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Privacy and Security Issues on Social Networks

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Added on  2019-10-12

Privacy and Security Issues on Social Networks

   Added on 2019-10-12

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[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME]An investigation onuse of social media forviolating privacy ofothers[Type the document subtitle]Student[Pick the date][Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically ashort summary of the contents of the document.]
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ContentsChapter1: Introduction.....................................................................................................................2Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.............................................................................................6Definitions of privacy..................................................................................................................6Online personal information privacy...........................................................................................7Online social network privacy...................................................................................................12Youth and the Concept of Privacy.............................................................................................14Online privacy risks...................................................................................................................16Online privacy protection..........................................................................................................18Chapter 3: Research Methodology...............................................................................................21Research objectives...................................................................................................................21Purpose of research....................................................................................................................21Scope of research.......................................................................................................................22Research Design........................................................................................................................23Research Methods......................................................................................................................24Research Sample and Instruments used.....................................................................................27Data analysis technique.............................................................................................................29Limitations.................................................................................................................................32Chapter 4: Data analysis and Findings..........................................................................................33Research analysis and results.....................................................................................................45REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................521
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Chapter1: IntroductionWhen it comes to privacy and security issues on social networks, "the sites most likely to sufferfrom issues are the most popular ones," Graham Cluley, Chief Technology Officer at UK techsecurity firm Sophos says. But security issues and privacy issues are entirely two differentbeasts. A security issue occurs when a hacker gains unauthorized access to a site's protectedcoding or written language. Privacy issues, those involving the unwarranted access of privateinformation, don't necessarily have to involve security breaches. Someone can gain access toconfidential information by simply watching you type your password. But both types of breachesare often intertwined on social networks, especially since anyone who breaches a site's securitynetwork opens the door to easy access to private information belonging to any user. But thepotential harm to an individual user really boils down to how much a user engages in a socialnetworking site, as well as the amount of information they're willing to share. In other words, theFacebook user with 900 friends and 60 group memberships is a lot more likely to be harmed by abreach than someone who barely uses the site.Security lapses on social networks don't necessarily involve the exploitation of a user's privateinformation. Take, for example, the infamous "Samy" MySpace XSS worm that effectively shutthe site down for a few days in October 2005. The "Samy" virus (named after the virus' creator)was fairly harmless, and the malware snarkily added the words "Samy Is My Hero" to the top ofevery affected user's MySpace profile page. A colossal inconvenience, naturally, but nobody'sidentity was stolen and no private information was leaked. In the end, the problem galvanized theMySpace team to roll up their sleeves and seriously tighten the site's security. Result: no majorbreak-ins since. Unfortunately, these kinds of breaches, purely for sport in "Samy's" case, arerare.2
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The reason social network security and privacy lapses exist results simply from the astronomicalamounts of information the sites process each and every day that end up making it that mucheasier to exploit a single flaw in the system. Features that invite user participation — messages,invitations, photos, open platform applications, etc. — are often the avenues used to gain accessto private information, especially in the case of Facebook. Adrienne Felt, a Ph.D. candidate atBerkeley, made small headlines last year when she exposed a potentially devastating hole in theframework of Facebook's third-party application programming interface (API) which allows foreasy theft of private information. Felt and her co-researchers found that third-party platformapplications for Facebook gave developers access to far more information (addresses, pictures,interests, etc.) than needed to run the app.This potential privacy breach is actually built into the systematic framework of Facebook, andunfortunately the flaw renders the system almost indefensible. "The question for social networksis resolving the difference between mistakes in implementation and what the design of theapplication platform is intended to allow," David Evans, Assistant Professor of ComputerScience at the University of Virginia, says. There's also the question of whom we should holdresponsible for the over-sharing of user data? That resolution isn't likely to come anytime soon,says Evans, because a new, more regulated API would require Facebook "to break a lot ofapplications, and a lot of companies are trying to make money off applications now." Felt agrees,noting that now "there are marketing businesses built on top of the idea that third parties can getaccess to data on Facebook."The problems plaguing social network security and privacy issues, for now, can only be resolvedif users take a more careful approach to what they share and how much. With the growth ofsocial networks, it's becoming harder to effectively monitor and protect site users and their3
