Frank Wehinger

The Dark Net: Self-Regulation Dynamics of Illegal Online Markets for Identities and Related Services

Identity data, e.g. data to gain online access to computers, bank accounts, and credit card data, are traded in online marketplaces. This paper investigates the functioning of illegal online markets. These markets lack state regulation and the means to enforce agreements and the paper shows that they use alternative mechanisms to create trust among market participants. The sales outlets of illegal online markets are able to self-regulate the market and should be considered as a major device that makes cyber crime profitable.

Das politische System der Region Kurdistan im Irak seit 1991

Die Region Kurdistan im Irak besteht im Wesentlichen aus den drei Provinzen Dohuk, Erbil und Sulaimaniyya im Norden des Landes mit Teilen der angrenzenden Provinzen unter De-facto-Verwaltung der Kurden. Sie entstand nach dem Golfkrieg von 1991, als die Kurden die Verletzbarkeit der irakischen Regierung zum Aufstand gegen das Baath-Regime nutzten und aufgrund der Gegenmasnahmen der irakischen Armee eine Schutzzone unter Uberwachung der westlichen Alliierten eingerichtet wurde. Seitdem steht das Gebiet unter der Kontrolle von zwei Gruppierungen mit starker Fokussierung auf ihre Chefs: der Kurdischen Demokratischen Partei (KDP) unter dem Vorsitz von Massud Barzani, Sohn des legendaren Kurdenfuhrers Mustafa Barzani (1903–1979), sowie der Patriotischen Union Kurdistans (PUK) mit dem Generalsekretar Jalal Talabani. Die Region Kurdistan unterscheidet sich in mindestens zwei Aspekten von anderen politischen Systemen des Vorderen Orients: Zum einen befindet sie sich seit der Trennung von der Zentralregierung in Bagdad im Zustand fortwahrender Transformation, die ihren Ausdruck in der Grundung eigener kurdischer Verwaltungsstrukturen und anschliesenden Kampfen zwischen rivalisierenden Gruppen findet.

[Book Review] Wagner, Mathias; Lukowski, Wojciecj (eds.): Alltag im Grenzland: Schmuggel als ökonomische Strategie im Osten Europas (Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag, 2010)

This book is the result of a collaborative research project ‘‘Border as a Resource’’ (2005-2008), with sub-projects, that involved researchers from universities in Bielefeld, Warsaw, and Kaliningrad. (The latter have unfortunately not contributed to this book.) The authors analyse (predominantly) small-scale smuggling but also petty trade within the limits of legally importable merchandise. A total of ten articles out of twelve (excluding the introduction and conclusion) report on or refer extensively to results from empirical work. The articles focus on the Polish-Russian border (five articles), the Romanian-Moldovian (two), the Polish-Belorussian (one), and the Polish-Ukrainian borders (one) with one article by Bettina Bruns, Kristine Müller, Andreas Wust, and Helga Zichner comparing border relations between Finland and Russia, Poland and Belarus, Poland and Ukraine, and Romania and Ukraine. Methods are largely ethnographic and range from interviews with local elites and traders to active observation. Only one researcher (Mihaela Narcisa Niemczik-Arambaa) conducted quantitative surveys (in Romania and Moldova). Although smuggling and petty trade already existed during the Soviet era, social exclusion during the transformation of state-controlled economies to market economies and the opening of formerly closed borders led to a massive expansion during the 1990s that endured into the new century. Smuggling compensated for the loss of work opportunities in the official economy. The border thus acquires a meaning that differs from its original function (Lukowski, p. 166): It becomes the most important resource for local economies that had previously been disadvantaged by being located at the national periphery. Two kinds of tension emerge from this. First, informal economic activities are tolerated by the local administration because they alleviate social pressures (Matejko, p. 165). At the same time, there is a negative effect on the official economy because