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Tænkte at nogle måske kunne være interesserede I at se mine kollegaer og min artikel om scams på cryptomarkederne.

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https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764217734269
American Behavioral Scientist


DOI: 10.1177/0002764217734269
journals.sagepub.com/home/abs
Article
Flow My FE the Vendor
Said: Exploring Violent
and Fraudulent Resource
Exchanges on Cryptomarkets
for Illicit Drugs
Kim Moeller1, Rasmus Munksgaard2,
and Jakob Demant3
Abstract
A growing share of illicit drug distribution takes place using cryptomarkets that use
encryption and anonymization technologies. The risks of law enforcement intervention
and violence are lower here than in off-line traditional drug markets, but with the
technological innovations follow new opportunities for stealing and fraud. The sites
themselves fall prey to theft and hacking attempts, administrators abscond with users’
funds, and malicious sellers regularly cheat buyers. In this study, we explore the types
of theft and fraud that occur on cryptomarkets using multiple data sources: formalized
community resources (e.g., guides, tutorials), ethnographic observations of user
forums, thematic identification of forum posts using unsupervised text classification,
and an expert interview. We find system-based violent predatory resource exchange
similar to robberies and process-based fraudulent resource exchange similar to ripoffs.
We discuss these offenses conceptually as extensions of common drug-related
crimes in the digital world. This contributes to the research on how cryptomarkets
work and can improve crime-prevention efforts.
Keywords

Introduction
Illicit drug markets exist in direct opposition to the state’s regulation. Participants are
routinely arrested and face severe criminal sanctions. Despite this, drug markets persist
because buyers and sellers strategically adapt their transactions in ways that
reduce the risk of law enforcement intervention and personal victimization (Moeller,
Copes, & Hoechstetler, 2016). In recent years, these adaptations have increasingly
involved moving transactions online to so-called cryptomarkets (Soska & Christin,
2015). Cryptomarkets are located on the “dark web” as hidden services using the Tor
network (The Onion Router) and use encrypted communications and bitcoin to provide
anonymity and security. Compared with illicit drug markets in the real world,
cryptomarkets are anonymous and open but transcend physical locations (Aldridge &
Décary-Hétu, 2016).
A growing research has examined these online exchanges and found that illicit
drugs constitute the majority of transactions (e.g., Barratt, 2012; Christin, 2012;
Martin, 2014; Soska & Christin, 2015; Van Hout & Bingham, 2013, 2014), secondarily
to stolen data (e.g., Hutchings & Holt, 2014; Wehinger, 2011). A central finding
in this research is that the risks of legal sanctions are low for both buyers and sellers
as the whole cryptomarket ecosystem is highly resilient to interventions (Décary-Hétu
& Giommoni, 2016; Soska & Christin, 2015; Van Buskirk et al., 2017; Van Buskirk,
Roxburgh, Farrell, & Burns, 2014). So far, law enforcement efforts have primarily
targeted the administrators of the sites, and buyers have been jeopardized only because
of traditional police work, such as intercepting shipments in the mail (Europol, 2013).
The same technology that is designed to reduce the risk of being robbed or scammed
also enables new forms of fraudulent behavior. At the system level, cryptomarkets are
regularly exposed to theft and hacking attempts, and the bitcoin technology also has
security flaws (Wehinger, 2011). At the process level, some vendors defraud buyers
when shipping the drugs. The administrators of the sites work to alleviate these problems
with several self-regulation mechanisms, such as buyer reviews, licenses, and
authorizations for reliable vendors, banning malicious users, locking accounts, and
implementing escrow services for payments. Despite these mechanisms, there are
regular reports of theft and fraudulent behavior on online forums dedicated to cryptomarket
discussions. These user forums are online communities where virtual offenders
converge and have established their own norms, rules, and vocabulary (Martin, 2014;
Soudijn & Zegers, 2012). User forums serve many different purposes for offenders,
one of which is information dissemination to reduce the risks associated with the use
of the postal system (Aldridge & Askew, 2017; Holt, Blevins, & Kuhns, 2014). The
discussions on these forums constitute threads of individual posts that form conversations
that are amenable to content analysis (Denzin, 1999; Williams & Copes, 2005),
and several qualitative studies have used these data to examine various aspects of
cryptomarkets (Aldridge & Askew, 2017; Bancroft & Reid, 2016; Martin, 2014).
In this study, we explore the different types of theft and fraud that occur in relation
to illicit drug transactions on cryptomarkets, based on dark web forum data. The point
of departure is Jacques and Wright’s (2011) conceptualizations of illicit transactions as
a combination of resource exchange and informal social control. Resource exchange
Moeller et al. 3
takes the form of reciprocation, altruism, or predation. Reciprocation is a regular sale
where the price varies depending on the social distance between seller and buyer.
Repeat customers may receive lower prices and friends may even altruistically receive
drugs as gifts (Kandel & Davis, 1991; Moeller & Sandberg, 2015). Some sellers use
predation to increase profits. Predatory resource exchange consists of violence, fraud,
or stealth. Using Jacques and Wright’s (2011) concepts, robbery (Jacobs, 2000) is a
violent resource exchange while rip-offs are a fraudulent resource exchange (Jacques,
Allen, & Wright, 2014). Cryptomarket administrators attempt to prevent this malfeasance
through social control (Martin, 2014), conceptualized as conflict management
and retaliation (Jacques & Wright, 2011). There is a dispute resolution system wherein
grievances can be settled and administrators can also ban vendors and buyers who do
not comply with the rules. These options for conflict management and retaliation are
not always effective against motivated offenders and can even be counterproductive.
We employ a rational choice perspective to examine how offenders exploit weaknesses
in the cryptomarket technology to defraud users. We assume that the actors are
motivated, opportunistic, and weigh the subjective utility of alternative actions. They
are not absolutely deterred by law enforcement or other threats but adapt their offending
behavior strategically to less risky alternatives (Cross, 2000; Moeller et al., 2016).
A similar theoretical framework has been used in the study of illicit off-line drug markets
(Jacques & Wright, 2011), cybercrime (Yar, 2005), and markets for stolen data
(Hutchings & Holt, 2014). We recognize there are other more emotional and less rational
mechanisms at work on cryptomarkets, such as culture and politics (Maddox,
Barratt, Allen, & Lenton, 2016; Munksgaard & Demant, 2016), but they are not the
focus of this study.
