| ID | 163801 |
| Title Proper | Trouble with (supply-side) counts: the potential and limitations of counting sites, vendors or products as a metric for threat trends on the Dark Web |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Jardine, Eric |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Many national security threats now originate on the Dark Web. As a result of the anonymity of these networks, researchers and policymakers often use supply-side data (i.e. the number of sites) as a threat metric. However, the utility of these data depends upon the underlying distribution of users. Users could be distributed uniformly, normally or in a power law across Dark Web content. The utility of supply-side counts varies predictably based upon the underlying distribution of users. Yet, the likelihood of each distribution type varies inversely with its utility: uniform distributions are most useful for intelligence purposes but least likely and power law distributions are least useful but occur most commonly. Complementing supply-side counts with demand-side measures can improve Dark Web threat analysis, thereby helping to combat terrorism, criminality and cyberattacks.
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| `In' analytical Note | Intelligence and National Security Vol. 34, No.1; Jan 2019: p.95-111 |
| Journal Source | Intelligence and National Security Vol: 34 No 1 |
| Key Words | Dark Web ; Threat Trends |