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ABSTRACT
Web defacement is a form of hacking that involves altering the content of a website, resulting in repairs to the website code, loss of revenue, internal loss of productivity, and reputational damage. Limited research has examined the frequency of web defacements, the factors that distinguish them from other hacking motives, and the extent to which the correlates mirror research on physical acts of ideologically-motivated crime. The current study examined over 2.4 million web defacements hosted in the U.S. from 2012 to 2016 to assess aspects of routine activities theory associated with target selection and attack methods among ideologically-motivated defacements. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that ideologically-motivated defacers were more likely to use unknown vulnerabilities; engage in repeated attacks; target top-level domains linked to foreign nations; domains ending in.edu; and homepages within websites. The findings of this study suggest that the target selection process of ideologically-motivated defacers are more purposive and designed to draw attention to their cause, resembling target preferences of individuals who engage in physical violence in support of an ideological agenda.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
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11. Brenner, Cyberthreats; Wall, Cybercrime.
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13. Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress.
14. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Hyun-Jin Woo, Yeora Kim, and Joseph Dominick, “Hackers: Militants or Merry Pranksters? A Content Analysis of Defaced Web Pages,” Media Psychology 6, no. 1 (2004): 63-82.
15. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Kilger, “Social Dynamics”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
16. Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
17. Ibid.; Zone-H, “News,” (2018), http://www.zone-h.org/news/id/4737 (accessed April 11, 2018).
18. Holt, “Subcultural Evolution”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
19. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
20. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
21. Hollie McKay, “Cause for Concern? Pro-ISIS Hacking Group Targets 800 US School Websites,” Fox News, November 12, 2017, https://www.foxnews.com/tech/cause-for-concern-pro-isis-hacking-group-targets-800-us-school-websites (accessed December 1, 2017).
22. Stephen Brown, “Hackers Post Fascist Slogans on Nazi Camp Website,” Reuters, July 28, 2010, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-buchenwald-neonazis/hackers-post-facist-slogans-on-nazi-camp-website-idUSTRE66R4EG20100728 (accessed December 1, 2017).
23. Claude Berrebi and Darius Lakdawalla, “How does Terrorism Risk Vary Across Space and Time? An Analysis Based on the Israeli Experience,” Defense and Peace Economics 18, no. 2 (2007): 113-31; Daphna Canetti-Nisim, Gustavo Mesch, and Ami Pedahzur, “Victimization from Terrorist Attacks: Randomness or Routine Activities?” Terrorism and Political Violence 18, no. 4 (2006): 485-501; Yariv Feniger and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, “Risk Groups in Exposure to Terror: The Case of Israel’s Citizens,” Social Forces 88, no. 3 (2010): 1451-62; William S. Parkin, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven M. Chermak, “Ideological Victimization: Homicides Perpetrated by Far-Right Extremists,” Homicide Studies 19, no. 3 (2015): 211-36.
24. Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress; Ronald V. Clarke and Graeme R. Newman, Superhighway Robbery: Preventing E-Commerce Crime (Cullompton, UK: Willan Press, 2003).
25. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
26. Thomas J. Holt and Max Kilger, “Examining Willingness to Attack Critical Infrastructure Online and Offline,” Crime & Delinquency 58, no. 5 (2012): 798-822.
27. Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach,” American Sociological Review 44, (1979): 588-608.
28. William S. Parkin and Joshua D. Freilich, “Routine Activities and Right-Wing Extremists: An Empirical Comparison of the Victims of Ideologically-and non-Ideologically-Motivated Homicides Committed by American Far-Rightists,” Terrorism and Political Violence 27, no. 1 (2015): 182-203; Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
29. Paolo Passeri, “August 2014 Cyber Attacks Statistics,” Hackmageddon, March 14, 2015, http://hackmageddon.com/2014/09/08/august-2014-cyber-attacks-statistics/; Zone H, “News.”
30. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Jordan and Taylor, Hactivism and Cyberwars.
31. Marco Balduzzi, Ryan Flores, Lion Gui, and Frederico Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement: How Geopolitical Events Trigger Web Attacks (Trend Micro, 2018) https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-a-deep-dive-into-defacement.pdf; Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Thomas J. Holt, Rutger Leukfeldt, and Steve Van De Weijer, “An Examination of Motivation and Routine Activity Theory to Account for Cyberattacks Against Dutch Web Sites,” Criminal Justice and Behavior (2020); C. Jordan Howell, George W. Burruss, David Maimon, and Shradha Sahani, “Website Defacement and Routine Activities: Considering the Importance of Hackers’ Valuations of Potential Targets,” Journal of Crime and Justice 42, no. 5 (2019): 536-50; Jordan and Taylor, Hactivism and Cyberwars; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
32. Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress; Holt, Smirnova, and Chua, “Exploring and Estimating the Revenues and Profits.”
