Survey: gauging community opinion regarding criminal transactions

[ItsDom]

The survey is now closed. I'm writing up the research. Once I've got it marked with some feedback and confirmed it's okay to republish, I'll stick it up on here for you all to scrutinize.

Thanks to those that took the time to look at the survey, and even more thanks to those who provided feedback and criticism on it - muchly appreciated:)


Hi,

I'm doing my Masters Project as part of a PhD in Web Science at the University of Southampton, in which I'm investigating the use of Virtual Payment Systems in cybercrime.

The aim of this survey is to try and understand how the Bitcoin community perceives criminal transactions along with possible ways to reduce criminal transactions.

The study is part of my Masters project, which is funded through the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre which is in turn funded by the EPSRC. I'll see if I can get it self archived after so it will be available to everyone.

I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it out. There are 9 questions, 7 of which are multi-choice so it shouldn't take long (between 2 - 15 minutes).

The link for the survey is:

Now closed

If you visit that link, there's a bit more information and then if you want to take part, you must tick a box for consent, and then you will be taken to the survey.

Just a few clarifications based on issues raised when others have taken the survey:

• Personally, I support Bitcoin, I have no interests in stopping or shutting down Bitcoin - I would love to see it accepted as a currency.
• The reason I'm sending this survey out to Bitcoin community forums, as opposed to PayPal community forums, as my research so far has suggested a large amount of illegal products and services traded online are typically paid for with Bitcoin. I'm not implying that all, or even the majority, of Bitcoin transactions are criminal, but I'm also not denying that criminal transactions do happen with Bitcoin.
• When I talk about cybercrime and online crime, I'm referring to actions that a user takes part in online, which is illegal in their current jurisdiction.
• The survey will be available most likely until Wednesday 5th Sept, maybe longer if required, but I need to get the data analysed and written up to be handed in on the 14th September

Any feedback regarding the survey, the study or any useful comments or questions, don't hesitate to ask on here, or there's a contact e-mail address on the survey information page at the start.

Thanks in advanced

Dom.

[jbreher]

Flawed survey is flawed.

Non-repudiation is orthogonal to 'to not get caught'.

I still answered to the best of my ability.

[ItsDom]

Flawed survey is flawed.

Non-repudiation is orthogonal to 'to not get caught'.

I still answered to the best of my ability.

Hi,

I was using the definition "Non-repudiation is the concept of ensuring that a party in a dispute cannot repudiate, or refute the validity of a statement or contract." So someone may use Bitcoin so that the other party can't question, track or reverse a transaction. In retrospect, it maybe a little stretch to get it to what I mean. I put the clarification next to it in brackets just in case.

Thanks for filling it out, and the feedback is muchly appreciated:)

Dom.

[justusranvier]

I suggest you explore the question with more granularity. Some people use Bitcoins for "criminal" transactions because they feel that particular laws are unjust, invasive, abusive or otherwise inappropriate.

You may find a difference in the percentage of people who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to facilitate theft vs the percentage who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to allow expats to send remittances to their family in countries the US government does not permit trade with, or the use of Bitcoins to avoid legal prohibitions of online gambling.

[Chang Hum]

Great another academic wasting tax payers money on fancy long words.

[kokjo]

Great another academic wasting tax payers money on fancy long words.

if the did not waste tax money, we would not have computeres.

[Chang Hum]

Great another academic wasting tax payers money on fancy long words.

if the did not waste tax money, we would not have computeres.

computers will be the ruination of the world imo

[sadpandatech]

Hi,

I'm doing my Masters Project as part of a PhD in Web Science at the University of Southampton, in which I'm investigating the use of Virtual Payment Systems in cybercrime.

The aim of this survey is to try and understand how the Bitcoin community perceives criminal transactions along with possible ways to reduce criminal transactions.

The study is part of my Masters project, which is funded through the Web Science Doctoral Training Centre which is in turn funded by the EPSRC. I'll see if I can get it self archived after so it will be available to everyone.

I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it out. There are 9 questions, 7 of which are multi-choice so it shouldn't take long (between 2 - 15 minutes).

The link for the survey is:

https://www.isurvey.soton.ac.uk/5830

If you visit that link, there's a bit more information and then if you want to take part, you must tick a box for consent, and then you will be taken to the survey.

