User names of illegal drug vendors on a darknet cryptomarket
Lasse Hämäläinen · Onoma · 2015
The illegal drug trade has recently found a new route: darknet cryptomarkets.On these Ebay-like marketplaces, located in an anonymous network, drug sellers and buyers from all over the world make deals without meeting each other in person.Drug vendors are known by their user names, and those names could have a huge financial significance for their owners.This study examines the characteristics of those vendor user names and contrasts them to both other types of user names as well as to real-life commercial names.The data for the study were collected from AlphaBay, which was the largest cryptomarket in early 2017.Many vendors share information of themselves through their user names, referring to their products, home country and whether they work alone or in a group.Names are also used to create various images of vendor's business.Some vendors try to create an image of a normal, legal business by using company and brand name vocabulary or by plagiarising famous real-life brand names.Other vendors, however, appear to even highlight their criminality, referring to illegal activities or well-known 46 LASSE HÄMÄLÄINEN real-life or fictional drug criminals.Vendor names also include references to the desired effects of drugs and the high quality of products and service.One-third of names are not connected to drugs in any visible way.Overall, vendor names more closely resemble other user names, but they clearly have also been influenced by commercial names.