text: Underground online forums are platforms that enable trades of illicit services and stolen goods. Carding forums, in particular, are known for being focused on trading financial information. However, little evidence exists about the sellers that are present on carding forums, the precise types of products they advertise, and the prices buyers pay. Existing literature mainly focuses on the organisation and structure of the forums. Furthermore, studies on carding forums are usually based on literature review, expert interviews, or data from forums that have already been shut down. This paper provides first-of-its-kind empirical evidence on active forums where stolen financial data is traded. We monitored 5 out of 25 discovered forums, collected posts from the forums over a three-month period, and analysed them quantitatively and qualitatively. We focused our analyses on products, prices, seller prolificacy, seller specialisation, and seller reputation.
  @cite_0: Underground forums, where participants exchange information on abusive tactics and engage in the sale of illegal goods and services, are a form of online social network (OSN). However, unlike traditional OSNs such as Facebook, in underground forums the pattern of communications does not simply encode pre-existing social relationships, but instead captures the dynamic trust relationships forged between mutually distrustful parties. In this paper, we empirically characterize six different underground forums --- BlackHatWorld, Carders, HackSector, HackE1ite, Freehack, and L33tCrew --- examining the properties of the social networks formed within, the content of the goods and services being exchanged, and lastly, how individuals gain and lose trust in this setting.
  @cite_17: Preface to the Fifth Edition Acknowledgments About the Authors Chapter 1: Eight Fallacies about Crime The Dramatic Fallacy The Cops and Courts Fallacy The Not-Me Fallacy The Innocent- Youth Fallacy The Ingenuity Fallacy The Organized Crime Fallacy The Big Gang Fallacy The Agenda Fallacy Chapter 2: The Chemistry for Crime Risky Settings Stages of a Criminal Act First Three Elements of a Criminal Act Eck's Crime Triangle Predatory Crimes Calming the Waters and Looking after Places Hot Products The General Chemistry of Crime Chapter 3: Offenders Make Decisions The Decision to Commit a Crime Offenders Respond to Everyday Cues Odd and Bizarre Crimes Chapter 4: How Violence Erupts Making Students Angry in a Lab In Real Life Fights vs. Predatory Attacks Violent Decisions It Might Not Work Out Well Chapter 5: Bringing Crime to You Four Stages in the History of Everyday Life Life and Crime in the Convergent City Crime and the Divergent Metropolis Population Density, Shifts, and Patterns of Crime The Great Paradox: Central City Problems Versus Self-Report Evidence Chapter 6: Teenage Crime Perspective on Youth Crime Teenage Zigzags Chapter 7: Big Gang Theory What are Gang Crimes? Fundamentals The Puzzle The Reason for a Gang Chapter 8: Crime Multipliers One Crime Requires Another One Crime Disinhibits Another One Crime Advertises Another One Crime Entices Another One Crime Sets Up Another One Crime Escalates Into Another One Crime Starts A Victim Chain One Co-Offender Attacks Another Chapter 9: Moving Stolen Goods The Thief and the Public Inviting People to Steal More It's Easier to Sell Stolen Goods to the Poor New Avenues for Stolen Goods Chapter 10: Situational Crime Prevention Four Natural Experiments Situational Prevention and Crime Analysis Diverse Applications of Situational Crime Prevention Chapter 11: Local Design Against Crime Remarkable Research on Local Supervision Oscar Newman's Four Types of Space Versions of a Village The Offender-Target Convergence Process Seven Studies in Reducing Local Crime Chapter 12: "White-Collar" Crime How Offenders Get to Their Targets Crimes of Specialized Access Organizational Rank The Specialized-Access Crime Grid Chapter 13: Crime and Social Change Technology, Rightly Understood The Clean Water Example A General Approach: Summing Up This Book How to Think about Changing Crime References Index
summary: In terms of seller prolificacy, @cite_0 analysed the records of 6 closed forums and concluded that 10 It is common ground among crime scientists that crime is distributed neither randomly nor evenly @cite_17 . That implies a small group accounts for more offenses than its expected share would be. As earlier stated, studies on marketplaces suggest the presence of some highly prolific users. We hypothesise ( 2 ) that on active carding forums, a small number of traders are responsible for a large proportion of traffic.