Profiling and tracking a cyberlocker link sharer in a public forum

Abstract

The expanding utilization of cyberlocker services is driven by the illegal exchange of copyrighted materials. In fact, the illegal exchange of copyrighted materials is the largest contributor to global Internet traffic. However, due to the anonymity provided by cyberlockers, it is difficult to track user identities directly from cyberlocker sites. Since cyberlocker users upload and share links via third-party sites, it is possible to harvest cyberlocker-related data from these sites and connect the data to specific users. This chapter describes a framework for collecting cyberlocker data from web forums and using cyberlocker link sharing behavior to identify users. Multidimensional scaling analysis and agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis are performed on user profiles to yield clusters of forum users with similar sharing characteristics. The experimental results demonstrate that the framework provides valuable insights in investigations of cyberlocker-based piracy.