Experiencing the Detection of Radicalized Criminals on Facebook Social Network and Data-related Issues

Authors

  • Andrea Tundis Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany
  • Leon Böck Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany
  • Victoria Stanilescu Siemens AG, Marburg, Germany
  • Max Mühlhäuser Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13052/jcsm2245-1439.922

Keywords:

Crime detection, Cyber-criminality, Online Social Networks Analysis, Radicalization, Terrorist Networks, Machine Learning, Internet-based crime

Abstract

Online social networks (OSNs) represent powerful digital tools to communicate and quickly disseminate information in a unofficial way. As they are freely accessible and easy to use, criminals abuse of them for achieving their purposes, for example, by spreading propaganda and radicalising people. Unfortunately, due to their vast usage, it is not always trivial to identify criminals using them unlawfully. Machine learning techniques have shown benefits in problem solving belonging to different application domains, when, due to the huge dimension in terms of data and variables to consider, it is not feasible their manual assessment. However, since the OSNs domain is relatively young, a variety of issues related to data availability makes it difficult to apply and immediately benefit from such techniques, in supporting the detection of criminals on OSNs. In this perspective, this paper wants to share the experience conducted in using a public dataset containing information related to criminals in order to both (i) extract specific features and to build a model for the detection of terrorists on Facebook social network, and (ii) to highlight the current limits. The research methodology as well as the gathered results are fully presented and then the data-related issues, emerged from this experience, are discussed ().

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Author Biographies

Andrea Tundis, Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany

Andrea Tundis is a Senior Researcher and his area of expertise are infrastructure protection, Internet organized crime and human safety. In 2014 he got a Ph.D. degree in Systems and Computer Science from the DIMES department at University of Calabria (Italy). He is currently working at Department of Computer Science at Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA) in Germany and member of the Telecooperation Division (TK). He is involved in a Horizon 2020 European research project on organized cyber-crime and terrorist networks by investigating on models and methods for the identification, prevention and response of Internet-based crimes.

Leon Böck, Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany

Leon Böck is a Ph.D. candidate at the Telecooperation Labs at Technische Universität Darmstadt. His research focus is detection, monitoring and prevention of Peer-to-Peer botnets. In addition to the technical aspects of his research, he is interested in the legal and privacy concerns related to fighting botnets and malware. He received his M.Sc. in computer science from TU Darmstadt in 2017 with a master thesis on the topic “On P2P botnet monitoring in adverse conditions”.

Victoria Stanilescu, Siemens AG, Marburg, Germany

Victoria Stanilescu is a master student at Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), in Germany. She received her B.Sc. degree in Economics from the Municipal University of Chisinau, Moldova as well as a Bachelor degree in Informatics TUDA, in 2019. She is currently working as MES-Developer at Siemens AG.

Max Mühlhäuser, Department of Computer Science, Technische Universität Darmstadt (TUDA), Darmstadt, Germany

Max Mühlhäuser is a full professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt and head of Telecooperation Lab. He holds key positions in several large collaborative research centers and is leading the Doctoral School on Privacy and Trust for Mobile Users. He and his lab members conduct research on The Future Internet, Human Computer Interaction and Cybersecurity, Privacy & Trust. Max founded and managed industrial research centers, and worked as either professor or visiting professor at universities in Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, France, and Austria. He is a member of acatech, the German Academy of the Technical Sciences.

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Published

2020-01-29

How to Cite

1.
Tundis A, Böck L, Stanilescu V, Mühlhäuser M. Experiencing the Detection of Radicalized Criminals on Facebook Social Network and Data-related Issues. JCSANDM [Internet]. 2020 Jan. 29 [cited 2024 Nov. 23];9(2):203-36. Available from: https://journals.riverpublishers.com/index.php/JCSANDM/article/view/1125

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