In the section that follows, we review the research that examines the problems with
predatory resource exchanges on cryptomarkets. These actions violently target the
system-based infrastructure of the dark web, Tor, and Bitcoin, and fraudulently target
the process-based reputation mechanism. Next, we introduce our methodology and
data-collection procedures. In the findings section, we present the different forms of
predatory resource exchange and discuss the parallels between these acts and the thefts
and frauds that occur in off-line drug markets.
Review
This section outlines research that examines theft and fraud in online commerce. To
gain a better understanding of these problems, we include research that has examined
vulnerabilities in legal online peer-to-peer systems and bitcoin exchanges. We also
include a number of non–peer reviewed references to strengthen the connection
between online fraud and the dark web. We first describe the system-based control
mechanisms and the violent predation that exploits them: DoS (denial-of-service)
attacks, hacks, and bitcoin theft. Next, we describe how the reputation mechanism
works to prevent fraudulent predation and provide examples of circumvention. Next,
we describe the available methods for social control that site administrators apply in
the form of conflict management and retaliation. Finally, we explain the “finalizing
early” (FE) option that is the exception to these control mechanisms.
4 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
System-Based Control and Violent Resource Exchange
The cryptomarket infrastructure uses the anonymizing Tor network to operate as hidden
services and uses bitcoin for transactions. Bitcoin is a virtual currency designed
for online payments outside the traditional banking system (Böhme, Christin, Edelman,
& Moore, 2015) and is the most popular method for payment on cryptomarkets
(Europol, 2016). The Tor network is the preferred medium for cryptomarkets and
ensures that the server cannot be physically located by law enforcement and that all
communication is anonymized. Consequently, the sites operate with impunity with
regard to the typical ensemble of techniques to contain illicit Internet activity (e.g.,
Goldsmith, 2000; Hutchings & Holt, 2014).
Hidden services and cryptocurrency have two general weaknesses. First, hidden
services are vulnerable to DoS attacks that bombard a server with requests until it
slows down and eventually goes offline (Wehinger, 2011). Paulson and Weber (2006)
noted that DoS attacks are used as “cyber extortion” because they can take websites
offline and demand ransoms before attacks are stopped. Mitigating DoS attacks is
particularly difficult for hidden services (Tor Project, 2013, 2014).
Second is the bitcoin private key for transactions, which can be stolen from a website
through hacking. A key characteristic of bitcoin is that transactions are irreversible,
contrary to other forms of online payment (Böhme et al., 2015). This irreversibility
is intended to prevent fraud but simultaneously makes bitcoins an ideal target for theft
(Doguet, 2013). Once a bitcoin is stolen, it cannot be retrieved. The largest known
bitcoin theft was of 850,000 bitcoins from the MtGox exchange in 2013 (Bradbury,
2013). Allegedly, MtGox was subjected to an exploitation of a vulnerability known as
a “transaction malleability” flaw in the Bitcoin protocol. Subsequent analysis (Decker
& Wattenhofer, 2014) found that only 386 (sic!) of the bitcoins that disappeared could
be explained by this vulnerability. The investigation is still ongoing. Moore and
Christin (2013) calculated a risk ratio for more than 40 bitcoin currency exchanges and
found that larger exchanges were less likely to be shut down. Conversely, larger
exchanges are also more valuable targets to thieves.
Cyber extortion and bitcoin theft target the system-based controls and cause damage,
exert force, and apply coercion. Conceptually, we interpret these actions as violent
resource exchange, similar to robberies (Jacobs, 2000; Jacques & Wright, 2011),
even though they are directed at the digital infrastructure of the sites and not the physical
integrity of the administrators. This interpretation departs from Yar’s (2005) observation
that the online context can be understood in the extension of the conventional
routine activity concepts of distance, weight, and value.
Process-Based Control and Fraudulent Resource Exchange
Process-based control revolves around the review mechanism, also referred to as the
reputation systems (Resnick, Kuwabara, Zeckhauser, & Friedman, 2000). The review
mechanism is designed to sanction misbehavior while imposing minimal costs on
well-behaved users, similarly to legal e-commerce sites such as eBay and Amazon
Moeller et al. 5
(Marti & Garcia-Molina, 2005). A variety of statistics (e.g., total sales, average review
score) are published for each vendor pseudonym (e.g., “Xanax_King”), and with each
transaction, buyers are encouraged, or even required, to provide a score for the product
and the process. Kruithof et al. (2016) suggest that about 71% to 81% of cryptomarket
transactions have an associated review, which is more than on eBay where only about
half of the transactions are rated (Resnick, Zeckhauser, Swanson, & Lockwood, 2006).
Buyers’ number of transactions is also displayed to vendors and some may prioritize
between customers, based on their history of giving favorable ratings (Van Hout &
Bingham, 2014).
The weakness of the review mechanism is that the opinions of unknown peers
affect others’ decisions and the authenticity of these opinions cannot readily be
ascertained. Manipulating reviews is a common form of fraud on legal online markets
as well as cryptomarkets (Markopoulos, Xefteris, & Dellarocas, 2015). Known
techniques include providing unfair recommendations and obtaining a positive reputation
while strategically preparing to defect. Some vendors register multiple
accounts, purchase their own stock, and leave good reviews. Others referred to as
“whitewashers,” leave or are banned, and then rejoin with new identities (Marti &
Garcia-Molina, 2005).
Site administrators can influence reputations by awarding reliable vendors with a
“verified status” (Wehinger, 2011). A verified status is achieved after a number of
successful transactions and carries across different sites. This is important because
vendors with a verified status can immediately continue on another site in case law
enforcement or a DoS attack takes down a marketplace (Dolliver, 2015). Technically,
verified status requires that participants cannot steal each other’s identity, which is
referred to as “spoof-resistance.” Spoof-resistance is based on a cryptographic key
that is uniquely associated with the pseudonym of a vendor (Koutrouli & Tsalgatidou,
2012).
According to Jacques and Wright’s (2011) conceptualization, resource exchanges
based on the false premise of manipulated reviews are predatory and fraudulent. The
site administrators are aware of the fraudulent predation that takes place and seek to
prevent it through various means of social control.
