[Fnoord]

Great book, indeed dated because its pre-dark web (think a place like Hackforums, before Tor was widespread used -- though it did exist, as did Freenet).

The crown jewels in such a community is operator/admin access. For both police (basically, for infiltration), as well as for scammers (because they could create or kill credibility with sockpuppets, bans). Remember that's how Reddit was started (sockpuppets), and Assange did it as well.