Just a few clarifications based on issues raised when others have taken the survey:

• Personally, I support Bitcoin, I have no interests in stopping or shutting down Bitcoin - I would love to see it accepted as a currency.
• The reason I'm sending this survey out to Bitcoin community forums, as opposed to PayPal community forums, as my research so far has suggested a large amount of illegal products and services traded online are typically paid for with Bitcoin. I'm not implying that all, or even the majority, of Bitcoin transactions are criminal, but I'm also not denying that criminal transactions do happen with Bitcoin.
• When I talk about cybercrime and online crime, I'm referring to actions that a user takes part in online, which is illegal in their current jurisdiction.
• The survey will be available most likely until Wednesday 5th Sept, maybe longer if required, but I need to get the data analysed and written up to be handed in on the 14th September

Any feedback regarding the survey, the study or any useful comments or questions, don't hesitate to ask on here, or there's a contact e-mail address on the survey information page at the start.

Thanks in advanced

Dom.

More research is in order. I guess that hypothesis has to be correct for the bulk of your thesis or term paper to be valid? If not then a bit more research may benefit your paper.

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+are+people+buying+illegal+drugs+online&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=907&sa=X&ei=yGVCUL7nGoSS9QSArICABg&ved=0CAkQpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A9%2F1%2F1999%2Ccd_max%3A9%2F30%2F2009&tbm=

[Lethos]

Might want to look into what percentage of transactions SR ends up really being any part of bitcoin.
Realise that % is pretty damn small. Compare that to the value of those transactions to estimates done in local fiat of almost any country.

Bitcoins is a method for some skirting the law yes, but it's nothing in comparison to those who just simply pay cash.

[ItsDom]

I suggest you explore the question with more granularity. Some people use Bitcoins for "criminal" transactions because they feel that particular laws are unjust, invasive, abusive or otherwise inappropriate.

You may find a difference in the percentage of people who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to facilitate theft vs the percentage who are opposed to the use of Bitcoins to allow expats to send remittances to their family in countries the US government does not permit trade with, or the use of Bitcoins to avoid legal prohibitions of online gambling.

I think you need to take a more philosophical stance and define crime first, before getting stuck into fixing problems with criminal transactions.

Thought experiment:
There are 2 countries, A and B.
...
How do you know it's illegal?/ Whose definition of crime are you using? And why that particular definition, rather than some other rule-book?

I agree. The study is part of my Masters which is leading into a PhD, so I will hopefully have the next 3 years to explore the question more gradually.

Web Science is an interdisciplinary subject so we're encouraged to approach web based problems from multiple disciplines. My research over the course is done with the Criminology department, along with the Computer Science department. My first degree was Computer Science, so I'm having to pickup and learn the criminology + social side quite quickly. But the benefit of the course is that I can effectively utilize and draw ideas from all disciplines, including things like law, economics, philosophy etc.

Part of the aim of the Masters is to explore a question or problem, to allow further in depth informed research over the course of the PhD.

Great another academic wasting tax payers money on fancy long words.

if the did not waste tax money, we would not have computeres.

Yup, I agree. Also, I think it's worth mentioning, in an ideal world, a lot of legislation and policy making should be made based on academic research, which is why so much money is invested. Personally, I believe academic research into Bitcoin is a "must" for it to be accepted as a currency.

[Lethos]

After doing the survey, I can smell the bias almost every question asked.
As with any research based work you do at university level, if it's seen as biased you better have a really good reason to be able to still use it as supporting evidence for you opinion on a idea or statement.

Currency is not the problem, it's the people involved that is. You don't see people blaming the British pound or US dollars since it sometimes is use to buy drugs, buy weapons or hire hookers. Some is illegal or at least controversial, the people are doing the act, the medium of currency doesn't matter that much.

[ItsDom]

Just a few clarifications based on issues raised when others have taken the survey:

• The reason I'm sending this survey out to Bitcoin community forums, as opposed to PayPal community forums, as my research so far has suggested a large amount of illegal products and services traded online are typically paid for with Bitcoin. I'm not implying that all, or even the majority, of Bitcoin transactions are criminal, but I'm also not denying that criminal transactions do happen with Bitcoin.

More research is in order. I guess that hypothesis has to be correct for the bulk of your thesis or term paper to be valid? If not then a bit more research may benefit your paper.

That's not the case, my study is exploring the use of different virtual payment systems. The bulk of the research is looking at different systems used to pay cybercrime services. My findings from that suggest that Bitcoin seems to be the most commonly referred to payment system when people buy/sell illegal products and services online. The survey is to further understand what the community thinks on the problem and how to tackle it, as you guys probably know more than anyone else about Bitcoin, the way it works, and it's problems.