Social Control and the “FE” Exception
Cryptomarket administrators use different forms of social control to build trust
between vendors and buyers and also actively engage with users on the forums (Martin,
2014). Following Jacques and Wright’s (2011) conceptualization, we understand these
social controls as conflict management and retaliation.
The most formal social control available to administrators is the centralized dispute
resolution mode. If a package does not arrive, the buyer and seller can discuss refunds
here with administrators as mediators and active conflict managers. The users in Van
Hout and Bingham’s (2013) study evaluated the dispute resolution mode positively,
even though only a few had experience with using it. Site administrators also manage
conflicts more informally when they participate on the forums and update users with
6 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
news of technical problems, such as DoS attacks or hacking attempts that explain
downtime (Martin, 2014). This proactive conflict management prevents user speculations
that the site might have more serious security problems.
In the case of problems with individual malicious vendors, administrators can
retaliate by either banning or “doxxing” them. Banned vendors will have to acquire a
new bond and start their reputation building anew using another pseudonym. Because
of the start-up costs of building a reputation, this is a serious economic sanction
(Resnick et al., 2006). Doxxing or “dropping dox” is a more severe form of retaliation
and involves the publication of documents containing phone numbers, financial
information, medical records, emails, and so forth. Administrators can retrieve this
information from messages stored on the server, but they are hesitant in publishing it.
Doxxing is controversial because it breaches the fundamental premise of anonymity
that the entire cryptomarket community is based on (Bancroft & Reid, 2016; Maddox
et al., 2016).
Finally, there is one exception to the system- and process-based control mechanisms
that also eludes conflict management and retaliatory measures. When conducting
transactions, there is an option to “finalize early” (FE). Finalizing early implies
that the buyer pays for the product in advance, in contrast to the standard procedure of
holding the payment in the escrow system until arrival has been confirmed. Some
vendors will request or even require that buyers FE before proceeding with shipments.
The rationale for accepting to FE is threefold. First, the bitcoin exchange rate is so
volatile that fluctuations between shipment and arrival can sometimes mean the difference
of making a profit (Moore & Christin, 2013). Second, there may be a fee to use
the escrow service (Martin, 2014; Van Hout & Bingham, 2014). Third, the centralized
escrow system is vulnerable, because hackers or even administrators may abscond
with the funds. The pitfalls of FE are obvious, as bitcoin transactions are irreversible.
In the following section, we describe our methods and data collection procedures
before proceeding with the findings, where we present the different types of violent
and fraudulent resource exchanges in cryptomarkets.
Data and Method
Our primary data comprise forum threads where buyers, vendors, and administrators
discuss cryptomarket issues. We found numerous threads where violent and fraudulent
resource exchanges are critically disseminated along with discussions of the utility of
the social control mechanisms. These threads are chronologically organized textual
conversations that constitute cultural artifacts, amenable for empirical analysis
(Williams & Copes, 2005). A number of studies have used online forum threads to
examine various forms of offending (Aldridge & Askew, 2017; Bancroft & Reid,
2016; Holt et al., 2014; Martin, 2014), and the overall approach has been endorsed as
“netnography” (Kozinets, 2002).
We use two complementary techniques to collect data from the threads, “lurking”
and web crawling. Lurking is an element of observational ethnography (Garcia,
Standlee, Bechkoff, & Yan, 2009) that has previously been applied in nethnographic
Moeller et al. 7
cryptomarket studies (Aldridge & Askew, 2017; Bancroft & Reid, 2016; Martin,
2014). We lurked user forums and actively monitored threads on the r/DarkNetMarkets
subreddit on reddit.com for 18 months (between January 2014 and July 2015) with the
aim of exploring various types of predatory resource exchanges. Forum posts that
mentioned predatory resource exchange were copied and saved for later analysis. The
researchers collectively discussed the contents of the posts and this led to the identification
of the system- and process-based predatory resource exchanges.
The ethics of observational nethnography are not solidly defined (see Kozinets,
2002; Martin & Christin, 2016). Following previous research, we decided not to
actively participate or seek approval of our lurking (Aldridge & Askew, 2017). We
consider the settings we observe as more public than private, given that they do not
require membership and the participant count is in the thousands (Eysenbach & Till,
2001). In addition, the persons under study are “pseudonymous” and not readily identifiable
(see Bancroft & Reid, 2016, for a discussion of this concept).
Next, we supplemented this observational data with data collected through web
crawling provided through a publicly available data set hosted by The Internet Archive
(Branwen et al., 2015). We first extracted 2.6 million forum posts and processed them
by removing non-English posts, short posts, stemming, and stop words. This reduced
the corpus to 404,161 posts from six forums that contained a vocabulary of 4,688
terms that we then subjected to unsupervised text classification using topic modeling.
Topic modeling provides an “automated procedure for coding the content of a corpora
of texts (including large corpora) into a set of substantively meaningful coding categories
called ‘topic’” (Mohr & Bogdanov, 2013, p. 546). Specifically, we applied a correlated
topic model (Blei & Lafferty, 2007) by using the stm package developed by
Roberts, Stewart, and Tingley (2015). This procedure provides an estimated proportion
of a document, in our case, a forum post, which can be assigned to a specified
“topic”. We found and reviewed 200 “exemplar documents” (Roberts et al., 2014) that
contain high proportions of predatory resource exchange-related topics. Topic modeling
is typically applied for quantitative purposes (Grimmer & Stewart, 2013), but we
use it purely as a qualitative aid to identify relevant forum posts. The topic model
allows us to navigate thousands of documents in order to find additional empirical
material that complements the material we collected through “lurking.” It provides an
alternate entry point to predatory resource exchange-related content.
Third and finally, we conducted informant ethnography with a semistructured interview
over email with DeepDotWeb, the author of the blog DeepDotWeb.com, from
December 2014 to January 2015. DeepDotWeb.com hosts interviews with administrators
and provides discussions and news regarding cryptomarkets. The interview schedule
emerged from the initial observational ethnography. We presented DeepDotWeb
with our initial analysis and he provided comments, further insight, and critical evaluations
of some publicly known examples of system-based theft. On having completed
our analysis, we discussed our findings with DeepDotWeb, thus improving external
validity by consulting a community expert.
