Public and Private Profile Comparison: Security and Privacy Concerns

This report provides an overview of public and private profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. It explains the differences between these profile types, detailing what information is visible to connected and unconnected users. The report examines the profile of a user named Jagjit Singh, illustrating the practical implications of public and private settings. It highlights how hackers exploit vulnerabilities in both profile types to gain access to personal information. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of protecting user profiles by making them private and using security measures, thereby safeguarding personal data and preventing misuse. The report also provides references to support the analysis.

Running head: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROFILE
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROFILE
Enter the name of the Student:
Enter the name of the University:
Author note:

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Overview of the Public and the Private profile
In the scenario of the three famous social media site that are Facebook, Instagram and
Snapchat, there are two types of profile present, one is the public profile and another is the
private profile.
The public profile is when any person who are not connected with a profile of a
particular user, then if this person search the name of this user and open this user’s profile
then this person cannot see much information about the user in his profile if this profile is
protected with the security option. Then this profile is known as the public profile.
On the other hand, if a person is connected with a profile of a specific user, then this
person can see all the details of this user which are provided by the user (Jessup et al. 2018).
All these details are available for the persons who are connected with this profile of the user
and also the mutual persons of his connection.
For example, in the Facebook if person 1 is the friend of the person 2 in his profile,
then he can see all the details of person 2 which is provided and available in the profile. Same
as, in the Instagram, if person 1 is the follower of the person 2, then the person can see the
details also the photos which are uploaded by the person 2. So this are the example of private
profile (Romo et al. 2017). On the other hand, if person 1 is not a friend of person 3 in
Facebook, then person 1 cannot see much more details of person 3. Same in the Instagram, if
person 1 is not a follower of person 3, then he can see his profile but he cannot see any
picture that are shared by the person 3. So this are the example of a public profile.
Examination of the public and private profile
In this section, the examination of this public also private profile is done. Here
analysis is done on the profile of the user Jagjit Singh.

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Public profile:
If any person who are not connected or not added in the friend list of Jagjit Singh, is
searched the name in the Facebook, then he can find his profile (Criado, Rojas-Martín and
Gil-García 2017). After opening his profile he can see only the name, profile picture and the
city where he lives that is Australia. Other information is not visible for this person as he is
not in the friend list of Jagjit Singh and his profile is secure. The same situation is happened
in the Instagram profile of Jagjit Singh (Hunter et al. 2018). If any person search Jagjit Singh
in the Instagram who are not a follower of him, then this person can find the profile but
cannot see any picture rather only see the name of the account holder that is Jagjit Singh. So
this are the example of the public profile.
Private profile:
If any person who are connected or added in the friend list of the account holder Jagjit
Singh, then this person can see all the information that are added in the profile of Jagjit Singh
(Samtani et al. 2017). The information which this person can see in the profile of Jagjit Singh
are as discussed below:
i) Name: Jagjit Singh.
ii) Lives in Australia.
iii) Date of birth: 17-02-1992
iv) Studying in Latrobe University “Bundoora campus".
v) The profile picture of Jagjit Singh.
Also the picture, status which are shared by the account holder Jagjit Singh, are
available for this person as this person is in the friend list of Jagjit Singh.

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On the other hand, if any person who are the follower of Jagjit Singh in the Instagram,
then this person can see all the details of Jagjit Singh which are provided in the profile by the
profile holder (Criado, Rojas-Martín and Gil-García 2017). Also this person can see all the
post that is the picture or video or live story of this profile of Jagjit Singh. The details which
are seen in the profile of Instagram are as follows:
i) Name: Jagjit Singh.
ii) Date of birth: 17-02-1992
iii) Lives in Australia.
iv) The profile picture of Jagjit Singh.
So this above discussed profiles are the example of the private profile.
How a hacker may exploit
The hacker is the person who can find also exploit all the weakness in the computer
systems and the networks also in the social media for gain the access and stole the personal
information for the profile of the users (Babko-Malaya et al. 2017).
If the profile of any users is not protected, then the profile may be hacked by the
hacker. All the personal information for instance name, date of birth, address, email id also
the picture are stolen by this hacker (Booth, 2018). After that they are misused these
information and the life of the user of this hacked profile is in danger.
Solution
To secure the profile from the attack of the hacker, the user can protect their profile in
the social media for instance Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat also many more by making
their profile as the private profile with the protection key (Li, 2017). After this, the hacker

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cannot hack the profile and no information is leaked. Though, there are many smart hacker
present with their bright knowledge who can still able to hack this profile by using the
advanced technology.
So from this above examination of the public also private profile, this can be
concluded that protection of any profile of user in the social media is very much important,
otherwise the hacker can hacked the profile and stole the personal information and misuse
this which is not at all good for the user and their reputation. So the public as well as private
profile is very much essential to protect the profile of the user from the hacker and also for
secure all the personal information.

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References
Babko-Malaya, O., Cathey, R., Hinton, S., Maimon, D. and Gladkova, T., 2017, December.
Detection of hacking behaviors and communication patterns on social media. In 2017 IEEE
International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) (pp. 4636-4641). IEEE.
Booth, R., 2018. The Effect of Values on Hacker Participation Volume in Online
Communities.
Criado, J.I., Rojas-Martín, F. and Gil-García, J.R., 2017. Enacting social media success in
local public administrations. International journal of public sector management.
Hunter, R.F., Gough, A., O’Kane, N., McKeown, G., Fitzpatrick, A., Walker, T., McKinley,
M., Lee, M. and Kee, F., 2018. Ethical issues in social media research for public health.
American journal of public health, 108(3), pp.343-348.
Jessup, R.L., Osborne, R.H., Beauchamp, A., Bourne, A. and Buchbinder, R., 2018.
Differences in health literacy profiles of patients admitted to a public and a private hospital in
Melbourne, Australia. BMC health services research, 18(1), p.134.
Li, W., 2017. Towards Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace: Social Media Analytics on
Hacker Communities.
Romo, D.L., Garnett, C., Younger, A.P., Stockwell, M.S., Soren, K., Catallozzi, M. and Neu,
N., 2017. Social media use and its association with sexual risk and parental monitoring
among a primarily Hispanic adolescent population. Journal of pediatric and adolescent
gynecology, 30(4), pp.466-473.
Samtani, S., Chinn, R., Chen, H. and Nunamaker Jr, J.F., 2017. Exploring emerging hacker
assets and key hackers for proactive cyber threat intelligence. Journal of Management
Information Systems, 34(4), pp.1023-1053.

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