Comprehensive Social Media Security Analysis & XKeyscore Espionage Technology

Adam Ali.Zare Hudaib
International Journal of Computer Science and Security (IJCSS), Volume (8) : Issue (4) : 2014 97
Comprehensive Social Media Security Analysis & XKeyscore
Espionage Technology
Adam Ali.Zare Hudaib adamhudaib@gmail.com
Licensed Penetration Tester EC-Council
Certified Ethical Hacker EC-Council
Certified Security Analyst EC-Council
Wireshark Certified Network Analyst ( Wireshark University)
CEH , ECSA , LPT , WCNA
Sweden
Abstract
Social networks can offer many services to the users for sharing activities events and their ideas.
Many attacks can happened to the social networking websites due to trust that have been given
by the users. Cyber threats are discussed in this paper. We study the types of cyber threats,
classify them and give some suggestions to protect social networking websites of variety of
attacks. Moreover, we gave some antithreats strategies with future trends.
Keywords: XKeyscore, Social Media Security, Privacy, TFC, Cyber Threats.
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, global online social network (OSN) usage has increased sharply as these
networks become interwoven into people’s everyday lives as places to meet and communicate
with others. Online social networks, such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Sina Weibo, Twitter,
Tumblr, and VKontakte (VK), have hundreds of millions of daily active users. Facebook, for
example, has more than 1.15 billion monthly active users, 819 million of which are active mobile
Facebook users as of June 2013. Facebook users have been shown to accept friendship
requests from people whom they do not know but who simply have several friends in common. By
accepting these friend requests, users unknowingly disclose their private information to total
strangers. This information could be used maliciously, harming users both in the virtual and in the
real world. These risks escalate when the users are children or teenagers who are by nature
more exposed and vulnerable than adults. As the use of online social networks becomes
progressively more embedded into the everyday lives of users, personal information becomes
easily exposed and abused. Information harvesting, by both the online social network operator
itself and by third-party commercial companies, has recently been identified as a significant
security concern for OSN users. Companies can use the harvested personal information for a
variety of purposes, all of which can jeopardize a user’s privacy. For example, companies can
use collected private information to tailor online ads according to a user’s profile, to gain profitable
insights about their customers, or even to share the user’s private and personal data with the
government. This information may include general data, such as age, gender, and income;
however, in some cases more personal information can be exposed, such as the user’s sexual
orientation and even if the user consumed addictive substances. These privacy issues become
more alarming when considering the nature of online social networks: information can be
obtained on a network user without even directly accessing that individual’s online profile;
personal details can be inferred solely by collecting data on the user’s friends.

SOCIAL NETWORK SITES: METRICS, PRIVACY
2.1 Social Network Sites: Usage Metrics, Network Structure and Privacy
Social Network Sites (SNSs) exhibit wide popularity, high diffusion and an increasing number of
features. Specifically, Facebook, which currently holds a prime position among SNSs, has a
continuously evolving feature set and one billion monthly active users, approximately 81% of
whom are from outside the U.S. and Canada, and 604 million of whom access the site via mobile
devices [1]. Given this diversity, an effective way of understanding Facebook is by exploring
motives for using the service via theoretical frameworks such as Uses and Gratifications (U&G)
[2]. A good understanding A good understanding of these motives can shed light onto the intricate
mechanisms behind important aspects of SNSs, such as site adoption, participation [4],
information seeking [5], and the privacy of users [2]. Privacy, in particular, is a major concern
since it dictates the usage decisions of many SNS users and as Facebook, specifically, has found
itself under harsh criticism regarding the enactment of highly contentious privacy policies and
privacy-sensitive features [3]. The emergence of social sites also represents a valuable research
resource. Indeed, scholars have highlighted the enormous potential of taking advantage of data
that are generated electronically when people use online services [3]. Furthermore, compared to
the methods and data available to traditional social scientists, online information can be accessed
and analyzed computationally in ways that are both efficient and accurate [3]. In particular, in the
case of Facebook, a rich, robust Application Programming Interface (API) allows researchers to
collect large volumes of data relating to issues such as site feature use and personal network
structure with unprecedented accuracy, granularity and reliability.
Media is consumed for a wide range of purposes and individuals utilize different media channels
to achieve very different ends [6]. U&G is a theoretical framework for studying these motives and
outcomes – fundamentally, the “how” and “why” of media use [2]. A key strength of the approach
is its established and broadly applicable frame of analysis (covering media as diverse as tabloids,
reality TV as entertainment or social connection) with social and psychological antecedents (such
as demographics) and cognitive, attitudinal, or behavioral outcomes (such as usage patterns) [3].