We have two ambitions with this methodological approach. First, we use the different
forms of data collection (web crawling, lurking, and interviews) to ensure that we
8 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
are able to make detailed descriptions and not miss central aspects, referred to as convergence
validity (Fielding, 2008). Second, we triangulate by taking the findings from
the different data sources to position critical questions from other sources (Hammersley,
2008). Triangulation is based on the validation of findings from each method by comparing
them to each other (Denzin, 1999). This pertains especially to our findings on
system-based violent resource exchange that has previously only been established in
grey literature and in statements made by administrators. Summing up, we use lurking
to identify potentially relevant forms of predatory resource exchange. Next, we use
topic modeling to secure these findings within a larger number of cases. Finally, the
interview with an expert provides us with a critical perspective on our interpretations
of the two initial data sets. The quotes we use are verbatim, including grammatical
errors and jargon. Some of the quotes we use are now unavailable online, owing to
Operation Onymous shutting down several cryptomarkets and their forums (Europol,
2014), while other marketplaces went offline during our research. We remain in possession
of transcripts of forum threads, which are available on request to the authors.
Findings
In the sections that follow, we first present the predatory activities that are aimed at the
sites themselves, broadly conceptualized as system-based violent resource exchange.
Next, we explore the malicious activities that target users, conceptualized as processbased
fraudulent resource exchange.
System-Based Violent Resource Exchange
Cryptomarkets compete for customers based on the robustness of their technological
infrastructure, trustworthy administration, high uptime, and pleasant interfaces. This
competition increased after the first Silk Road incarnation was taken down in 2014.
Silk Road had a dominant market share and the ensuing vacuum sparked a series of
new marketplaces. Paradoxically, the total use of cryptomarkets increased despite the
negative media attention (Soska & Christin, 2015).
DoS Attacks and Hacking
Cryptomarkets are targeted at the system level by DoS attacks and hacking and several
sites have publicized statements of being victims of DoS attacks, as well as hacks and
subsequent theft (DeepDotWeb, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014e,
2014f, 2014g, 2014h). DoS attacks render sites unusable for the purposes of extortion
and competition. Some buyers displace their transactions while the site is down and
this blocks income from commissions. DeepDotWeb explains the consequences of
DoS attacks as follows:
If Silk Road is down, everyone move to agora, if Agora is down, everyone moves to Evo
. . . and so on [ . . . ] the DNM’s users base is VERY herd like. (DeepDotWeb interview)
Moeller et al. 9
At the most direct level, this displacement is a matter of buyers wanting to conduct
their transactions without delay; however, it opens for other venues of predation.
Hackers can exploit the displacement effect and demand ransoms to stop the attack.
From the trial against Ross Ulbricht, operator of the Silk Road marketplace, we know
that he paid an extortion fee to both hackers and DoS attackers (Jackson, 2015). To
what extent DoS attacks effectively spur migrations of buyers and vendors is not
entirely clear. Many marketplaces have suffered DoS attacks and regular downtime
but have managed to operate successful businesses nevertheless. For example, we note
that the market Agora, known in communities for its frequent downtime, was one of
the largest markets in operation at the time. Displacement does not necessarily mean
migration to competitors. Users might strategically adapt in other ways (Moeller et al.,
2016) and begin to source through offline connections or merely postpone their activities
to a time when the market is operational.
We found some evidence suggesting that site administrators themselves have used
DoS attacks as part of the intersite competition for customers. These intersite conflicts
are not well understood and the forum posts that address them are shrouded by various
conspiracy theories and wild speculation, as exemplified by these posts:
Those are the theories you came up with? Remember when DPR thought Backopy was
running Utopia using the name SWIM? Now who is it who runs a deepweb market using
different names? Remember when DPR said he had evidence that Tormarket was behind
a DDOS attack on SR2 when Tormarket was the main competitor of SR2? So who could
be behind a DDOS attack on SR2’s main competitor? (Agora Marketplace forums, March
9, 2014)
[Sheep Marketplace] did not have these problems and quickly became the top site on the
deepweb, then stole everyone’s bitcoin. I think the sheepfuckers are the same people
behind tormarket, and are again sending a DDOS attack against their number 1 competitor
SR2.0 Just my theory. (Silk Road 2.0 forums, December 17, 2013)
In one confirmed case, intersite competition led to the exploitation of security vulnerabilities
with hacking tools known from regular cybercrime. These attacks consist
of gaining access to databases with information on incriminating and illegal acts,
which may include unencrypted addresses of inexperienced users and bitcoins. This
can also be used for extortion or as a form of competitive violence, where the perpetrators
delegitimize their competitor’s site by first exploiting and then publishing their
security vulnerabilities. In December 2013, a hacker gained access to the TorMarket
database. TorMarket had branded itself on having high security and the breach was
detrimental to the integrity of the administrators (DeepDotWeb, 2013b). The then
administrator, Dread Pirate Roberts, published the TorMarket hack on the Silk Road
2.0 forums and presented database information to expose his competitor’s vulnerabilities.
DeepDotWeb explains the severity of such incidents:
Security flaws are the most unforgivable “crimes” in the DNM world. from obvious
reasons—losing money, leaking personal details, LE [ . . . ] If an admin fails to react,
10 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
admit and fix the issue quickly without losing money, its a death certificate for a market.
(DeepDotWeb interview)
Two other, less well-documented, cases of intersite violence consisted of a moderator
hiring outside help to post child sexual exploitation material on a competitor’s forum.
This was allegedly for revenge, as the competitor had advertised on the Silk Road 2.0’s
forums (Klippenstein, 2014). Anecdotally:
I knew something wasn’t right. Clu supposedly (extremely high probability) posted CP
on another site. AND Clu is a scumbag site operator. Alfred knows this. (The Hub forums,
May 9, 2014)
Where DoS attacks are quite common, hacking competing marketplaces is less used.
In our interview, DeepDotWeb argues that Operation Onymous (Europol, 2014) may
have further reduced this type of competition between marketplaces. Site administrators
are now focused on improving their own security, instead of fighting competitors.
Since the confirmed cases of DoS attacks and the hack and subsequent publication of
data from TorMarket, we have not witnessed any similar events discussed on the
forums. Empirically, it does not appear to be a widespread phenomenon, but we
acknowledge that such actions may not be publicized because of public relations concerns
of the specific marketplace. However, we note that the perpetrators of the other
acts of violence than DoS attacks were all associated with Silk Road 2.0, which was
shut down during Operation Onymous.