33. Katz, Seductions of Crime.
34. Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Howell et al., “Website Defacement and Routine Activities”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Kilger, “Social Dynamics.”
38. Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
39. Gabriella Coleman, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (London, UK: Verso Books, 2014); Jordan and Taylor, Hactivism and Cyberwars; Erik Skare, “Digital Surveillance/Militant Resistance: Categorizing the “Proto-state Hacker.” Television & New Media 20, no. 7 (2018): 670-85.
40. Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Denning, “Cyber Conflict.”
41. Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
42. Denning, “Cyber Conflict”; Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
43. Denning, “Cyber Conflict.”
44. Ibid.
45. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
46. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
47. Brown, “Hackers Post Fascist Slogans”; Darlene Storm, “Political Hackers Attack Russia, Nazi Defacement, Threaten US CENTCOM with Cyberattack,” Computerworld, March 3, 2014, https://www.computerworld.com/article/2476002/political-hackers-attack-russia–nazi-defacement–threaten-us-centcom-with-cybera.html.
48. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
49. Canetti-Nisim, Mesch, and Pedahzur, “Victimization from Terrorist Attacks”; Kelly R. Damphousse, Brent L. Smith, and Amy Sellers, “The Targets and Intended Victims of Terrorist Activities in the United States,” in Meeting the Challenges of Global Terrorism: Prevention, Control, and Recovery, edited by Dilip K. Das and Peter C. Kratcoski (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 2002), 171-88.
50. Amy Adamczyk, Jeff Gruenewald, Steven M. Chermak, and Joshua D. Freilich, “The Relationship Between Hate Groups and Far-Right Ideological Violence,” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30, no. 3 (2014): 310-32; Berrebi and Lakdawalla, “How Does Terrorism Risk Vary”; Canetti-Nisim, Mesch, and Pedahzur, “Victimization from Terrorist Attacks”; Donald P. Green, Dara Z. Strolovitch, and Janelle S. Wong, “Defended Neighborhoods, Integration, and Racially Motivated Crime,” American Journal of Sociology 104, no. 2 (1998): 372-403; Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
51. Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
52. C. Puzzanchera, G. Chamberlin, and W. Kang, Easy Access to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports: 1980-2010 (Washington, DC: National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2012).
53. Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
54. Ibid.
55. Cohen and Felson, “Social Change.”
56. Guy Griffiths, Shane D. Johnson, and Kevin Chetty, “UK-Based Terrorists’ Antecedent Behavior: A Spatial and Temporal Analysis,” Applied Geography 86 (2017): 274-82; Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, Min Xie, and Piyusha Singh, “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Terrorist Attacks by ETA 1970 to 2007,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 28, no. 1 (2012): 7-29; Kim D. Rossmo and Keith Harries, “The Geospatial Structure of Terrorist Cells,” Justice Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2011): 221-48.
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58. Yar, “The Novelty of ‘Cybercrime.’”
59. Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler, “Examining the Applicability of Lifestyle-Routine Activities Theory for Cybercrime Victimization,” Deviant Behavior 30, no. 1 (2008): 1-25; Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Catherine D. Marcum, George E. Higgins, Tina L. Freiburger, and Melissa L. Ricketts, “Policing Possession of Child Pornography Online: Investigating the Training and Resources Dedicated to the Investigation of Cyber Crime,” International Journal of Police Science & Management 12, no. 4 (2010): 516-25.
60. Adam M. Bossler and Thomas J. Holt, “On-Line Activities, Guardianship, and Malware Infection: An Examination of Routine Activities Theory,” International Journal of Cyber Criminology 3, no. 1 (2009): 400-20; Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Maimon, Kamerdze, Cukier, and Sobesto, “Daily Trends and Origin.”
61. Bossler and Holt, “On-Line Activities”; Kyung-Shick Choi, “Computer Crime Victimization and Integrated Theory: An Empirical Assessment,” International Journal of Cyber Criminology 2, no. 1 (2008): 308-33.