U&G has recently proven valuable in exploring and explaining a wide variety of social media
phenomena including topics as diverse as the motivations for contributing content to an online
community [4], explaining why political candidates are befriended [1], and cataloguing the
psychosocial well-being of teenage girls. U&G studies have explored behavior on most common
forms of social media including content sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), SNSs (e.g., Myspace [1]),
media sharing communities, and blogs [3]. Taken together, this work highlights the importance of
eliciting and understanding users’ motives in social media, as well as the value of employing data
from a natural research instrument, like Facebook, for social studies. particular, has most
commonly been captured by self-report methods using surveys. Typical questions include time
spent on site and visit frequency [3]. Acknowledging the lack of rigor in such ad-hoc methods, the
Facebook Intensity Scale was introduced to capture the extent to which a user is emotionally
connected to Facebook and the extent to which Facebook is integrated into their daily activities.
The scale has been subsequently adopted in a number of other studies.
The advent of SNSs has greatly facilitated the capture of personal social network data and a wide
range of useful metrics can now be calculated automatically and in real time [2]. Commonly used
metrics include:
 Network Size: The number of nodes in a participant’s egocentric network, i.e., the number of
friends that an individual has. Correlations have been shown between network size and
personality and social capital.
 Network Density: The extent that nodes in an egocentric network are interconnected –
essentially, how many of an individuals’ friends know each other. This is calculated as the
ratio of the number of ties to the number of possible ties.
 Average Degree: Mean number of mutual friends in an egocentric network. Higher values on
this statistic have previously been associated with bonding social capital and higher
socioeconomic status.

 Average Path Length: The average geodesic distance between all pairs of nodes in a network.
 Diameter: The longest geodesic distance within the network, i.e., maximum distance between
two nodes.
 Network Modularity: A scalar value between −1 and 1 that measures the density of links inside
communities as compared to links between communities.
 Number of Connected Components: The number of distinct clusters within a network. This has
been interpreted as the number of an individual’s social contexts and associated with bridging
social capital and social contagion.
 Average Clustering Coefficient: The clustering coefficient is a measure of the embeddedness
of a node in its neighborhood. The average gives an overall indication of the clustering in the
network, and high values are associated with a “small-world” effect [3].
Users often make decisions about whether and how they use a SNS based on the perceived
privacy implications of their actions. However, privacy is a complex concept that has presented
challenges to the social media ecosystem. One key issue is the tradeoff between providing users
with advanced new features that mine their data to provide relevant content but lead to negative
effects in terms of how users perceive their privacy [6]. Attempting to understand this topic
further, boyd [5] argues that in the context of the social web, privacy violations are common
because mediated publics exhibit certain properties that are not present in unmediated publics,
namely persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences. Researchers studying the
social implications of privacy have concluded that the right to privacy can be considered a social
stratifier that divides users into classes of haves and have-nots, thus creating a privacy divide [3].
The privacy of SNS information is a particularly pertinent topic of study because of research
reporting that users find it challenging to understand the privacy implications of SNSs. For
instance, recent research has shown that the current Facebook privacy controls allow users to
effectively manage threats from outsiders, but are poor at mitigating concerns related to members
of a user’s existing friend network [3]. Similarly, a study on Facebook apps found abundant
misunderstandings and confusion about how apps function and how they manage, use, and
share profile data [4].
Investigating the uses and gratifications of a social network site can provide powerful descriptive
and explanatory insights into the mechanisms that drive users’ behaviors.
Nationality showed a significant effect on the regression model for the first privacy question, with
participants from the USA being less concerned about their privacy on Facebook, possibly due to
the fact that they are more tech savvy and comfortable with this online media. On the other hand,
nationality did not have a significant effect on the second privacy question, but two of the motives
for use did. Specifically, users that were motivated by communication opportunities with like-
minded people were found to be more likely to report tweaking their privacy settings. From the
factor’s description we know that these people tend to be more enthusiastic about organizing or
joining events and groups. This may be because they feel more comfortable in familiar settings
and therefore have increased suspicion of strangers or companies on Facebook. Furthermore,
since events predominantly take place offline and a popular use of groups is to organize offline
meetings, it may be that these people have greater experience of the implications of Facebook
privacy settings to offline social interaction. The fact that the Content motive was positively
associated with frequently changing privacy settings may be due to the fact that people who
frequently use applications and interactive content on Facebook have taken the time to
understand the privacy implications of installing such dynamic features. Interestingly, the
newsfeed feature, which caused a large backlash with regards to privacy when it was first
introduced [6], does not show a significant effect on users’ perceived privacy. Furthermore, a
substantial discrepancy was observed in the motives of people that report to be concerned about
their privacy on Facebook and those that engage in changing their privacy settings.
