Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad; Brian Keegan; Dmitri Williams; Jaideep Srivastava; Noshir Contractor

Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad^*, Brian Keegan, Dmitri Williams, Jaideep Srivastava^*, Noshir Contractor

^*Corresponding author for this work

Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) whereby players accumulate virtual resources to sell for “real world” money. Prior work has examined trade relationships formed by gold farmers but not the trust relationships which exist between members of these organizations. We adopt a hypergraph approach to model the multi-modal relationships of gold farmers granting other players permission to use and modify objects they own. We argue these permissions reflect underlying trust relationships which can be analyzed using network analysis methods. We compare farmers’ trust networks to the trust networks of both unidentified farmers and typical players. Our results demonstrate that gold farmers’ networks are different from trust networks of normal players whereby farmers trust highly-central non-farmer players but not each other. These findings have implications for augmenting detection methods and re-evaluating theories of clandestine behavior.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011
Publisher	AAAI Press
Pages	10-17
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	9781577355052
State	Published - Jul 17 2011
Event	5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011 - Barcelona, Spain Duration: Jul 17 2011 → Jul 21 2011

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011

Conference

Conference	5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011
Country/Territory	Spain
City	Barcelona
Period	7/17/11 → 7/21/11

Funding

The research reported herein was supported by the National Science Foundation via award number IIS-0729505, the Army Research Institute via award number W91WAW-08-C-0106, and the Air Force Research Laboratory by contract number FA8650-10-C-7010. The data used for this research was provided by Sony Online Entertainment. We also thank members of the Virtual Worlds Observatory team for their support and feedback.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software
Computer Networks and Communications

Cite this

Ahmad, M. A., Keegan, B., Williams, D., Srivastava, J., & Contractor, N. (2011). Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs. In Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011 (pp. 10-17). (Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011). AAAI Press.

Ahmad, Muhammad Aurangzeb ; Keegan, Brian ; Williams, Dmitri et al. / Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs. Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011. AAAI Press, 2011. pp. 10-17 (Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011).

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abstract = "Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) whereby players accumulate virtual resources to sell for “real world” money. Prior work has examined trade relationships formed by gold farmers but not the trust relationships which exist between members of these organizations. We adopt a hypergraph approach to model the multi-modal relationships of gold farmers granting other players permission to use and modify objects they own. We argue these permissions reflect underlying trust relationships which can be analyzed using network analysis methods. We compare farmers{\textquoteright} trust networks to the trust networks of both unidentified farmers and typical players. Our results demonstrate that gold farmers{\textquoteright} networks are different from trust networks of normal players whereby farmers trust highly-central non-farmer players but not each other. These findings have implications for augmenting detection methods and re-evaluating theories of clandestine behavior.",

author = "Ahmad, {Muhammad Aurangzeb} and Brian Keegan and Dmitri Williams and Jaideep Srivastava and Noshir Contractor",

note = "Funding Information: The research reported herein was supported by the National Science Foundation via award number IIS-0729505, the Army Research Institute via award number W91WAW-08-C-0106, and the Air Force Research Laboratory by contract number FA8650-10-C-7010. The data used for this research was provided by Sony Online Entertainment. We also thank members of the Virtual Worlds Observatory team for their support and feedback. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.; 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011 ; Conference date: 17-07-2011 Through 21-07-2011",

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Ahmad, MA, Keegan, B, Williams, D, Srivastava, J & Contractor, N 2011, Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs. in Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011. Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011, AAAI Press, pp. 10-17, 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011, Barcelona, Spain, 7/17/11.

Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs. / Ahmad, Muhammad Aurangzeb; Keegan, Brian; Williams, Dmitri et al.
Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011. AAAI Press, 2011. p. 10-17 (Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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AU - Ahmad, Muhammad Aurangzeb

AU - Keegan, Brian

AU - Williams, Dmitri

AU - Srivastava, Jaideep

AU - Contractor, Noshir

N1 - Funding Information: The research reported herein was supported by the National Science Foundation via award number IIS-0729505, the Army Research Institute via award number W91WAW-08-C-0106, and the Air Force Research Laboratory by contract number FA8650-10-C-7010. The data used for this research was provided by Sony Online Entertainment. We also thank members of the Virtual Worlds Observatory team for their support and feedback. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.

PY - 2011/7/17

Y1 - 2011/7/17

N2 - Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) whereby players accumulate virtual resources to sell for “real world” money. Prior work has examined trade relationships formed by gold farmers but not the trust relationships which exist between members of these organizations. We adopt a hypergraph approach to model the multi-modal relationships of gold farmers granting other players permission to use and modify objects they own. We argue these permissions reflect underlying trust relationships which can be analyzed using network analysis methods. We compare farmers’ trust networks to the trust networks of both unidentified farmers and typical players. Our results demonstrate that gold farmers’ networks are different from trust networks of normal players whereby farmers trust highly-central non-farmer players but not each other. These findings have implications for augmenting detection methods and re-evaluating theories of clandestine behavior.

AB - Gold farming and real money trade refer to a set of illicit practices in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) whereby players accumulate virtual resources to sell for “real world” money. Prior work has examined trade relationships formed by gold farmers but not the trust relationships which exist between members of these organizations. We adopt a hypergraph approach to model the multi-modal relationships of gold farmers granting other players permission to use and modify objects they own. We argue these permissions reflect underlying trust relationships which can be analyzed using network analysis methods. We compare farmers’ trust networks to the trust networks of both unidentified farmers and typical players. Our results demonstrate that gold farmers’ networks are different from trust networks of normal players whereby farmers trust highly-central non-farmer players but not each other. These findings have implications for augmenting detection methods and re-evaluating theories of clandestine behavior.

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M3 - Conference contribution

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Ahmad MA, Keegan B, Williams D, Srivastava J, Contractor N. Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs. In Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011. AAAI Press. 2011. p. 10-17. (Proceedings of the 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, ICWSM 2011).

Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Funding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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