School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

My research sits at the intersection of Criminology and Science and Technology Studies, drawing theory and methods from both. I study how digital infrastructures become sites where power of different kinds is exerted. I research cybercrime, harms associated with emerging technologies, and the use of technology by police, counter-terror, and security services. Using qualitative, computational, and statistical approaches, my research falls into three strands. 

The first involves large-scale ethnographic studies of digital infrastructure, including a long-term research project on the Tor network (the technology which underpins the so-called 'Dark Web'. I wrote the first book focusing entirely on Tor and its history (published with MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548182/tor/). I also have ongoing current projects looking at the adoption of Generative AI systems by government and law enforcement, elite forms of content moderation at a major social network, and on the professional practice communities of the network engineers who manage and administer the global Internet. I'm particularly interested in privacy, harm, and control, and how they are achieved in infrastructure at a range of different sites and scales.

The second focuses on how digital technologies and infrastructures become used for crime and resistance, drawing on a mix of ethnographic and AI/'data science' approaches to study large qualitative and quantitative datasets. I interview hackers, cybercrime actors, and others involved in online communities associated with novel forms of harm; I carry out ethnographic observation in underground communities; I work with technical experts who measure the signals associated with emerging forms of harm and conduct statistical analysis of these; and I use AI/ML approaches to work with very large social datasets at scale. In collaboration with the Cambridge Computer Lab Security Group, I've had a number of recent publications in this vein which explore the increasing industrialisation of cybercrime. This also includes a range of digital research methods development projects, focusing on critical social data science approaches and extending to more recent developments in Generative AI systems.

The third looks at digital infrastructure and state power, including in-depth studies and evaluations of law enforcement interventions (such as FBI takedowns). I interview law enforcement and security services, study documents, and carry out a range of evaluations of law enforcement interventions, often involving the adaptation of new technologies and infrastructures. I am particularly interested in the new and innovative forms of law enforcement practice emerging at the frontline in complex and high-risk areas, such as counter-terror, misinformation, and particular forms of cybercrime. These new methods are being developed bottom-up from a range of different components by practitioners, but often lack more formal lines of scrutiny, oversight, and accountability. As part of this, I lead the Influence Government and Influence Policing projects - these explore the growing use of digital influence campaigns by law enforcement and government to shape the behaviour and culture of the public and achieve preventative policy goals. I am also currently leading a project to study the National Technical Authorities - one of the ways that the UK is attempting to prevent terror attacks and cybercrime using the physical and digital built environment.

I draw on a range of theoretical perspectives in my work, most prominently Stuart Hall's cultural studies scholarship and Susan Leigh Star's approaches to studying the social worlds of digital infrastructure.

I am open to supervising PhD students across a range of relevant topics.