Options
2018
Conference Paper
Titel
Monitoring product sales in darknet shops
Abstract
Anonymity networks and hidden services like those accessible in Tor, also called the "darknet", in combination with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin provide a relatively safe environment for criminal online activities. While this is a challenge for law enforcement, it brings opportunities for researchers to monitor these activities as they are often not really hidden but rather obfuscated and/or anonymized. In this paper we discuss such a monitoring approach for product sales in the darknet. We collect bitcoin addresses and data about product offerings in a number of shops run as hidden services in Tor. We then analyze transactions in the bitcoin blockchain that can be mapped to specific product sales in these shops.