So, it doesn't matter what the results are from this survey are with regards to the validity of my research.

As I said, I'll try make sure I get it made available publicly do you can all take a look. It's really good that you're all pointing out issues such as closed systems where Bitcoin only operates on the boundary - these will be things to include in the analysis and discussion of the validity of my findings - it's all hugely appreciated.

Thanks again,

Dom.

[Snapman]

I think you need to take a more philosophical stance and define crime first, before getting stuck into fixing problems with criminal transactions.

Very important point, with the US Government on a warpath to make everything online illegal, something that we consider an everyday convenience today could be a felony tomorrow.

OBAMA IS NOT MY PRESIDENT

[ItsDom]

After doing the survey, I can smell the bias almost every question asked.
As with any research based work you do at university level, if it's seen as biased you better have a really good reason to be able to still use it as supporting evidence for you opinion on a idea or statement.

Sorry you smell bias - as I said, I'm not trying to prove any hypothesis with this survey. It's a follow up to results I've got already in the study. I don't quite understand what you mean how if it's seen as biased then it's better. Showing biased in research, particularly when gathering the data is a very bad thing, because it affects the validity of the results.

Currency is not the problem, it's the people involved that is. You don't see people blaming the British pound or US dollars since it sometimes is use to buy drugs, buy weapons or hire hookers. Some is illegal or at least controversial, the people are doing the act, the medium of currency doesn't matter that much.

As I said in the original post, I'm not trying to blame Bitcoin for crime, I personally believe Bitcoin doesn't cause crime. I'm not even anywhere implying that Bitcoin is used for more crime than standard pounds & dollar. (small aside: we had some interesting discussion on technological determinism vs social construction of technology, and personally, the most legitimate sounding theory is social shaping - e.g. people create technology based on social requirements and such, and the technology changes the social requirements and such, so it's cyclic.)

 But, a possible reason as to why people don't blame pounds or dollars for crime is because there's measures in place to try and reduce crime with them. There aren't as many of these measures in Bitcoin, and it's a possibility that this could mean more criminal transactions with Bitcoin as opposed to PayPal. E.g. pirateat40 may not have been able to get away with what he did with a recognized currency with the necessary measures. It is a possibility that if it was considerably harder to pay for illegal things online, then not as many people would do it, and if they did, they maybe easier to catch.

It maybe interesting to see what amount of people support measures to curb criminal transaction which may help towards policy making and recognition of Bitcoin as a proper currency.

Thanks again for taking the time to fill it out and providing some feedback, it's really appreciated.

Dom

[nimda]

You can't stop it. There's nothing you can do to stop it. No government can tell anyone how to spend their bitcoins, and that's why I'm here.

[Dansker]

Saying bitcoin is responsible for criminal transactions is like saying the alphabet is to blame for threat letters, or that roads are to blame for speeding.

[Chang Hum]

Saying bitcoin is responsible for criminal transactions is like saying the alphabet is to blame for threat letters, or that roads are to blame for speeding.

Governments across the world probably just forced banks to enforce KYC policy out of boredom, I think it's great bitcoin's built it's own infrastructure of roads where speed limits normal folk have to abide by don't apply (figuratively speaking!!)

[ItsDom]

Excellent response:)

After doing the survey, I can smell the bias almost every question asked.
As with any research based work you do at university level, if it's seen as biased [comma] you better have a really good reason to be able to still use it as supporting evidence for you opinion on a idea or statement.

Sorry you smell bias - as I said, I'm not trying to prove any hypothesis with this survey. It's a follow up to results I've got already in the study. I don't quite understand what you mean how if it's seen as biased then it's better. Showing biased in research, particularly when gathering the data is a very bad thing, because it affects the validity of the results.

Slight misunderstanding there? Everyone's saying that bias is bad. However, in this case, I think that even if it's accidental, it seems you have stirred up a bit of controversy. As a result, you've gotten lots of replies and intelligent discussion here.

Doing successful surveys seems like an artform/ social science in its own right. In much the same way that pharmaceutical companies give some of their test patients placebos instead of the real thing, maybe future surveys could cover a variety of different topics so that the participants are less likely to be guarded against one particular aspect?

