By Robert H. Sloan • Richard Warner

 Going beyond current books on privacy and security, Unauthorized Access: The Crisis in Online Privacy and Security proposes specific solutions to public policy issues about online privacy and security. Requiring no technical or legal expertise, the book explains complicated concepts in clear, straightforward language. The authors two renowned experts on computer security and law explore the well-established connection between social norms, privacy, security, and technological structure. This approach is the key to understanding information security and informational privacy, providing a practical framework to address ethical and legal issues. The authors also discuss how rapid technological developments have created novel situations that lack relevant norms and present ways to develop these norms for protecting informational privacy and ensuring sufficient information security. Bridging the gap among computer scientists, economists, lawyers, and public policymakers, this book provides technically and legally sound public policy guidance about online privacy and security. It emphasizes the need to make trade-offs among the complex concerns that arise in the context of online privacy and security.

Boca Raton, FL;  London; New York;  CRC Press, 2017. 401p.

By Alina Bricman, Guenther Jikeli, Ada Baumkotter, Linus Kebba Pook, Grischa Stanjek, Karolina Placzynta, Yfat Barak-Cheney, Hannah Maman

Reflecting on the months since the recent October 7 attack, rarely has the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, ‘The Fragility of Freedom’, felt so poignant. Communities globally experienced the shattering of presumed security, and antisemitic incidents responsively spiked. Antisemitism rose across both mainstream and fringe social media platforms, and communities resultantly reported a rise in insecurity and fear. CCOA constituent countries have recorded significant rises in antisemitic incidents, including an immediate 240% increase in Germany, a three-fold rise in France, and a marked increase in Italy. The antisemitism landscape, including Holocaust denial and distortion, had shifted so drastically since October 7 that previous assumptions and understands now demand re-examination. In the run up to Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, this research compilation by members of the Coalition to Counter Online Antisemitism offers a vital contemporary examination of the current and emergent issues facing Holocaust denial and distortion online. As unique forms of antisemitism, denial and distortion are a tool of historical revisionism which specifically targets Jews, eroding Jewish experience and threatening democracy. Across different geographies and knowledge fields, this compilation unites experts around the central and sustained proliferation of Holocaust denial and distortion on social media.

Amman | Berlin | London | Paris | Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue,  2024. 34p.

By Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 

The last decade and a half has seen an alarming surge in illegal wildlife trade (IWT) on the internet. However, a dearth of data regarding the scale of the market, its dynamics, operations and ramifications, especially on a global scale, is a significant hindrance to combating this crime. To address this, ECO-SOLVE is developing a Global Monitoring System (GMS) to systematically monitor global online IWT and gather data to feed into law enforcement activity and to inform policymaking. The GMS is a network of data hubs in countries whose domestic online markets are considered the largest or most consequential in their regions. The GMS’s national monitoring nodes are being set up in a staggered process and the size and scope of the network will grow with each edition of the Report. This Global Trend Report draws on data from two national data hubs: Brazil and South Africa. By identifying areas of high pressure on endangered species and ecosystems, monitoring may enable targeted interventions and inform law enforcement action to prosecute those responsible for wildlife crimes. Additionally, monitoring can help detect emerging trends and shifts in the trade, allowing for timely and effective responses to new threats and challenges. This is the second publication in a series of Global Trend Reports that aim to showcase and contextualize trends in online IWT. Reports will be published throughout the three years of the ECO-SOLVE project, with about two to four reports released per year. Drawing on findings generated by the GMS, each Global Trend Report will highlight the latest trends in statistical data, including the number of advertisements found, the species advertised as well as the platforms that host these adverts. Diving deeper into individual topics, the reports will offer regional breakdowns and include sections that contextualize and analyze findings, while also investigating changes in regulations and their effects on online IWT as well as trends in law enforcement. The reports will also discuss case studies of online IWT. Following the structure of the first Global Trend Report, the second issue begins with a trend analysis of online IWT drawing on data from regular monitoring carried out between May and July 2024 by GMS data hubs in Brazil and South Africa. The report then takes a closer look at the online and offline illegal trade in Pirarucu in Brazil, as well as the trade routes used and links to cocaine markets. The third section presents a case study of the illegal wildlife trade as linked to traditional medicines in South Africa, highlighting gaps around regulations and enforcement.   

Geneva:  Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 33p.

By Marta-Marika Urbanik & Robert A. Roks

Recent research on street-involved populations has documented their online presence and has highlighted the effects of their online presentations on their lives in the real world. Given the increasing conflation between the online and offline world, contemporary urban ethnographers should pay increased attention to their participants’ online presence and interactions. However, methodological training of this sort is still in its infancy stages and has not yet evolved to guide the growing number of researchers undertaking this form of research. This article draws from our experiences using social media in our urban ethnographies with criminally involved groups, to examine the benefits, risks, and challenges of drawing on social media in urban ethnography. It is intended to serve as a foundational piece that will hopefully ignite scholarly dialogue, debate, and methodological training relating to deploying social media in urban—and specifically—gang ethnography.

Qualitative Sociology 43(6) 2020.

By Craig McGarty

An analysis of Twitter content from Victoria in 2020 found low levels of racial vilification of Asians. This surprising low level of public online racism is consistent with reanalysis of survey data. Racism directed against Asian Australians and others is an ongoing source of harm. There is not, however, good reasons to believe that hatred of Asians was successfully mobilized and exacerbated in Victoria in 2020 by mass online means. Racism needs to be confronted wherever it occurs, but the uncritical acceptance of media narratives is unlikely to help the cause of confronting it.     

Melbourne: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, 2023; 36p.