Proposal / Submission Type
Peer Reviewed Paper
Location
Daytona Beach, Florida
Start Date
21-5-2015 11:30 AM
Abstract
The 2014 Digital Forensics Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) focused its summer efforts on tracking criminal forums and Facebook groups. The UAB-REU Facebook team was provided with a list of about 60 known criminal groups on Facebook, with a goal to track illegal information posted in these groups and ultimately store the information in a searchable database for use by digital forensic analysts. Over the course of about eight weeks, the UAB-REU Facebook team created a database with over 400 Facebook groups conducting criminal activity along with over 100,000 unique users within these groups. As of November 2014, students involved in the research project with Advisor Gary Warner at UAB continued running the automated fetchers since my summer projected completed. Working with U.S. Federal Law Enforcement agencies, there have been at least NINE CONFIRMED ARRESTS of individuals associated with the illegal activities tracked on Facebook. This paper will discuss the methods used to collect the information, store it in a database and analyze the data. The paper will also present possible future uses of the Facebook criminal activity-monitoring tool.
Keywords: social media, criminal organizations, online crime, social network monitoring
Scholarly Commons Citation
Weiss, Daniel and Warner, Gary, "Tracking Criminals on Facebook: A Case Study From A Digital Forensics REU Program" (2015). Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law. 4.
https://commons.erau.edu/adfsl/2015/thursday/4
Included in
Aviation Safety and Security Commons, Computer Law Commons, Defense and Security Studies Commons, Forensic Science and Technology Commons, Information Security Commons, National Security Law Commons, OS and Networks Commons, Other Computer Sciences Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons
Tracking Criminals on Facebook: A Case Study From A Digital Forensics REU Program
Daytona Beach, Florida
The 2014 Digital Forensics Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) focused its summer efforts on tracking criminal forums and Facebook groups. The UAB-REU Facebook team was provided with a list of about 60 known criminal groups on Facebook, with a goal to track illegal information posted in these groups and ultimately store the information in a searchable database for use by digital forensic analysts. Over the course of about eight weeks, the UAB-REU Facebook team created a database with over 400 Facebook groups conducting criminal activity along with over 100,000 unique users within these groups. As of November 2014, students involved in the research project with Advisor Gary Warner at UAB continued running the automated fetchers since my summer projected completed. Working with U.S. Federal Law Enforcement agencies, there have been at least NINE CONFIRMED ARRESTS of individuals associated with the illegal activities tracked on Facebook. This paper will discuss the methods used to collect the information, store it in a database and analyze the data. The paper will also present possible future uses of the Facebook criminal activity-monitoring tool.
Keywords: social media, criminal organizations, online crime, social network monitoring
Comments
Session Chair: Ezhil S. Kalaimannan, University of West Florida