Dark Web Marketplaces Are Getting Customer Savvy
November 17, 2016
Offering on Dark Web marketplaces are getting weirder by the day. Apart from guns, ammo, porn, fake identities, products like forged train tickets are now available for sale.
The Guardian in an investigative article titled Dark Web Departure: Fake Train Tickets Go on Sale Alongside AK-47s reveals that:
At least that’s the impression left by an investigation into the sale of forged train tickets on hidden parts of the internet. BBC South East bought several sophisticated fakes, including a first-class Hastings fare, for as little as a third of their face value. The tickets cannot fool machines but barrier staff accepted them on 12 occasions.
According to the group selling these tickets, the counterfeiting was done to inflict financial losses on the operators who are providing deficient services. Of course, it is also possible that the fake tickets are used by people (without criminalistics inclinations) who do not want to pay for the full fares.
One school of thought also says that like online marketplaces on Open Web, Dark Web marketplaces are also getting customer-savvy and are providing products and services that the customers need or want. This becomes apparent in this portion of the article:
The academics say the sites, once accessed by invitation or via dark-web search engines (there’ll be no hyperlinks here) resemble typical marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay, and that customer service is improving. “Agora was invitation-only but many of these marketplaces are easily accessible if you know how to search,” Dr Lee adds. “I think any secondary school student who knows how to use Google could get access – and that’s the danger of it.
One of the most active consumer group on Dark Web happens to be students, who are purchasing anything from fake certificates to hacker services to improve their grades and attendance records. Educational institutions, as well as law enforcement officials, are worried about this trend. And as more people get savvy with Dark Web, this trend is going to strengthen creating a parallel e-commerce, albeit a dark one.
Vishal Ingole, November 17, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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