(small aside: we had some interesting discussion on technological determinism vs social construction of technology, and personally, the most legitimate sounding theory is social shaping - e.g. people create technology based on social requirements and such, and the technology changes the social requirements and such, so it's cyclic.)

Perhaps you could try to analyse what things (if any,) the creators of Bitcoin and the participants are most concerned about regarding existing social/financial/political frameworks? If we try to think of Bitcoin as the answer that tries to fix certain problems, maybe we can work backwards and figure out what those problems are.

What are some of Bitcoin's key features?
Pre-programmed, publicly known inflation scheme that is virtually impossible to change without a majority consensus. Unwarranted currency debasement by a central party (such as a reserve bank) could be seen as one of worst crimes in the world. It is grand theft from millions of people, isn't it? And to make it worse, it seems that within existing frameworks, society can do absolutely nothing to stop the rot. Can we at least vote for better reserve bank governors or get corrupt ones thrown out of office?? And what about other parts of the system that allow banks to also create money with little or no deposits required as collateral?...

Low cost fast transactions. Most transactions in the world are dominated by a small oligopoly of credit card companies and banks. The high interest and fees they charge guarantee huge incomes for these companies. Yet governments never step in. They never crack down on those monopolies, even though there are plenty of laws regarding anticompetitive behaviour. Isn't that criminal negligence on a grand scale? Even worse, the existing cartel is protected by a wall of red tape that makes it extremely difficult for new competitors to emerge. I could go on, but you get the point.

 I agree - that's one of the things I'm having to learn. I found computing science to be largely logical, and found it relatively easy. Social sciences, and human based sciences to me require a lot more of something that doesn't seem like straight forward logic - like an art form as you say. One thing I've definitely learned from this survey on these forums, is that in future, I will try and approach the community with a problem or question before or at the same time as considering the methodology. Something I've been very aware of, which I think is hugely underestimated by governments etc, is the amount of knowledge and intellect present in communities, particularly open source ones.

The points you listed regarding features are things that I already planned on discussing. As part of integrating the computing science approach with the social/criminological approach, I'll be talking about the technical side behind the features, and how then some of these features work as a doubled edged sword, providing and excellent, free, distributed anonymous service for the everyday individual, as well as providing a good platform for more nefarious intentions. I'll also ensure I emphasize that this double edged sword isn't necessarily a unique feature to Bitcoin, and is present in recognized countries because of cash.

I appreciate defining crime and such is a problem, and that a lot of large corporations get away with things that done on a smaller scale by less powerful people would be considered a crime. This is something I must address briefly, but at the same time, this research is slightly higher level (but obviously still affected) than the lower level criminological issues such as what is crime? It's the same way in computing science research, you typically don't have to talk in too much depth about how semi conductors come together to form logic gates if you're doing research on say, efficient compiler engineering.

Thanks again for the feedback, responses and discussion. This is all proving to be a really valuable learning experience for me. As I said, I intend on doing more research into Bitcoin, so even if I learn nothing else, just conducting this survey is helping me understand better how to approach the community.

Dom.

[dancupid]

I started this survey and then decided I couldn't continue.

There is no such thing as a 'criminal act' until someone calls the police, the police investigate, there is an arrest and someone is convicted - all else is innocence in the eyes of the law.

Criminality is not discovered by opinion, but by legal processes. If I'm doing something illegal why aren't the police banging on my door?

The moment someone is convicted then I will accept that a criminal act has taken place - as far as I know no one has been convicted of a criminal act using bitcoin (ie Bitcoin is not being used for criminal transactions beyond hearsay).

Clearly everyone using bitcoin is behaving in a totally legal way (since no one has been found guilty of anything criminal).  

If you (or anyone else) believe people are breaking the law then you need to call the police.

[ralree]

The currency used to conduct a consensual transaction between two parties is not the issue.  This can be done in Euros, Francs, USD, CAD, etc.  Whether the government considers the transaction to be legal is another story, but as long as all parties involved in the transaction are pleased, what's the real problem?  It's just job of government to ensure rights are upheld equally, meaning if one of the stakeholders in the transaction was wronged, he/she could use the legal system to make things right. 

There are grey areas like prostitution, but that's largely caused by its association with the black market.  Since prostitutes can't use police protection, just like drug dealers can't, they have to use pimps and thugs which come with their own problems. 

Bitcoin should stay legal until cash is made illegal.  US dollars are traded on the black market all the time, and no one seems to care about that.