Social Networks: Facebook

By: Justin Wilkerson

Facebook Grows Up by Steven Levy

Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social
Networks (The Facebook Case) by Ralph Gross and
Alessandro Acquisti
 History of Facebook
Founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg,
in February 2004
In August 2005 thefacebook was officially called
Facebook, and the domain Facebook.com was
purchased for $200,000 Only could access
Facebook if you had a valid college email (high
school students granted access September
2005)
September 11,2006, open enrollment policy
Just like Google, Facebook generates revenue
through advertisements
 Online Social Networks
Dates back to 1960s
Social software Weblog groups 9 categories:
business (i.e. GoingProfessional.com), common
interests (i.e. BookCrossing.com), dating
(EHarmony.com), friends (i.e. Myspace.com),
pets (i.e. Catster.com), photos (i.e. Flickr.com),
face-to-face facilitation (i.e. Meetup.com),
MoSoSo (mobile-social-software), edge cases
social networking plus (i.e. Insiderpages.com)
Sites offer core features like Profiles and the
ability for users to be contacted or contact others
 Information Revelation
Social networking sites share the basic
purpose of online communication, but
goals and usage patterns are different
from each other
The use of real names of its users is
encouraged by many of the sites like
Facebook, but sites like MySpace most
users do not use their real names all the
time
 Cont.
Information can be revealed often by
hobbies and common interests
Semi-public info. Such as previous schools
and work places
Private Info. Like drinking and or smoking
habits
And open-ended entries
 Cont. 2
Visibility is a high variable on online social
networks
Some sites allow you to view other users
profiles
Some sites allow users to limit what others
see
Such Visibility is privacy controls are updated
each day, like on Facebook
 Cont. 3
Across these different sites, more and
more users are giving out personal
information
Personal Email addresses
AIM, Yahoo, etc.
Phone numbers
Current Residence
 The Social Network Theory and
Privacy
Relationship between a persons social
network and privacy can be multi-factored
In some cases, users want their info. to
circulate throughout smaller online
communities and not to strangers
In others, users will be willing to open their
private info. to strangers, but to the ones
they better than others
 The Facebook.com
Many of social networking sites are of
college age
College oriented social networks because
these networks offer wealth of personal data
of potentially great value to outside viewers
and critics
Since many college social networks require
college email accounts, to increase to sense
of trust and intimacy throughout the online
community
 The Study
June 2005, Gross and Acquisti
downloaded 4540 Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) Facebook profiles
Demographics:
73.7% were under-grads
60.4% male versus 39.2% female
95.6% of users fall into the 18-24 age range
Types and Amounts of Info.
Disclosed
 Data Visibility and Privacy
Preferences
Facebook gives users opportunity to
control their own searchability and visibility
Sociological theories have noted how an
individual may selectively disclose personal
info. To others in order to establish some
different degrees of trust and intimacy with
them
Facebook Data Access
 Privacy Implications
Privacy Features are provided by many social
networks, especially with Facebook, but users
rarely use these features
The main result of users not taking advantage of
the privacy outlines, is stalking, 860 profiles
revealed their current residence, at least 2
classes they were attending, and phone number
Most of the of online networks are stalked using AOL
instant messenger (AIM), because AIM allows users
to add buddies/friends without any notification. 77.7%
of all these studied profiles contained an AIM screen
name.
 Cont. Re-Identification
Data re-identification typically deals with the
linkage of datasets without explicit identifiers
such as name and address to datasets with
explicit identifiers through common attributes.
A large number of the US population can be re-
identified using a zip code, gender, and date of birth.
45.8% of Facebook users list their birthday, current
residence, and gender, making them able to be re-
identified.
By this info. being in users profiles, hackers can take
their birth date, zip code, and so forth, to estimate
what their Social Security Number is.
 Conclusion
Facebook has become the social network
king and is about to put itself on the in
the stock market world.
There are many risks to using Facebook
(i.e. stalking)
Studies show that there is a lot of private
info. Leakage using Facebook as well as
other social networks