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activity because the tasks of security programmers becomes increasingly spread out. Imagine if aprison whose inmate count jumped froma few dozen to 250 million in less than five years onlyemployed 300 guards (in the case of MySpace). In response to the potential threats that users areexpose to, most of the major networks now enable users to set privacy controls for who has theability to view their information. But, considering the application loophole in Facebook,increased privacy settings don't always guarantee privacy. But even when the flawed API waspublicly exposed, "Facebook changed the wording of the user agreement a little bit, but nothingtechnically to solve the problem," says Evans. That means if a nefarious application developerwanted to sell the personal info of people who used his app to advertising companies, he or shecould.Yet users still post tons of personal data on social networks without batting an eye. It's onlynatural. Anonymity and the fact that you're communicating with a machine instead of an actualperson (or people in the case of social networking) makes sharing a lot easier. "People shouldjust exercise common sense online, but the problem with common sense is that it's not verycommon. If you wouldn't invite these people into your house to see your cat, you certainlywouldn't let them see pictures from holiday," says Cluley.In the end, the only tried and true solution to social network privacy and security issues is tolimit your presence altogether. Don't post anything you wouldn't mind telling a completestranger, because in reality that's the potential for access. Be careful who you add as a "friend,"because there's simply no way of verifying a user's actual identity online. Cluley compares it to arep from your company's IT deparprivacyent calling to ask for your login password — "Mostpeople will give it over" with no proof of the IT rep actually existing. The caller might be yourIT rep, or she might not. "This kind of scam happens all the time," says Cluley. Friends on social4
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networks should know thatrealfriends should know personal information already, negating theneed to post it online.Will there ever be a security breach-free social network? Probably not. "Any complex system hasvulnerabilities in it. It's just the nature of building something above a certain level ofcomplexity," says Professor Evans. According to Felt, the best idea is a completely private socialnetwork. "It simply requires that there's no gossip in the circle, by which I mean one person whosets their privacy settings so low that third parties can use them to get to their friends.""Social networks are great fun, and can be advantageous but people really need to understandthat it's complicated world and you need to step wisely," Cluley says.5
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Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEWCurrently, in the era of advanced internet technology, Social Network becomes incrediblypopular tool on the internet and becomes widely used around the world. It is powerful tool in anyages of people especially among teenagers and young adults in the propose of communicationand self-expression [1], and it is easy mean of sharing information with other users who has acommon interest such as photos, likes, dislikes, interests, relationship status, job details, currenttown details, political views, religious views etc. [2] [3] [4].Social networking sites andassociated privacy concerns is one of the most debated topic nowadays as participation in suchsites has increased dramatically. A number of journals and articles come up with this issue thathow the increase in the usage of social networking sites is leading to various online crimes.Unfortunately, though this technology most of users are not aware of the privacy risk associatedwhenever they shared sensitive information in the internet [4], so that privacy concern will beraised among those online interactions if their personal information has been shared to otherpeople [3] [5]. Definitions of privacyThe word privacy has many subtly different meanings, ranging from personal privacy (whichincludes seclusion and bodily privacy) to information privacy, each with their own definition.Privacy on the Web in general revolves mostly around Information Privacy, as defined below inthe IITF wording that Kang uses: Information Privacy is “an individual’s claim to control theterms under which personal information–information identifiable to the individual–is acquired,disclosed or used.”Palen and Dourish classify three privacy boundaries with which individualsare struggling. 1. The disclosure boundary (managing the tension between private and public), 2.The identity boundary (managing self representation with specific audience, e.g. one will behave6
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differently at work than when among friends), 3. The temporal boundary (managing past actionswith future expectations; user behavior may change over time).Online personal information privacy Protecting the privacy of personal information is one of the biggest challenges facing websitedevelopers, especially social network providers. Several researchers have discussed the issue ofprivacy. Bae and Kim (2010) suggested that, in order to achieve a high level of privacy, the usershould be given the authority to control the privacy settings when he/she receives or requests aservice related to his/her personal information. The authors noted the importance of designing aprivacy policy to protect personal information by blocking some people from seeing all or part ofthe user’s personal information. They also designed a privacy model using mobile agents.Dötzer (2006, p.4) stated that “once privacy is lost, it is very hard to re-establish that state ofpersonal rights.” This shows that privacy is essential to the construction of all communicationsystems, particularly mobile systems. The concept of self-representation enables users to interactand introduce themselves based on the data placed on profile pages such as name and pictureswith others. Privacy is an important aspect of self-representation on online social networks sincepeople share certain information with the public and receive information or comments fromothers. The nature and complexity of the Internet cause some threats to web privacy(Bouguettaya&Eltoweissy 2003). According to Wang and Cui (2008), privacy is a state orcondition of limited access to a person. Privacy regulations can be defined as a set of rules orpolicies set by users to achieve a certain level of privacy. In terms of location privacy, privacyregulations restrict access to information on a user’s location. Each privacy rule or policy caninclude some restrictions (Sadeh& Hong 2009). Although there is no policy mandating onlinepersonal information privacy, some types of privacy solutions do exist (Passant et al. 2009).7
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