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Articles

Manipulation through Online Sexual Behavior: Exemplifying the Importance of Human Factor in Intelligence and Counterintelligence in the Big Data Era

Manipulación a través del comportamiento sexual en línea: ejemplificando la importancia del factor humano en inteligencia y contrainteligencia en la era del big data

Pages 117-142 | Published online: 14 Aug 2019
 

ABSTRACT

As we spend more and more time online, Internet-based virtual spaces are becoming a central component of our daily life and activities. This shift of human activities from offline to online spaces has major impacts for national security. Consequently, cyberspace became a new field of operation for intelligence and counter-intelligence services worldwide. While massive efforts are made to further strategies based on surveys and analyses of large datasets, cybersecurity protocols can be impacted tremendously by individual behaviors. This is particularly the case of online sexual behavior, which can be easily manipulated by malevolent agents. This paper will describe some of the general characteristics of sexual cyberbehaviors. We will then identify some of the main threats related to sexual cyberbehavior (specifically risks of blackmailing, risks associated with the use of online dating sites, and risks associated with the consumption of online pornography), as well as the main targets in terms of population from an intelligence/counter-intelligence perspective. Finally, we will propose some possible counter-measures, that could be implemented to reduce the security risks related to online sexual behavior.

Resumen

A medida que pasamos más y más tiempo conectados, los espacios virtuales basados en Internet se están convirtiendo en un componente central de nuestra vida diaria y actividades. Este cambio de actividades humanas de los espacios fuera de línea a los en línea tiene un impacto importante para la seguridad nacional. En consecuencia, el ciberespacio se convirtiÓ en un nuevo campo de operaciÓn para los servicios de inteligencia y contrainteligencia en todo el mundo. Si bien se realizan grandes esfuerzos para promover estrategias basándose en encuestas y análisis de grandes conjuntos de datos, los protocolos de ciberseguridad pueden verse enormemente afectados por los comportamientos individuales. Este es particularmente el caso del comportamiento sexual en línea, que puede ser fácilmente manipulado por agentes malintencionados. Este artículo describirá algunas de las características generales de los comportamientos cibernéticos sexuales. A continuaciÓn, se identifican algunas de las principales amenazas relacionadas con el comportamiento cibernético sexual (específicamente los riesgos de chantaje, los riesgos asociados con el uso de sitios de citas en línea y los riesgos asociados con el consumo de pornografía en línea), así como los principales objetivos, en términos de poblaciÓn, desde una perspectiva de inteligencia / contrainteligencia. Finalmente, propondremos algunas posibles contramedidas, que podrían implementarse para reducir los riesgos de seguridad relacionados con el comportamiento sexual en línea.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest associated with this work.

Additional information

Funding

No funding reported for this work.

Notes on contributors

Matthieu J. Guitton

Matthieu J. Guitton is Full Professor and Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval (Quebec City, QC, Canada). He is Senior Researcher/Group Leader at the CERVO Brain Research Center (Quebec City, QC, Canada). A graduate from the University of Rouen and Université Pierre et Marie Curie – Paris VI, he obtained a PhD from the University of Montpellier (France) and was a Koshland Scholar - Postdoctoral Fellow of Excellence at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel). He is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Human Behavior and serves on several other editorial boards, such as Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. He is an expert in cyberpsychology and cyberbehavior.

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