TY - GEN
T1 - Sic transit gloria mundi virtuali? Promise and peril in the computational social science of clandestine organizing
AU - Keegan, Brian
AU - Ahmed, Muhammad Aurangzeb
AU - Williams, Dmitri
AU - Srivastava, Jaideep
AU - Contractor, Noshir
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) maintain archival databases of all player actions and attributes including activity by accounts engaged in illicit behavior. If individuals in online worlds operate under similar social and psychological motivations and constraints as the offline world, online behavioral data could inform theories about offline behavior. We examine high risk trading relationships in a MMOG to illuminate the structures online clandestine organizations employ to balance security with efficiency and compare this to an offline drug trafficking network. This data offers the possibility of performing social research on a scale that would be unethical or impracticable to do in the offline world. However, analyzing and generalizing from clandestine behavior in online settings raises complex epistemological and methodological questions about the validity of such mappings and what methods and metrics are appropriate in these contexts. We conclude by discussing how computational social science can be applied to online and offline criminological concerns and highlight the "dual use" implications of these technologies.
AB - Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) maintain archival databases of all player actions and attributes including activity by accounts engaged in illicit behavior. If individuals in online worlds operate under similar social and psychological motivations and constraints as the offline world, online behavioral data could inform theories about offline behavior. We examine high risk trading relationships in a MMOG to illuminate the structures online clandestine organizations employ to balance security with efficiency and compare this to an offline drug trafficking network. This data offers the possibility of performing social research on a scale that would be unethical or impracticable to do in the offline world. However, analyzing and generalizing from clandestine behavior in online settings raises complex epistemological and methodological questions about the validity of such mappings and what methods and metrics are appropriate in these contexts. We conclude by discussing how computational social science can be applied to online and offline criminological concerns and highlight the "dual use" implications of these technologies.
KW - Clandestine organization
KW - Drug trafficking
KW - Gold farming
KW - Massively multiplayer online game
KW - Risk
KW - Social network analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893272133&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84893272133&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2527031.2527057
DO - 10.1145/2527031.2527057
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84893272133
SN - 9781450308557
T3 - Proceedings of the 3rd International Web Science Conference, WebSci 2011
BT - Proceedings of the 3rd International Web Science Conference, WebSci 2011
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
T2 - 3rd International Web Science Conference, WebSci 2011
Y2 - 15 June 2011 through 17 June 2011
ER -