62. Travis C. Pratt, Kristy Holtfreter, and Michael D. Reisig, “Routine Online Activity and Internet Fraud Targeting: Extending the Generality of Routine Activity Theory,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 47, no. 3 (2010): 267-96; Fawn T. Ngo and Raymond Paternoster, “Cybercrime Victimization: An Examination of Individual and Situational Level Factors,” International Journal of Cyber Criminology 5, no. 1 (2011): 773-93.
63. Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Clarke and Newman, Superhighway Robbery.
64. Holt and Kilger, “Examining Willingness”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
65. Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, Living With Hacktivism: From Conflict to Symbiosis (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2018); Yar, “The Novelty of ‘Cybercrime.’”
66. Thomas J. Holt, George W. Burruss, and Adam M. Bossler, “Assessing the Macro-Level Correlates of Malware Infections Using a Routine Activities Framework,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62, no. 6 (2018): 1720-41.
67. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
68. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
69. Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
70. Brenner, Cyberthreats; Thomas Rid, Cyber War Will Not Take Place (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013).
71. Marcus Felson, Crime and Everyday Life (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1998); Yar, “The Novelty of ‘Cybercrime.’”
72. Felson, Crime and Everyday Life; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
73. Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
74. Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, and Parkin, “Introducing the United States”; Parkin and Freilich, “Routine Activities.”
75. Jason Andress and Steve Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare: Techniques, Tactics and Tools for Security Practitioners (Waltham, MA: Elsevier, 2013); Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime.”
76. Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Paul Taylor, Hackers: Crime and the Digital Sublime (London, UK: Routledge, 2012).
77. Taylor, Hackers.
78. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare.
79. Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime.”
80. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
81. Ibid.
82. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare.
83. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
84. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
85. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Maimon, Kamerdze, Cukier, and Sobesto, “Daily Trends and Origin.”
86. Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars; Maimon, Kamerdze, Cukier, and Sobesto, “Daily Trends and Origin”; David Maimon, Theodore Wilson, Wuling Ren, and Tamar Berenblum, “On the Relevance of Spatial and Temporal Dimensions in Assessing Computer Susceptibility to System Trespassing Incidents,” British Journal of Criminology 55, no. 3 (2015): 615-34.
87. Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
88. Ronald V. G. Clarke and Graeme R. Newman, Outsmarting the Terrorists (New York, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006); Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
89. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
90. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare; Taylor, Hackers.
91. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare; Steven Furnell, Cybercrime: Vandalizing the Information Society (London: Addison-Wesley, 2002).
92. Thomas J. Holt, “Examining the Role of Technology in the Formation of Deviant Subcultures,” Social Science Computer Review 28, no. 4 (2010): 466-81; Marleen Weulen Kranenbarg, Thomas J. Holt, and Jean-Louis van Gelder, “Offending and Victimization in the Digital Age: Comparing Correlates of Cybercrime and Traditional Offending-Only, Victimization-Only and the Victimization-Offending Overlap,” Deviant Behavior 40, no. 1 (2019): 40-55; Taylor, Hackers.
93. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare; Weulen Kranenbarg, Holt, and van Gelder, “Offending and Victimization.”
94. Taylor, Hackers.
95. Weulen Kranenbarg, Holt, and van Gelder, “Offending and Victimization.”
96. Thomas J. Holt, “Examining the Forces Shaping Cybercrime Markets Online,” Social Science Computer Review 31, no. 2 (2013): 165-77.
97. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars.
98. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining the Subculture.”
99. Andress and Winterfeld, Cyber Warfare.
100. Holt, “Subcultural Evolution”; Holt and Kilger, “Examining Willingness.”
101. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
102. Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, and Parkin, “Introducing the United States”; Gary LaFree and Laura Dugan, “Research on Terrorism and Countering Terrorism,” Crime and Justice 38, no. 1 (2009): 413-77.
103. Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress; Holt, Burruss, and Bossler, “Assessing the Macro-Level”; Wall, Cybercrime.
104. Brenner, Cyberthreats; Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress; Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks”; Wall, Cybercrime.
105. Dupont, Cote, Boutin, and Fernandez, “Darkode,”; Holt, Burruss, and Bossler, “Assessing the Macro-Level”; Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol, “Origin, Growth, and Criminal Capabilities”; Maimon, Kamerdze, Cukier, and Sobesto, “Daily Trends and Origin.”
106. Jordan and Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
107. Zone, “News.”
108. Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
109. Jennifer V. Carson, Gary LaFree, and Laura Dugan, “Terrorist and non-Terrorist Criminal Attacks by Radical Environmental and Animal Rights Groups in the United States, 1970-2007,” Terrorism and Political Violence 24, no. 2 (2012): 295-319; Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, and Parkin, “Introducing the United States.”
110. Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
111. Puzzanchera, Chamberlin, and Kang, “Easy Access.”
112. Holt, “Subcultural Evolution”; Kevin F. Steinmetz, “Craft(y)ness: An Ethnographic Study of Hacking,” British Journal of Criminology 55, no. 1 (2015): 125-45; Woo, Kim, and Dominick, “Hackers.”
113. Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Holt, Leukfeldt, and van de Weijer, “An examination of motivation and routine activity theory.”
114. Ibid.
115. Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Taylor, Hackers.
116. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
117. As a sensitivity analysis, two separate binary logistic regression models were estimated for political and patriotically-motivated defacements. The findings demonstrate that political defacements were more likely to involve single defacements, target the homepage of websites, involve repeat attacks, and were more likely to involve undisclosed vulnerabilities, while less likely to involve both SQL injection and known vulnerabilities. Patriotic defacements were more likely to involve TLDs of foreign nations, affect linux systems, and were less likely to involve the use of known vulnerabilities. All of these items were significant in the regression model involving the combined measure for political and patriotic defacements, with one exception:.edu domains were non-significant in each individual model, though it was approaching significance (.07 and .08 respectively). Since this item was significant in the combined model, it is likely a reflection of increased statistical power achieved through a more conservative combined measure.
118. Parkin and Freilich, “Routine Activities”; Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
119. Cohen and Felson, “Social Change.”
120. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
121. Adamczyk, Gruenewald, Chermak, and Freilich, “The Relationship Between Hate Groups”; Berrebi and Lakdawalla, “How Does Terrorism Risk Vary”; Canetti-Nisim, Mesch, and Pedahzur, “Victimization from Terrorist”; Green, Strolovitch, and Wong, “Defended Neighborhoods”; Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
122. Brenner, Cyberthreats; Rid, Cyber War.
123. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
124. Parkin and Freilich, “Routine Activities”; Parkin, Freilich, and Chermak, “Ideological Victimization.”
125. Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime”; Yar, “The Novelty of ‘Cybercrime.’”
126. Holt and Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress; Leukfeldt and Yar, “Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cybercrime.”
127. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining the Subculture”; Weulen Kranenbarg, Holt, and van Gelder, “Offending and Victimization.”
128. Balduzzi, Flores, Gui, and Maggi, A Deep Dive into Defacement; Holt “Subcultural evolution.”
129. Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
130. Coleman, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy; Holt, Stonhouse, Freilich, and Chermak, “Examining Ideologically Motivated Cyberattacks.”
131. Ibid.
132. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
133. Carson, LaFree, and Dugan, “Terrorist and Non-Terrorist Criminal Attacks by Radical Environmental and Animal Rights Groups in the United States, 1970-2007”; Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, and Parkin, “Introducing the United States.”
134. Holt, Freilich, and Chermak, “Exploring the Subculture.”
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Thomas J. Holt
Thomas J. Holt is a professor in and director of the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and the policy response to these issues.
Jin Ree Lee
Jin Ree Lee is a PhD student in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on cybercrime and testing criminological frameworks to understand these phenomena.
Joshua D. Freilich
Joshua D. Freilich is a professor in the Criminal Justice Department and the Criminal Justice PhD Program at John Jay College. He is the Creator and co-Director of the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), an open source relational database of violent and financial crimes committed by political extremists in the U.S. Professor Freilich’s research has been funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).
Steven M. Chermak
Steven M. Chermak is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Dr. Chermak is interested in studying terrorism, school shootings, mass shootings, criminal justice organizations, and media coverage of crime and criminal justice. Much of his work in the last ten years has focused on terrorist and extremist activity.
Johannes M. Bauer
Johannes M. Bauer is the Quello Chair in Media and Information Policy and Chairperson of the Department of Media and Information, is a researcher, writer, teacher, and academic entrepreneur. His ongoing research focuses on innovation in the next-generation Internet (Internet of Things, 5G wireless), digital entrepreneurship (both for-profit and social), and governance challenges.
Ruth Shillair
Ruth Shillair is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Informatics at Michigan State University. Her research considers the human aspects of Cybersecurity, the impacts of security and digital literacy on different age groups, improving cybersecurity education, and increasing cybersecurity capacity.
Arun Ross
Arun Ross, the John and Eva Cillag Endowed Chair in Science and Engineering, is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Ross is an internationally recognized expert in biometrics, computer vision, and machine learning.