Bitcoin Heists and Marketplace Exit Scams
Bitcoin heists and marketplace exit scams are violent forms of predatory resource
exchange that are both directed at the system-level of cryptomarkets. The centralized
nature of cryptomarkets implies that funds amass in the escrow system. The irreversibility
of transactions, and the pseudonymous and anonymizable properties (for a discussion
of these terms, see Bancroft & Reid, 2016), makes bitcoin a perfect target and large
sums can be transferred across the globe instantaneously (Yar, 2005). Furthermore, bitcoin
theft, as with hacking, constitutes a security breach and creates mistrust in the site,
which can displace users. In this sense, the consequences of a bitcoin heist are twofold.
We refer to bitcoin theft as “heists” if they are perpetrated by an outside party and “marketplace
exit scams” if perpetrated by administrators or other insiders. The term exit
scam has other meanings as well (described in the section below); hence, “marketplace”
was added to better capture the system-level characteristics of this particular act.
In February 2014, US$2.7 million in bitcoin was stolen from Silk Road 2.0.
According to DEFCON, who was administrator at the time, a hacker exploited a vulnerability
in the Bitcoin protocol while a new tumbling system was being implemented
(DeepDotWeb 2014c; see also Decker & Wattenhofer, 2014):
Our initial investigations indicate that a vendor exploited a recently discovered
vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol known as “transaction malleability” to repeatedly
Moeller et al. 11
withdraw coins from our system until it was completely empty. (DEFCON, Silk Road 2.0
forums, February 13, 2014)
The prevailing sentiment in the cryptomarket community, however, is that this heist
was a marketplace exit scam where the site administrators stole the funds themselves:
It definitely could be an inside job. When the hack originally occurred, an inside job was
one of the leading theories. The Dev Teams broken promises and lack of action since that
time does make the possibility of an inside job/long con seem more plausible. (Silk Road
2.0 forums, October 5, 2014)
I firmly believe that the jan hack inside job, multi sig escrow a ploy to keep buyers loyal
to the site, defcon doesnt need to ingrate it i imagine this site gets enough new buyers
from the media scaremongering, many of whom are new to the scene and know no better.
i leave with you a question, if your partner stole from you, gave you empty promises and
ignored your concerns how long would you stick around for out of blind loyalty? (Silk
Road 2.0 forums, October 10, 2014)
I personally think that Defcon is a thief. If he is not a thief, then he is incompetent. Either
way he is not qualified to run a black market website. (Silk Road 2.0 forums, February
16, 2014)
In the first and third examples, the users’ postings connect the heists, which may as
well have been marketplace exit scams, to the qualifications of the administrators.
This twofold damage in the form of financial loss, and loss of trust in the administration
to properly operate the site, is illustrated in the following quote. Discussing the
Silk Road 2.0 alleged bitcoin heist, DeepDotWeb explained:
I disagree with the term “hack”—and i would define it as “inside theft” Defcon? DPR2?
another Developer? [ . . . ] Everything in the chain of events before this so called “hack”
and surely after that, leads us to this conclusion. The lying, the fake repayment process,
the lack of escrow, the stealing mods, the stupid psyops. (DeepDotWeb interview)
There are several other known examples of bitcoin heists against markets such as
Black Market Reloaded, Pandora Marketplace, and Cannabis Road (DeepDotWeb,
2013a, 2014a, 2014b). Interestingly, these examples are also commonly perceived to
be marketplace exit scams in the cryptomarket community (DeepDotWeb, 2015b).
Discussing centralized escrow solutions, one user mocks the naivety of a peer by listing
the cryptomarkets who recently lost user funds to bitcoin heists, marketplace exit
scams, or law enforcement intervention:
Are you fucking retarded? Let’s look statistically at all past marketplaces
Sheep: stole all coins
Budster: stole all coins
Sr 2.0: stole all coins
12 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
BMR: Retired somewhat disgracefully after a database leak etc. etc. but Backopy was
honorable
Atlantis: Stole all coins
SR 1.0: Law enforcement stole all of the coins
Deepbay: Stole all of the coins
Project Black Flag: Stole all of the coins
Hey I wonder if Agora and Pandora will be different? WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE
TRUST BASED ESCROW IS OVER. MULTISIG is the WAY TO GO. (Silk Road 2.0
forums, February 14, 2014)
With Evolution Marketplace, a moderator confessed to the community that the administrators
had indeed absconded with funds, making it the largest marketplace exit scam
to date worth an estimated US$12 million (DeepDotWeb, 2015b). In the case of both
Pandora Marketplace and Silk Road 2.0, administrators did not shut down the market
but kept the scam going by lying to users about repayment plans. According to
DeepDotWeb,
This Was a scam site all along, money lost, vendors locked out, than “the hack”—and
after that and the lies about the repayment that never took place (After increasing the
market commission to 24%!!), locked out all vendors, disabled withdrawals and kept
operating for another few months until it was finally taken down during Onymous. along
with many other scam sites. (DeepDotWeb interview)
Discrepancies in the official stories are not lost on the users who will criticize and dissect
the events and explanations on forums. In the second citation below, a user refers
to expert knowledge on the security breach that allegedly allowed the theft of escrow
funds and argues that the technical explanation does not hold up to scrutiny, concluding
that either incompetence or malice are the only possible explanations:
ITS FUCKING PLAIN AND SIMPLE ESCROW SYSTEM WAS A SCAM SO EVERY
COCKSUCKER WHO DIDNT FINALZE THE COINS STAYED IN THE BANK AND
OPPS WE HAVE BEEN HACKED. (Silk Road 2.0 forums, February 17, 2014)
SR2 has recently had 2 incidents in which funds in escrow were stolen. Here are the facts
as we know them. 1. In the latest theft over 5000 bitcoins were stolen. More than double
the amount that SR staff has admitted to being stolen. 2. SR staff have blamed the theft
on hackers. Many people knowledgeable about the bitcoin protocol find the theft of all
the coins held by SR through transaction malleability to be implausible. 3. If hackers did
in fact manage to steal from SR users, then the SR administration is extraordinarily
incompetent. (The Hub forums, February 14, 2014)
These system-based violent predatory resource exchanges are not well-understood by
the users of cryptomarket forums. Users discuss and dissect motives and technical
explanations, but have no way to verify whether hackers or marketplace owners stole
funds, as marketplace owners may well-blame heists on hackers. The general
Moeller et al. 13
sentiment is skepticism toward the explanations put forth by site administrators, but
the actual attribution of responsibility is difficult, if not impossible. The result is speculative
and conspiracy-oriented posts:
Silkroad 2.0 was compromised the day it was hacked and since then it was being run by
Feds to gather info. The coins which were hacked from silkroad ended up In the Gov
auction and it was a trap from that day on. [ . . . ] Feds are running other markets too so
Please stick to Agora and Stay Safe. (Agora Marketplace forums, November 7, 2014)
Though the architectures of cryptomarkets and bitcoin technology are designed to
ensure anonymous transactions, it also opens up new ways to exploit the lack of legal
recourse in illicit markets. Our findings suggest that the fear expressed by users in Van
Hout and Bingham’s (2013) study was well-warranted. There are fundamental vulnerabilities
at the system level of the cryptomarket infrastructure. However, where Van
Hout and Bingham’s (2013) interviewees were mostly concerned with the risk of law
enforcement exploiting the technology, in our data, the users were more worried about
malicious peers.
