Privacy and security in Social networks - part I

Introduction and definitions

This is the first article in a series, which will focus on security and privacy issues involved in participating in social networks.

We will start by defining what we mean by social networks. Wikipedia describes this as

(…) a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

This definition is a general one and does not particularly take into account what is commonly perceived by social networks these days. In everyday speech we now usually refer to social networks as the different types of computer-based communities that have been getting increasingly popular in later years. The most widespread example of a social network is Facebook, which is reported to have more than 400 million users.

We will therefore narrow the definition down to take this into account, and use the following definition:

Social network:

a computer-based social structure made up of individuals (or organizations), which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency.

These social networks offer vast opportunities for social communication, learning and fun. They have grown immensely popular in recent years and will most likely continue to evolve into more sophisticated arenas for communication by use of different types of devices (handheld devices, computers etc.).

As we shall see there also are dangers involved in using these communities.

Please note that some of these perils also apply for systems that do not fully comply with our definition of social networks above. This is also true for our recommended precautions – some of these are also valid for other systems than purely social network communities.

What are social networks?

Social networks have been available on the Internet from its early days. At first these were often special applications which required a specially developed client to be installed on the computers. The most prominent example of the early social networks is Internet Relay Chat (IRC) from the late 1980s – an open protocol communication system that enables communication between groups of people. IRC is still in use today with a substantial user base. Other systems were proprietary applications, which came, obtained certain popularity, and “died” when they were “overtaken” by more sophisticated and well-marketed systems.

These days most social networks are based on the use of web browsers. The users connect to the social network system through an Internet web browser like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s Chrome, and Opera.

Handheld devices (e.g. mobile phones) are also used to participate in social networks. Presumably handheld devices will be increasingly important, particularly for those who feel that it is imperative to be able to participate in social networks at any point in time.

Characteristics of today’s social networks

Some characteristics of the social networks that are popular today are:

• they allow people with corresponding interest(s) to connect with each other,
• they allow communication filtering (all information is not available to everyone in the social network),
• they allow creation of subgroups and one-to-one communication,
• they often allow referencing (linking to) resources outside the social network,
• they often have additional communication applications included (like emails, image and other file exchange functionality, and web camera support),
• they allow (some even encourage) use of non-real names (“nicks”) and other bogus information,
• they often require “codes of conduct” from the participants, and these may change over time.

Some online games, particularly of the role-playing type, may fall into the definition of social networks. This is arguable. However some of the more advanced types allow creation of communities and friendships, and should thus be included in the social networks category. Even though this is not obvious, the advantage of including these as relevant for the examination, seems greater than attempting to fine-tune the line to omit this type of communications devices.

One may also claim that the different web-based blogs with comments functionality should be viewed as social networks, as they may meet the criteria mentioned in the introduction. Arguably they do. However, the various blogs and the people commenting are at best ad hoc communities with random people commenting a particular blog posting. We will therefore not view blogs as part at the social networks sphere as discussed here.

Examples of social networks

There are a lot of social networks available on the Internet today. Some are global, and the communication may be in English only, although it is quite common that there are subgroups in the global networks where communications is in local languages. Other social networks are unique for one country or language group, with little potential for anyone else to participate.

A few popular global and national social networks are (note that some of the links are to non-English web sites):

• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com
• Internet Relay Chat (no central server)
• Windows Live Messenger- http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger 
• Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/ 
• LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/ 
• Hyves - http://www.hyves.nl 
• Hi5 - http://www.hi5.com 
• Schülerverzeichnis - http://www.schuelervz.net/ 
• Studiverzeichnis - http://www.studivz.net/ 
• Arto - http://www.arto.dk 
• Habbo - http://www.habbo.dk/ 
• Nettby - http://www.nettby.no/

If you follow the links from the social network examples above, you will see that the target groups vary. Some of the communities have no particular target group, while others aim to be particularly interesting for example for children attending school.

The most popular social network, Facebook, seems to have no particular target group, and is attractive to all types of users, as everyone seems to be able to join interesting groups, and find former as well as new friends.

One interesting consequence

There is one characteristic about social networks, which is particularly interesting:

They implicitly encourage you to divulge information about yourself

As a participant in social networks you will very soon discover that the most interesting people in “your” part of the network are those who reveal information about themselves. By this we do not mean that they divulge confidential personal information, but merely that they offer (real) opinions, thought and feelings, and seem to be genuinely interested in contributing to the community.

Even though you may not consciously be aware of it, you will inevitably also want to engage in your group in the same manner.
This in itself is not negative of course – in order for any group to function properly it is important that the group’s participants share and contribute.

In social networks however, this may in certain circumstances also be dangerous, as we shall examine in more detail in the next articles in this series.