Scientometric Analysis of Chinese Cyber-Denial and Deception Research

Introduction

A scientometrics analysis was conducted of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) science and technology literature, with a focus on cyber-denial and deception (cyber-D&D).¹ This study was motivated by a lack of international cyber-D&D scientometrics research and China’s rise in science and technology (S&T).

Cyber-D&D runs the gamut from deceptive online advertising to individuals falsifying their personal characteristics in online dating services; from cyber-espionage to lying in email or via a VoIP conversation; and from cyber-crime to news outlets “Photoshopping” online news article images. We therefore refer to cyber-D&D as denial and deception resulting from the transmission of information via the Internet. Although we recognize that cyber-space consists of a broad set of literature that includes sub-fields such as cyber-deception, cyber-security, cyber-law, and cyber-psychology among others, for the purposes of this paper, we refer to cyber-space as the set of literature including cyber-security, computer science, and information security given our intent to better understand how computer scientists and engineers address cyber-deception (Stech & Heckman, 2011).

The objectives of this study were to identify leading Chinese cyber-D&D researchers and research institutions; cyber-D&D research topics, keywords, and terminology; and networks among researchers, institutions, and topics. The scientometrics analysis revealed that Chinese researchers have published papers on the following cyber-D&D topics: computer crime, spam, honeypots, phishing, and spoofing. A number of universities are conducting cyber-D&D research. Tsinghua University and National University of Defense Technology were identified as producing the greatest number of articles related to cyber-D&D. Two of the most prolific cyber-D&D authors, J Bi and Jinbo Wu, are affiliated with Tsinghua University.

Results revealed little co-authorship between Chinese cyber-D&D researchers and those from the rest of the world. However, Chinese authors do frequently cite rest of the world denial and deception (D&D) and cyber-D&D authors, indicating that they are cognizant of this body of research.

Specific D&D search terms, such as deception, misinformation, and identity theft, do not appear very often as keyword identifiers² in Chinese cyber-D&D literature, despite the frequency with which Chinese researchers cite D&D and cyber-D&D authors from the rest of the world, and their exposure to D&D terminology and its use by the rest of the world. This could be a result of selective indexing by the database content provider or the authors. It could also mean that D&D terms are not common keywords in the Chinese cyber research literature.

Note that only English search terms were used in this analysis. Articles were written in both Chinese and English depending on the database from which they were retrieved. Any translations into English performed were conducted by the database provider. Only the English portion of the articles were searched. Full-text of these articles was not analyzed; only the abstract, keyword, and titles.

Leveraging Timothy L. Thomas’ work in his book, The Dragon’s Quantum Leap (TDQL), afforded the opportunity to conduct a limited analysis of Chinese military authors writing for the popular Chinese press (Thomas, 2009). By analyzing the citations in TDQL and comparing these to the Chinese cyber-D&D scientific research literature, our analysis revealed that there is little crossover between these two groups of authors.³