Cybercrimeology Cybercrimeology

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Alice Hutchings and her PhD student, Anh Vu, from the University of Cambridge, delve into the intricate world of cybercrime amidst global conflicts, with a special focus on the challenges of deplatforming hate groups. They discuss their research at the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre, focusing on the surge of hacker defacements and DDoS attacks in response to international tensions, notably the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. Additionally, they explore the complexities of deplatforming online hate groups, using the case of Kiwi Farms as an example of how difficult it can be to mitigate the activities of these groups without unintended consequences. Dr. Hutchings and Anh Vu highlight how these cyber incidents reflect broader geopolitical dynamics and the persistent challenge of controlling harmful online behavior while respecting free speech. Their analysis provides a comprehensive view of the cyber dimensions of warfare and online community management.

We host Dr. Tom Holt from the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, to talk about his current research and the problems of getting research into practice . Dr. Holt explaines the intricate dynamics of online ideological spaces and the rise of ideologically driven cyber attacks, emphasizing the critical need for interdisciplinary efforts between social sciences and computer science.

In this episode, Dr. Lennon Chang from Deakin University provides an academic exploration into the mechanisms and implications of virtual kidnapping and online scams. Dr. Chang discusses the sophisticated tactics employed by cybercriminals to exploit victims and the significant challenges in international law enforcement collaboration. He underscores the importance of enhancing public education about scams and the available support systems for victims, providing a personal example to highlighting the limitations of education in preventing scams but how it can aid with recovering. The discussion also ventures into the potential future challenges posed by emerging technologies, offering insights into the evolving landscape of cybercrime prevention and the critical role of academic research in informing policy and practice.

How can we leverage new technologies and research to assist the investigators combating the production of child sexual abuse material online. Dr. Russell Brewer from the University of Adelaide in Australia and Dr. Bryce Westlake from San Jose State University join us to talk about a project that puts research into practice and is providing a software tool that can leverage criminological approaches, forensic techniques and the latest computing technologies to assist law enforcement. We discuss what the tools do, how they can help and the challenges of taking academic findings into the real world.

A new year's resolution that can benefit all of us is to do better presentations. A great way to improve yourself is to learn from the experience of others. To help us all get a little better at presenting our ideas we should listen to people who are experienced with communicating research. So this episode is all about tips for presenting cybercrime research and we hear from Dr. Russell Brewer, Dr. Lennon Chang, Dr. Benoit Dupont, Dr. Steven Kemp, Dr. Katalin Parti, Dr. Rutger Leukfeldt and Dr. Bryce Westlake.

One hundred episodes of cybercrime, its research and its researchers. We take a look at the podcast, what have we done, what did we talk about, what goes into the production of the podcast and its impact on me as a host. This episode's guest is the future, or at least what it might be as we have a combination of AI technologies appearing as our research assistant.