This project will provide the computing equipment through an infrastructure grant that will enable greater capability for analysis of empirical social and economic phenomena, mediated in cyberspace such as, for example, massive online social networks, malicious web content, and underground cybercrime markets. The popular online sites like Facebook and Twitter connect literally billions of people; however, entirely new threats to such sites have emerged driven by cybercrime. In the absence of effective defenses, online social ecosystems today suffer. The empirical study of these threats and mitigating strategies in today's enormous web infrastructure requires a highly scalable and capable cyber infrastructure. Better understanding these complex cyber ecosystems, made possible through this equipment grant, will lead to new insights for making cyberspace safer.
