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The Internet facilitates sex trafficking through adult service websites (ASWs) that host online advertisements for sexual services (sex ads). Since the closure of the popular site Backpage.com, the ecosystem of ASWs has expanded to include…
In the shadow of the digital revolution, the insidious issue of human trafficking has found new breeding grounds within the realms of social media and online job boards. Previous research efforts have predominantly centered on identifying…
Like many other social phenomena, prostitution is increasingly coordinated over the Internet. The online behavior affects the offline activity; the reverse is also true. We investigated the reported sexual contacts between 6,624 anonymous…
While substantial efforts in anti-trafficking research and practice have focused on identifying and assisting victims after exploitation occurs, comparatively less attention has been paid to preventing victimization at the recruitment…
Case records on victims of human trafficking are highly sensitive, yet the ability to share such data is critical to evidence-based practice and policy development across government, business, and civil society. We present new methods to…
Unsolicited email (spam) is still a problem for users of the email service. Even though current email anti-spam solutions filter most spam emails, some spam emails still are delivered to the inbox of users. A special class of spam emails…
Web-based human trafficking activity has increased in recent years but it remains sparsely dispersed among escort advertisements and difficult to identify due to its often-latent nature. The use of intelligent systems to detect trafficking…
Within the thriving mobile app ecosystem ecosystem, a subset of apps provides illicit services such as gambling and pornography to pursue economic gains, collectively referred to as "underground economy apps". While previous studies have…
Social media is both helpful and harmful to the work against sex trafficking. On one hand, social workers carefully use social media to support people experiencing sex trafficking. On the other hand, traffickers use social media to groom…
With the rapid diffusion of social networks in combination with mobile phones, a new social threat of sextortion has emerged, in which vulnerable young women are essentially blackmailed with their explicit shared multimedia content. The…
For several years the pervasive belief that the Super Bowl is the single biggest day for human trafficking in the United States each year has been perpetuated in popular press despite a lack of evidentiary support. The practice of relying…
Third party tracking allows companies to identify users and track their behaviour across multiple digital services. This paper presents an empirical study of the prevalence of third-party trackers on 959,000 apps from the US and UK Google…
Mobile network operators implement firewalls to stop illicit messages, but scammers find ways to evade detection. Previous work has looked into SMS texts that are blocked by these firewalls. However, there is little insight into SMS texts…
Differences in the social and economic environment across countries encourage humans to migrate in search of better living conditions, including job opportunities, higher salaries, security and welfare. Quantifying global migration is,…
Operating securely over 5G (and legacy) infrastructure is a challenge. In non-cooperative networks, malicious actors may try to decipher, block encrypted messages, or specifically jam wireless radio systems. Such activities can disrupt…
Many people engage in digital intimacy: sex workers, their clients, and people who create and share intimate content recreationally. With this intimacy comes significant security and privacy risk, exacerbated by stigma. In this article, we…
Mobile messaging scams--fraudulent messages delivered over SMS and other mobile applications--have become a persistent and evolving security threat, yet the attributes underlying these campaigns remain unclear. This study seeks to address…
Human mobility data is a crucial resource for urban mobility management, but it does not come without personal reference. The implementation of security measures such as anonymization is thus needed to protect individuals' privacy. Often, a…
The rise of ``cyber slavery," a technologically facilitated variant of forced criminality, signifies a concerning convergence of human trafficking and digital exploitation. In Southeast Asia, trafficked individuals are increasingly coerced…
Human trafficking, the commercial exploitation of individuals, is a gross violation of human rights and harms societies, economies, health and development. The related disciplines of Operations Management (OM), Analytics, and Operations…