget af forskningsområder. Tidligere forskning baseret på fagfæ llebedømte publikationer understøtter disse foreslåede sammenhæ nge, men anerkender bias som følge af homogeniserende mekanismer såsom akademisk professionalisering og fagfæ llebedømmelse. Vi komplementerer disse studier gennem en analyse af de »nedre lag af akademisk produktion«, specifikt 1.103 socialvidenskabelige specialer, hvilket giver en alternativ vinkel på studiet af køn og forskningsdesign. Vi benytter nylige innovationer indenfor digital tekstanalyse og estimerer en structural topic model for at modellere korpussets latente tematiske struktur. Ud fra denne model tester vi empirisk de foreslåede sammenhæ nge mellem køn, forskningsmetoder og forskningsområder. Vi finder, at de kvindelige specialestuderende er mere tilbøjelige til at benytte kvalitative metoder, og at nogle forskningsområder er kønnede. Topic modelling bliver demonstreret som et effektivt redskab til at analysere akademiske tekster.

Cryptomarkets represent a growing component of the global illicit drugs trade. Australia is over-represented in the proportion of online vendors who use these platforms to reach drug consumers. Despite the growth in online drug trading, relatively little is known about people who use cryptomarkets to sell drugs. This study addresses the knowledge gap and provides qualitative insights into this new, and little understood, cohort of offenders. The study found that vendors perceive less risk of violence and police intervention when selling drugs online and that the potential for profit exceeds that available when selling drugs offline.