ABSTRACT

Despite their growing popularity, cryptomarkets generate risks for participants. This has promoted the reemergence of a more personal transaction model on the dark web: single vendor shops. To date, little is known about how single vendors display trust to attract potential customers without relying on the structural trust provided by cryptomarkets’ review and escrow systems. A total of 108 single vendor shops were identified. A coding grid was used to determine whether vendors displayed any of the four categories of trust signals typically found on cryptomarkets (i.e., signals related to identity, marketing, security, and signals that directly express trust). While the majority of single vendor shops were involved in illicit drug dealing, other products such as electronics, weapons, and fake documents were also offered. On average, shops displayed few trust signals. However, variations between different kinds of vendors were found: while vendors involved in illicit drug dealing displayed more identity- and marketing-related trust signals, vendors involved in fraud displayed more security-related signals and signals that directly expressed trust. Differences between vendors might be due to the nature of the products they offer and to the level of competition in their respective markets.

摘要

尽管它们越来越受欢迎，但加密市场会给参与者带来风险。这促进了暗网上更加个人化的交易模式的重新出现：单一供应商商店。迄今为止，关于单一供应商如何在不依赖加密市场审查和托管系统提供的结构性信任的情况下展示信任以吸引潜在客户的情况知之甚少。共确定了 108 家单一供应商商店。使用编码网格来确定供应商是否显示了通常在加密市场上发现的四类信任信号中的任何一种（即与身份、营销、安全相关的信号和直接表达信任的信号）。虽然大多数单一供应商商店都参与非法药物交易，但也提供其他产品，如电子产品、武器和假文件。一般，商店几乎没有显示出信任信号。然而，发现不同类型的供应商之间存在差异：虽然参与非法药物交易的供应商表现出更多与身份和营销相关的信任信号，但参与欺诈的供应商表现出更多与安全相关的信号和直接表达信任的信号。供应商之间的差异可能是由于他们提供的产品的性质以及各自市场的竞争程度。