Process-Based Fraudulent Resource Exchange
The reputation system creates a type of fraudulent resource exchange that revolves
around unreliable feedback and fake accounts. Vendors can leave negative reviews
for competing vendors and a good reputation can be used to convince buyers to
finalize early, rather than use escrow. There are several guides available to new users
on how to avoid being defrauded (see, e.g., Reddit, 2014a, 2014b). The two most
common forms of fraudulent predation can be conceptualized as “exit scams” and
“selective scams,” which is the terminology used by community members
themselves.
Exit Scams
In exit scams, malicious vendors build up a good reputation and then suddenly defect,
taking the funds from un-dispatched but finalized orders. The forums abound with
examples. This particular forum member describes the process in detail:
Almost everyone that ordered with DaRuthless before he pulled his exit scam were
satisfied too. The scam is:
1) Operate as a good vendor for x months, building up high vendor ranking
2) Come up with some excuse or another that orders have to be FE’d
3) Keep the proceeds from all the FE orders without shipping any product, for as long as
you can keep it going
4) Start a new vendor account—go to step 1
So it’s nice you guys had a good experience with Divine, but that doesn’t prove whether
or not he is a reincarnation of DaRuthless. (Silk Road forums, August 4, 2013)
14 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
The exit scam is best exemplified in what Ormsby (2012, “Meet Tony76”) referred to
as “The Great 4/20 Scam.” In 2012, “Tony76,” a vendor on the original Silk Road with
an excellent reputation, celebrated 4/20 by offering his products at low prices. Demand
for Tony76’s product soared and he asked users to finalize early with reference to the
many orders. When users started complaining that their products did not arrive, Tony76
had already disappeared.
Some forum members describe exit scams as regular events and write in a tone as
if they were teaching less cryptomarket literate members of the informal workings of
the markets. In this way, they produce a language of cryptomarkets by establishing exit
scams as an everyday concept:
But even that can backfire as trusted vendors have turned rogue with no warning now.
Many of them have done this. How is one supposed to know that the vendor has decided
to pull an exit scam? Without escrow of some type, buyers have little real protection
against scamming. (Silk Road 2.0 forums, April 18, 2014)
Fent—I am new as well. IMO, I will never FE even for established vendors. Look at what
is happening with this guy Baron on this site and others. From what I understand, he has
had a solid rep. for a long time. Now, has ripped off people for thousands of dollars. I
think they are calling it an exit scam—he is quitting the business and has decided to rip
off all of his customers on the way out. However, he may not even be quitting. He could
simply open up another vendor account under another name and start selling again.
Bottom line is that if you FE, you are asking to be ripped off. (Evolution Marketplace
forums, January 23, 2015)
Exit scams rely on the reputation of the vendor and the associated ability to have users
finalize early. When these scams end, the perpetrators can whitewash and start anew.
The profitability depends on the vendors’ ability to keep the scam going, but they are
known to be profitable, as a former vendor professed in a post:
In two weeks I had made enough coins for a down payment on a house and I was going
to use it exactly for that. (DeepDotWeb, 2014d)
Users are well-aware of the risk and, as one elaborates, the key to the exit scam is
building up a customer base and reputation.
I don’t know any scammer that asked FE straight away and managed to scam properly but
ketosaurus. The most dangerous scams are when vendors have a solid customer base. If
this vendor wanted to scam now he would make barely 1k, if he scams in a couple month
when he has a huge customer base he would make at least 20 times more. (Agora
Marketplace Forums, November 11, 2014)
Users speculate on the existence of serial exit scammers, like the whitewashers in
markets for stolen data (Marti & Garcia-Molina, 2005). However, as the quote below
illustrates, serial exit scammers suffer under the fact that they have to give up
Moeller et al. 15
information on shipping. If a vendor who has previously exit scammed attempts to
rebuild his business under a new pseudonym, subtle clues such as shipping area, writing
style, and packaging allow buyers to identify previous malicious actions.
Does anyone know the whereabouts TwistyTheClown’s general location? I ask this in
order to be sure if he comes under a new alias I can see if it’s him . . . these exit scammers
go through a cycle of making a vendor account . . . acquire good rep with good product/
escrow, few weeks/months later they exit scam, then they repeat this process under a
different vendor name. (Evolution Marketplace forums, February 14, 2015)
It is important to note that buyers, as the one above, have to visit forums to be aware
of fraudulent predation (see also Holt et al., 2014). Newcomers and less active members
are less likely to be aware of information on impending exit scams or how scammers
operate.
Selective Scams
The selective scam is an on-going venture where vendors refrain from shipping a fraction
of total purchases but maintain that they have been shipped. This appears to be a
widespread practice as evidenced by the almost daily allegations on the forums.
DeepDotWeb explains the logic of its continuation as such:
If a vendor have large sales volume and out of this volume he will intentionally scam some %
of the buyers, he will get away with it easily. lets assume he will scam 1%-5% of his buyers,
that have no high “buyer stats” he can get away with it always. (DeepDotWeb interview)
Instead of sending products, vendors may ship empty packages, low quality, impure,
or fake products and refund only a percentage of the value (see, e.g., Reddit, 2014a).
