This easy-to-use guide covers the history, development, and current workings of cybercurrencies and the underground economy, both in the United States and around the world. The world of cybercurrency has experienced explosive growth in recent years, but that expansion has been accompanied by numerous controversies and misunderstandings about what it is, how it works, and how it relates to the underground economy and illegal activities such as money laundering, tax evasion, and human trafficking. Many illegal or malicious activities are paid for with cyber currencies. This book covers those applications. But cyber currencies also have many legitimate, constructive applications, all of which are explained in Rogue Money in clear, plain English, without embellishment or exaggeration. An authoritative and thought-provoking reference for readers seeking a greater understanding of all aspects of alternative cybercurrencies, this encyclopedia includes entries on economic history, international trade, current controversies, and its impact on the wider underground economy. It peels back the layers of jargon and obfuscation, giving each topic individual attention to show how it works and contributes to the whole.

This easy-to-use guide covers the history, development, and current workings of cybercurrencies and the underground economy, both in the United States and around the world. The world of cybercurrency has experienced explosive growth in recent years, but that expansion has been accompanied by numerous controversies and misunderstandings about what it is, how it works, and how it relates to the underground economy and illegal activities such as money laundering, tax evasion, and human trafficking. Many illegal or malicious activities are paid for with cyber currencies. This book covers those applications. But cyber currencies also have many legitimate, constructive applications, all of which are explained in Rogue Money in clear, plain English, without embellishment or exaggeration. An authoritative and thought-provoking reference for readers seeking a greater understanding of all aspects of alternative cybercurrencies, this encyclopedia includes entries on economic history, international trade, current controversies, and its impact on the wider underground economy. It peels back the layers of jargon and obfuscation, giving each topic individual attention to show how it works and contributes to the whole.

The best-selling author of Gang Leader for a Day takes his next sociological study to Manhattan, where he travels through the underground economy utilized by prostitutes, madams, drug dealers, immigrants, hedge fund traders, hipster artists and nannies.

In this revelatory book, Sudhir Venkatesh takes us into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate and remarkable ways in which a community survives. The result is a dramatic narrative of individuals at work, and a rich portrait of a community. But while excavating the efforts of men and women to generate a basic livelihood for themselves and their families, Off the Books offers a devastating critique of the entrenched poverty that we so often ignore in America, and reveals how the underground economy is an inevitable response to the ghetto's appalling isolation from the rest of the country.

A New York Times Bestseller "A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined." —The Economist "A sensitive, sympathetic, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype." —Finanical Times Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America’s most diverse city—is also published by Penguin Press.

Over the past two decades, both developed and developing countries have experienced major individual and collective tragic victimizations leading to major structural and systemic transformations as a consequence of the influence of organized crime and international terrorism. These trends, many of which, as noted earlier, are global in spread and have catastrophic outcomes, revolve around some categories of political diplomacy and unsatisfactory reform responses to spiraling discontent among motivated youths. Global Perspectives on Victimization Analysis and Prevention is an essential research book that provides comprehensive research on postmodern crime prevention and control strategies as well as potential transformations that could be seen in victimology. It offers resources to understand and analyze the main issues, relevant framework, and contextual intricacies within which public safety agendas are articulated and implemented across the globe. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as public safety, crime prevention, and terrorism, this book is essential for criminologists, law enforcement, victim advocates, criminal profilers, crime analysts, academicians, policymakers, researchers, security planners, NGOs, government officials, and students.

From the back cover: The papers in this ground breaking book constitute a unique collection of information about the underground economy and how it is manifested in a variety of countries. Section One attempts to measure Canada's underground economic activity and provides a specific estimate of the impact that tax changes have on its size. It also looks at the problems of tax evasion and tax avoidance. Section Two deals with the size of the underground substance economy, the legal aspects of tlhe underground economy in the United States, and an asseeement of the economic activities of the Mafia. Section Three analyzes the underground economy abroad, specifically in the United States, Britain, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Russia and China. The fourth section returns to Canada and examines some policy implications of the underground economy. A survey detailed in Section One shows that a majority of Canadians believe that they do not receive enough benefits for the taxation they pay. Section Four offers a solution to the problem of tax evasion and underground economic activity; the adoption of user fees and user taxes.

This is the first book to present a full, socio-technical-legal picture on the security practices of cyber criminals, based on confidential police sources related to some of the world's most serious and organized criminals.

The VAT Carousel Fraud has seriously undermined the financial integrity of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). This timely book is the first to give an overview of fraud in the carbon market. Written by a former broker, it presents unique material on the carbon fraud mechanics and analyses the missing trader fraud (VAT fraud) on European carbon allowances markets with a focus on financial and organised crime issues. Fraud and Carbon Markets: The Carbon Connection assesses the weaknesses of the Kyoto Protocol and environmental markets, using statistics as a forensic tool on the capital markets. It describes specific cases, the court investigations and various mechanisms. It addresses issues of money laundering and international fraud on capital markets, such as stock manipulation, by exploring the financial mechanisms of the fraud, their impact on the market behaviour and the consequences on their econometric features. Researchers and students in climate change policy, environmental finance, financial law, organised crime, forensic statistics, financial regulation and risk management as well as financial regulators and policy makers will find this book of great interest.

The Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS) is the leading forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on information security, combining expertise from the fields of economics, social science, business, law, policy and computer science. Prior workshops have explored the role of incentives between attackers and defenders, identified market failures dogging Internet security, and assessed investments in cyber-defense. Current contributions build on past efforts using empirical and analytic tools to not only understand threats, but also strengthen security through novel evaluations of available solutions. Economics of Information Security and Privacy III addresses the following questions: how should information risk be modeled given the constraints of rare incidence and high interdependence; how do individuals' and organizations' perceptions of privacy and security color their decision making; how can we move towards a more secure information infrastructure and code base while accounting for the incentives of stakeholders?