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Full-Text Articles in Criminology
Criminal Careers In Cyberspace: Examining Website Failure Within Child Exploitation Networks, Bryce G. Westlake, Martin Bouchard
Criminal Careers In Cyberspace: Examining Website Failure Within Child Exploitation Networks, Bryce G. Westlake, Martin Bouchard
Bryce Garreth Westlake
Publically accessible, illegal, websites represent an additional challenge for control agencies, but also an opportunity for researchers to monitor, in real time, changes in criminal careers. Using a repeated measures design, we examine evolution in the networks that form around child exploitation (CE) websites, over a period of 60 weeks, and determine which criminal career dimensions predict website failure. Network data were collected using a custom-designed web-crawler. Baseline survival rates were compared to networks surrounding (legal) sexuality and sports websites. Websites containing CE material were no more likely to fail than comparisons. Cox regression analyses suggest that increased volumes of …
Comparing Methods For Detecting Child Exploitation Content Online, Bryce Westlake, Martin Bouchard, Richard Frank
Comparing Methods For Detecting Child Exploitation Content Online, Bryce Westlake, Martin Bouchard, Richard Frank
Bryce Garreth Westlake
The sexual exploitation of children online is seen as a global issue and has been addressed by both governments and private organizations. Efforts thus far have focused primarily on the use of image hash value databases to find content. However, recently researchers have begun to use keywords as a way to detect child exploitation content. Within the current study we explore both of these methodologies. Using a custom designed web-crawler, we create three networks using the hash value method, keywords method, and a hybrid method combining the first two. Results first show that the three million images found in our …