Vendors can also stall allegations of scamming by sending fake custom notices,
referred to as “love letters,” or by referring to other practical problems such as difficulties
procuring products and the inherent problems of shipping drugs in the mail. If
vendors are successful, the scam continues for weeks and even months. In one example,
a vendor provided excellent service and product for the first shipment and then
performed horribly on the second buy:
Powder definitive stepped, almost street gear really weak quality compared to first order.
(Evolution Marketplace forums, October 23, 2014)
Another user exemplifies this uncertainty in a discussion of his success rate:
I have made 70+ orders and i have gotten every item ive ever ordered, with the exception
of 1 scam who was trusted vendor that intentionally scammed people using his reputation.
and one other package that the vendor provided the tracking number for which for some
odd reason was Undeliverable as addressed. neither of our faults. (Silk Road 2.0 forums,
March 12, 2014)
16 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
The user describes that the package could not be delivered and noted that this was
probably an issue in the postal system. However, this event follows the exact methodology
for selective scamming laid out in a community guide (Reddit, 2014a), wherein
vendors send an undeliverable package to the buyer’s zip code. The package is then
“lost” but the buyer has no recourse as the vendor can provide shipping information if
the buyer seeks moderators to mediate a dispute.
This final stage of the transaction is the most precarious. The buyer is exposed to
law enforcement intervention at a physical location (Yar, 2005). Some advocate the
use of PO boxes and some recommend using personal addresses as they are less suspicious
(DeepDotWeb, 2015a; Reddit, 2015). When buyers reveal their home addresses
as shipping destinations, they also provide malicious peers with a lever for extortion.
This breach of anonymity has been used to ensure positive reviews through doxxing
threats and users sometimes publish the threats made by vendors:
Well, this turned out to be a fucking nightmare. This vendor is a complete prick, made up
every excuse in the book and went as far as to THREATEN MY LIFE multiple times.
They claim in numerous emails they kept my address and to watch my back if I didn’t
alter my negative feedback. (Reddit, September 7, 2014)
This dilemma succinctly illustrates the tension in the cryptomarket construct between
desired anonymity and practical resource exchange. This relates to the utility of retaliation.
A member of the vendor group, The Scurvy Crew, posted personal information
on a user that had been a nuisance on the Agora Marketplace forum. The Scurvy Crew
was banned and the administrator(s) of Agora Marketplace referenced the site rules
and explained their actions with the statement: “Anonymity is sacrosanct here” (Agora
Marketplace Forums, 2014). In another example, a moderator intervened when a vendor
attempted to blackmail a buyer:
The ex-vendor in question was found to have threatened a buyer with sending them a
package and alerting Law Enforcement to it, and admitted making such a threat in an
attempt to \”scare the buyer\” into paying for a package that he insisted had arrived. (Silk
Road forums, June 11, 2013)
As described previously, moderators and administrators exercise conflict management
and social control on cryptomarkets; much of this is related to process-based fraud.
Moderators and administrators have privileged access to communication, if unencrypted,
historical transaction records, and other information, and are capable of making
as “fair” judgments as possible. In one example, a moderator summarized and
publicly presented evidence that a buyer was trying to blackmail a vendor:
It was removed due to you attempting to blackmail the vendor. I received a ticket from
TopShelf420 regarding your behavior on September 25th. This complaint included
messages sent from you that suggested blackmailing the vendor. The item relating to your
complaint has received nothing but positive feedback throughout it’s sale. Including
positive feedback as recent as September 26th. Not only did you try and blackmail
Moeller et al. 17
TopShelf420, but also you fabricated messages that were investigated by an Admin
relating to threats in which you alleged DrBlackHat threatened to get law enforcement to
your place of residence. This was also found to be false. Quite frankly your behavior thus
far on both the market and the forums has been irrational and your complaints have been
found to be false. (Evolution Marketplace forums, September 28, 2014)
Discussion
In this study, we examined the different types of predatory resource exchange that take
place on cryptomarkets. This predation challenges the idea that illicit drug transactions
on cryptomarkets are a low risk-free endeavor. These malicious peers exploit vulnerabilities
in the technological infrastructure of the Tor network, the irreversibility of
Bitcoin transactions, the use of feedback, whitewashing, and the inherent uncertainty
associated with sending illicit drugs in the mail. Our findings indicate that users perceive
them as more of a threat than law enforcement. Below, we discuss how the different
forms of predatory resource exchange share characteristics with the violent and
fraudulent resource exchange known from research on the off-line illicit drug market.
We found that DoS attacks are used against cryptomarkets for inter-site competition
and extortive purposes. This has the direct effect of displacing users while the site is
down and an indirect effect in revealing security breaches and delegitimizing administrators.
We understand these attacks as parallel to the competitive systemic violence
applied in off-line drug markets. Here, violence is used to displace buyers in the struggle
for market shares. This displacement follows from the same restrictively deterrent
adaptations that may have led buyers to cryptomarkets in the first place. Buyers are not
absolutely deterred from committing illegal transactions in the face of risks but motivated
offenders find less risky ways of continuing their offending (Holt et al., 2014;
Moeller et al., 2016). The uncertainty that is created around a marketplace when it is
targeted by hackers or DoS attacks is parallel to the perception of a risky transaction
in an off-line marketplace that is targeted by violence. In our interview, DeepDotWeb
described a development where administrators increasingly focus on improving their
own sites rather than attacking others. This is consistent with the limited use of competitive
violence in off-line drug markets where it is perceived as costly in terms of
time and organizational resources (Moeller & Sandberg, 2015). It is generally more
rational to maintain peace around illicit drug transactions.
While DeepDotWeb and forum members argued that security flaws were unforgivable
crimes, we suggest a change has occurred since early 2015 when the interview
took place. Now, there appears to be a fundamental conflict between the realities of the
cryptomarket ecosystem on the one hand and the normative ideals of secure infrastructure
on the other, of which the latter is connected to the cipherpunk and crypto-anarchist
ethos on the forums (Maddox et al., 2016; Munksgaard & Demant, 2016). In
April of 2016, AlphaBay, which is the largest marketplace in operation (Kruithof et al.,
2016), leaked thousands of private messages between users (Cox, 2016). While no
newer quantitative data on market sizes after the leak is available, AlphaBay is still in
operation and is seemingly one of the biggest markets. Security flaws used to be an
18 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
unforgivable crime but do not seem to have the same implications for site credibility
anymore.
