Dark web forums portal: Searching and analyzing Jihadist forums

Zhang Yulei, Zeng Shuo, Fan Li, Dang Yan, Catherine A. Larson, Chen Hsinchun

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

With the advent of Web 2.0, the Web is acting as a platform which enables end-user content generation. As a major type of social media in Web 2.0, Web forums facilitate intensive interactions among participants. International Jihadist groups often use Web forums to promote violence and distribute propaganda materials. These Dark Web forums are heterogeneous and widely distributed. Therefore, how to access and analyze the forum messages and interactions among participants is becoming an issue. This paper presents a general framework for Web forum data integration. Specifically, a Web-based knowledge portal, the Dark Web Forums Portal, is built based on the framework. The portal incorporates the data collected from different international Jihadist forums and provides several important analysis functions, including forum browsing and searching (in single forum and across multiple forums), forum statistics analysis, multilingual translation, and social network visualization. Preliminary results of our user study show that the Dark Web Forums Portal helps users locate information quickly and effectively. Users found the forum statistics analysis, multilingual translation, and social network visualization functions of the portal to be particularly valuable.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2009
Pages71-76
Number of pages6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Event2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2009 - Dallas, TX, United States
Duration: Jun 8 2009Jun 11 2009

Publication series

Name2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2009

Other

Other2009 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2009
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDallas, TX
Period6/8/096/11/09

Keywords

  • Dark web forums
  • Multilingual translation
  • Social network visualization
  • Web-based knowledge portal

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Information Systems
  • Software

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Dark web forums portal: Searching and analyzing Jihadist forums'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this