Visible to the public Temporal analysis of radical dark web forum users

TitleTemporal analysis of radical dark web forum users
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsPark, A. J., Beck, B., Fletche, D., Lam, P., Tsang, H. H.
Conference Name2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM)
Date Publishedaug
KeywordsConferences, dark web, data mining, Human Behavior, human factors, Internet, natural language processing, POS tagger, post polarity, pubcrawl, radical actions, radical dark Web forum users, radical scores, radical users, security of data, sentiment analysis, sentiment analysis program, social media sites, Social network services, social networking (online), temporal analysis, Terrorism
AbstractExtremist groups have turned to the Internet and social media sites as a means of sharing information amongst one another. This research study analyzes forum posts and finds people who show radical tendencies through the use of natural language processing and sentiment analysis. The forum data being used are from six Islamic forums on the Dark Web which are made available for security research. This research project uses a POS tagger to isolate keywords and nouns that can be utilized with the sentiment analysis program. Then the sentiment analysis program determines the polarity of the post. The post is scored as either positive or negative. These scores are then divided into monthly radical scores for each user. Once these time clusters are mapped, the change in opinions of the users over time may be interpreted as rising or falling levels of radicalism. Each user is then compared on a timeline to other radical users and events to determine possible connections or relationships. The ability to analyze a forum for an overall change in attitude can be an indicator of unrest and possible radical actions or terrorism.
DOI10.1109/ASONAM.2016.7752341
Citation Keypark_temporal_2016