The next form of predatory resource exchange we explored was bitcoin heists and
marketplace exit scams. The centralized transaction system with escrow and user
accounts (though some have implemented more secure multi-signature transactions)
imply the sites are exposed to hackers that exploit the vulnerability of web applications
and the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions. The off-line parallel is the robberies
of drug dealers that Jacobs (2000) analyzed. Victimized drug dealers have no legal
recourse or way to recoup their loss and this makes them suitable targets. Similarly,
cryptomarket administrators, buyers, and vendors cannot have their bitcoin insured
because they engage in illicit activities. In the offline markets, victimized drug sellers
exert social control and retaliate against wrongdoers (Jacques & Wright, 2011), but
using violence is costly and prevents them from recouping their losses (Moeller &
Sandberg, 2015). The exposure to bitcoin heists and the lack effective redress implies
that cryptomarkets face a structural problem to their limits of growth. If they grow too
big, they will attract too much attention from law enforcers and competitors. Similarly,
the largest bitcoin exchanges are more exposed to hacking attempts (Moore & Christin,
2013). There may be an optimal size for cryptomarkets that is a function of the vulnerabilities
in the system, parallel to how offline drug sellers constantly balance their
security and visibility (Moeller et al., 2016).
An interesting twist to the examples of violent predation is the allegations that the
administrators themselves perpetrated the heists. Assuming these consistent—albeit
not well-documented—accusations are correct, there is no immediate parallel to predatory
acts in offline drug markets. However, we note that there is some similarity with
credit processes in illicit drug distribution. Higher-level distributors front drugs to
lower-level distributors with promises of later repayment. At times, this repayment
fails and the creditor cannot retaliate violently every time. Instead, the creditor sometimes
accepts a loss as a cost of doing business (Moeller & Sandberg, 2015). The
marketplace exit scams, are comparable except the direction of the victimization is
inverse, so to speak. Cryptomarket buyers front the payment to administrators that act
as a third party by way of the escrow system. When the drugs arrive, the vendor
receives the payment. Hence, the escrow system has the same benefits and costs as
credit in illicit drug distribution: it lubricates transactions and poses and resolves
issues of trust.
We also examined process-based predation that we conceptualized as exit and
selective scams. These fraudulent resource exchanges exploit the time lag when drugs
go through the postal system (Aldridge & Askew, 2017). This temporal delay creates
a room for maneuvering where the malicious peers operate. The review mechanism
solves many problems with rip-offs known from the real world; however, it is vulnerable
to whitewashers and fake feedback stemming from coercion or fraud. We found
that users in cryptomarkets are acutely aware of this and actively discuss how to avoid
being defrauded. This is a question of acquiring reliable information that introduces a
distinction between experienced and less-experienced cryptomarket users. Experienced
users are active on the forums and access this information (Holt et al., 2014). The
Moeller et al. 19
parallel here is that rip-offs in off-line drug markets are determined by social status
and social distance. Strangers and addicts are the targets for predation (Jacques et al.,
2014). This notion of social distance based on experience echoes Yar’s (2005) observation
that cybercrime can be understood as extensions of crime in the real world. An
interesting quality of cryptomarkets is that vendors can also review customers. This
provides a formalized method for discriminating between experienced and inexperienced
buyers. This could spill over into the buyer’s profile and lead other vendors to
discriminate; it also illustrates how social distance and status become formalized on
cryptomarkets.
Finally, the question of social control is a common thread in the different types of
predatory resource exchange we have examined. The formal dispute resolution mode
is an example of conflict management as social control (Jacques & Wright, 2011), but
retaliation is more interesting analytically. Site administrators can retaliate against
malicious peers by banning or doxxing them, which is comparable to nonviolent and
violent retaliatory forms, respectively. Banning users is immediately effective, but it is
a short-term solution. These users can whitewash and start over with a new identity
shortly after. Doxxing pseudonyms is a practice that is deemed unacceptable by both
community and site administrators. However, in some instances where many individuals
are at risk, doxxing has been accepted by the community. Similarly, the norms
against snitching in illicit drug markets are strong. The normative transgression associated
with revealing information to legal authorities makes it a heavily sanctioned
form of retaliation in offline drug markets (Moeller & Sandberg, 2015; Wehinger,
2011). This goes back to the parallel on the importance of maintaining peace in drug
markets (Jacques & Wright, 2011). Retaliation is costly because it takes resources
away from running the organization and it also creates enemies. In principle, cryptomarket
administrators could use doxxing against particularly problematic vendors but
we have not found examples of this practice in our data.
Conclusion
Our study contributes to the research on online illicit drug distribution by exploring
problems with predatory resource exchange that are well-known to cryptomarket users
but have not been analyzed separately. We identified primary types of violent predatory
resource exchanges that affect cryptomarkets and their users: DoS attacks, bitcoin
heists, and marketplace exit scams. DoS attacks exploit technological vulnerabilities
and have been used against cryptomarkets with the purpose of extortion and displacing
users to other sites. They may also function as a tool in intra-market competition. In
bitcoin heists, hackers exploit the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions and the vulnerability
of web applications. An interesting perspective on these forms of predation was
the widespread allegations, that these attacks and heists may have been perpetrated by
the administrators of the sites themselves, which we conceptualized as marketplace
exit scams.
Next, we examined the fraudulent resource exchanges that are process-based and
conceptualized as exit and selective scams. These fraudulent exchanges exploit the
20 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0)
temporal lag in transactions. The drugs must go through the postal system, which gives
malicious peers time to keep operating under a guise of legitimacy. We found that the
reputation mechanism is vulnerable to fake feedback and that this feedback may even
stem from coercion. The parallel here is that rip-offs in off-line drug markets are determined
by social status and social distance, where strangers and addicts are the targets
for predation. Social distance in our study is measured by experience with navigating
cryptomarkets. The combination of encrypted communication, non-traceable payments,
and shipping that contains a temporal delay to the completion of the transactions,
amount to “the perfect condition to scam” (DeepDotWeb, interview). The
asymmetry of information between the seller and buyer in offline drug markets was
supposed to disappear on cryptomarkets. Instead, it has manifested in new, yet, parallel
forms.

_________________
Forsker fra Københavns Universitet. Fokus på brugerperspetiver hos stofbrugere, cryptomarkeder mv. Tidligere Center for Rusmiddelforskning på Aarhus Universitet


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