2.2 A New Social Media Security Model (SMSM)
Previous security methods have been proposed to reduce the vulnerabilities encountered by most
social networks without altering the usability of the system. These models emphasised user

education and policy implementation. However, these have very limited success as users are
notoriously non-compliant with such methodology. Some work has been done to explore the
effects of social networks in disseminating information about successful social engineering
attacks. Coronges et al, 2012, developed an experiment where phishing emails were created and
sent to a controlled user population. Their results showed that local leadership within an
organisation appeared to influence security vulnerability but had no influence on security
resilience or phishing prevention. Joshi and Kuo (2011) investigated mathematical formulation
and computational models for security and privacy of social networks. In their empirical study,
they presented several ways an attacker can take advantage of the security vulnerabilities in an
online social network. Some of the vulnerabilities discussed were Social Phishing Attacks, and
Neighbourhood Attacks which is a form of privacy attack. This gives the attacker sufficient
information about the target. Furthermore, their work presented theories that recent work in
programming language techniques demonstrates that it is possible to build online services that
have strict privacy policies. Unfortunately, service providers need private data to generate
revenue from their 'free' service, limiting the application of strict security and privacy measures. It
is important to clearly identify the main vulnerabilities of current social media [7].
Key vulnerabilities of social media:
 Single Factor Authentication. Single factor authentication is the conventional security
procedure which requires a username/email and password before a user is granted access to
the system. The security methods involved in authenticating account owners before gaining
access into a system started as a debate in the industry and has now become the greatest
cause of concern (Altinkemer, 2011). The sophistication of social engineering tools used by
attackers poses a serious threat to the integrity, reputation and lives of users which may result
in a sudden decline of social media usage (Parwani et al, 2013) [8].
 Profile Cloning. The easiest technique used in stealing the identity of a social network's user is
called profile cloning. With the current structural outlook of profile pages on Facebook, it is
very easy to clone an original user and perform malicious activities with the cloned account
before the victim or the platform providers discovers. The profile pages of Facebook have no
particular unique separation from one another, and in cases were two users co-incidentally
share the same first and surnames as well as the same profile image, the true owner of the
account is left for the viewer to identify (Kumar et al, 2013). There are two types of profile
cloning: existing profile cloning, cross site profile cloning.
 Phishing Attacks. Phishing could be described as a malicious craft used by social engineers
with the aim of exploring the vulnerabilities of a system which are made easy through the
ignorance of end-users (Khonji et al, 2013).
 Watering Hole Malware Attack. This method of malware attack involves the attacker guessing
which websites members of an organization normally go, and then it infects these websites
with malware with the hope that a user‘s computer within the target organisation will be
infected when an infected site is visited. It was discovered in January 2013, that a watering
hole attack was targeted at developers working at Facebook [10].
 Multiple Login Sessions. The security vulnerabilities created by allowing multiple login
sessions can result in both data theft and economic consequences (Imafidon & Ikhalia, 2013).
In websites that make it compulsory that users‘ pay before using their service e.g. an online
movie store; by allowing the creation of multiple login sessions on one account to run
concurrently, the user and other users can share the benefits on one subscription regardless
of their remote locations.
 Weak Password Creation. uessed, cracked, deliberately shared or stolen. Most social
networking sites require users to create passwords of no less than 6 characters during
account registration. The passwords created are usually hashed or encrypted in the database
using MD5 or Shal1 hash functions (Kioon et al, 2013). Unfortunately, users are meant to
believe that when the passwords are encrypted in the database, it is impossible to decrypt
them if the system is compromised [9].

The proposed social media security model (SMSM):
 Modification of Password Classification Algorithm: This model proposes that passwords
should be classified according to their various levels of security using more declarative terms
such as ‗very unsafe‘, ‗unsafe‘, ‗not secure‘, ‗a little secure‘, ‗secure‘ and ‗very secure‘.
This can be done by ensuring that passwords created by users must consist of combinations
of uppercases, lowercases, numbers and at least two special characters. Furthermore, this
new security feature will display an instant message to the user using any of the
aforementioned declarative terms based on the character combinations selected (Vijaya et al,
2009) [11].
 Embedding Unique Usernames on Profile Pages: This security feature is proposed to solve
the problem of profile cloning within the site. Many social networking sites only display the first
and surnames of users on their profile pages which opens up certain security vulnerabilities
when more than one user coincidentally share the same first and surnames. The
vulnerabilities involved may allow the malicious user exhort money or commit an online crime
under the guise of the victim which could take time to detect. In addition, embedding unique
usernames on profile pages within the site will make it very difficult for a malicious user to
steal the identity of a genuine user and act on their behalf (Chen et al, 2009).
