`Nice people doing shady things': Drugs and the morality of exchange in the darknet cryptomarkets
`Nice people doing shady things': Drugs and the morality of exchange in the darknet cryptomarkets
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DOI：
10.1016/j.drugpo.2018.05.008
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发表时间：
2018-08-01
影响因子：
4.4
通讯作者：
Bancroft, Angus
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Masson, Kimberley;Bancroft, Angus
背景：对以毒品为中心的加密市场社区和交易的人种学分析，本文探讨了在这种背景下围绕毒品分配和消费的内在价值。根据我们对密码市场用户的访谈，我们分析了密码市场用户声称密码市场是一个道德、移情、信任、互惠、知识转移、减少伤害和自我限制的空间的方式。交换道德的人类学概念是我们理论方法的核心。方法：从2014年12月到2017年7月，对毒品加密市场的使用者进行了9次访谈。这些都是面对面进行的，使用Skype视频通话，并使用加密的“自我擦除”聊天应用Wickr。研究人员还在密码市场论坛内使用了公开的非参与者观察(NPO)。这种双管齐下的方法--采访和通过NPO在社区内花费时间--实现了一种浓厚的人种学分析描述风格。结果：我们的研究表明，在线毒品市场与其说是完美的市场(遵循供求规则)，不如说是执行和谈判毒品使用和供应的建设性利益社区。我们发现，在这些利益群体中的参与具有实际影响，例如改变吸毒者消费的毒品类型以及他们参与街头毒品供应的方式。值得注意的是，这些价值观和行动调停了线上行动和“肉食空间”(线下世界)之间的界面，并强化了网络活动的动机和过程与线下行动一样“真实”。结论：我们将以非法毒品为重点的秘密市场重新定义为交换、调解和互惠的场所。以减少危害为目的的实时知识转让是密码市场互动影响的一个例子。我们告诫说，这不是一个亲密无间的空间：它并不是没有骗局、黑客和威胁。然而，它不仅仅是一个“毒品市场”，了解用户自己是如何对这个空间进行概念化的，对于任何对密码市场的理解都是卓有成效的。密码市场交易是一种不受参与者经济价值限制的社会行动形式。
Background: An ethnographic analysis of drug-centred cryptomarket community and exchange, this article explores the embedded values around drug distribution and consumption within this setting. Drawing on our interviews with cryptomarket users, we analyze the ways in which users claim the cryptomarket as a space of morality, empathy, trust, reciprocity, knowledge transfer, harm reduction and self-limitation. The anthropological concept of the morality of exchange is central to our theoretical approach.Methods: Between December 2014 and July 2017, nine interviews were undertaken with users of drug cryptomarkets. These were conducted in person, using Skype video calling, and using the encrypted 'self-erasing' chat app Wickr. The researchers also used overt non-participant observation (NPO) within the cryptomarket forum. This two-pronged approach - interviews and spending time within the community via NPO - enabled a thick description style of ethnographic analysis.Results: Our research reveals online drug markets less as perfect markets (working to rules of supply and demand) and more as constructive communities of interest that perform and negotiate drug use and supply. We found that participation within these interest communities had practical impact such as changing the type of drug that users consume and the ways in which they participate in street drug supply. Significantly, these values and actions mediate the interface between online action and 'meatspace' (the offline world) and reinforce that the motivations and processes of internet activity are just as 'real' as offline action.Conclusion: We redefine the illicit drug focused cryptomarket as a place of exchange, mediation and reciprocity. Real-time knowledge transfer with the aim of harm reduction is one example of the impact of cryptomarket interaction. We caution that this is not a space of kinship and affinity: it is not without its scams, hackers and threats. It is, however, much more than a 'drug marketplace' and to understand how users themselves conceptualise this space is fruitful for any understanding of cryptomarkets. Cryptomarket exchange is a form of social action that is not restricted to its economic value for participants.