 Re-authenticating Registered Users During Activation: This method will ensure that social
media accounts must be activated before full access is granted. The application of this
approach is generating a 25 character code for each user and the system sends the code to
their email addresses to confirm the ownership of the email used for registration. When the
users attempt to activate the account by clicking the activation link sent to their email address,
they are redirected to another page, and are required to provide the 25 character code, the
username and password before full activation is complete. This security mechanism will help
in preventing web robots from undermining the validation method of the social network.
Furthermore, it will increase security consciousness in every user subscribing for the service
and protect a user whose email address has been compromised (Fu, 2006) [12].
 Email Based Two Factor Authentication: The technique used to implement two factor
authentication in this model, is an email based approach. When a user initiates a login session
and passes the first stage of authentication (traditional username/email and password), the
system sends a randomly generated one time password token to the user‘s email address and
redirects the user to another page within the site which requires the onetime password
concurrently (Ikhalia & Imafidon, 2013). The user must navigate to the email address
containing the randomly generated password token and supply it before access to the system
is granted. This security model is now in huge demand by the industry and implementing an
email based two factor authentication method is feasible and cost effective when compared
with the SMS approach. Retrospectively, this new security enhancement will reduce security
vulnerabilities faced by social media victims of spear phishing, session hijacking, identity and
data theft (Yee, 2004).
 Make Private Message Notification ‘Private’: The importance of this security functionality is to
protect the confidentiality of a user whose email address is being compromised. This model
only allows a message notification sent to a user‘s email when a private message is sent from
the social networking site to the user. In other words, the user must navigate to their private
message inbox within the site to read the content of their messages. The necessity of this is to
protect users whose emails have been compromised and users who have lost their email
accounts (Joshi & Kuo, 2011).
 Restrict Unauthorised Access To Users’ Profile Information: One of the keywords used to
define social media by (Dabner, 2012) is ―A web-based service that allows individuals to
construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system‖; therefore, only registered
users must have access to the information they share within the site. This new security
enhancement proposed will prevent external users from viewing profile information of
registered users within the site (Ijeh, Preston & Imafidon, 2009). The major benefit of this
security feature prevents the difficulties involved by digital forensic investigators in tracking

down malicious attackers hijacking users‘ information for cross site profile cloning (Ademu &
Imafidon, 2012). When this security model is implemented an attacker must register in the
system before a malicious activity can be performed, therefore making it easy for the attacker
to be traced as most social networks store the IP address of registered users and updates
them when they login. (Joshi & Kuo, 2011) [7].
 Prevent Multiple Login Sessions: The system prevents users from creating multiple sessions
at the same time. The implementation of this security mechanism will ensure that users have
control over their accounts. This new enhancement will also make users know when a cyber
intruder is accessing their accounts because a message will be shown to the user if a session
has been established on the account (Choti et al, 2012).
2.3 Privacy Issues of Social Network Based on Facebook Example
Helen Nissenbaum’s work offers an analytical framework for understanding the commonplace
notion that privacy is ‘‘contextual.’’ Nissenbaum’s account of privacy and information technology
is based on what she takes to be two non-controversial facts. First, there are no areas of life not
governed by context-specific norms of information flow. For example, it is appropriate to tell one’s
doctor all about one’s mother’s medical history, but it is most likely inappropriate to share that
information with casual passersby. Second, people move into and out of a plurality of distinct
contexts every day. Thus, as we travel from family to business to leisure, we will be traveling into
and out of different norms for information sharing. As we move between spheres, we have to alter
our behaviors to correspond with the norms of those spheres, and though there will always be
risks that information appropriately shared in one context becomes inappropriately shared in a
context with different norms, people are generally quite good at navigating this highly nuanced
territory. On the basis of these facts, Nissenbaum suggests that the various norms are of two
fundamental types. The first, which she calls norms of ‘‘appropriateness,’’ deal with ‘‘the type or
nature of information about various individuals that, within a given context, is allowable, expected,
or even demanded to be revealed’’ (2004, 120). In her examples, it is appropriate to share
medical information with doctors, but not appropriate to share religious affiliation with employers,
except in very limited circumstances. The second set are norms of ‘‘distribution,’’ and cover the
‘‘movement, or transfer of information from one party to another or others’’ [17]. She grounds
these norms partly in work by Michael Walzer, according to which ‘‘complex equality, the mark of
justice, is achieved when social goods are distributed according to different standards of
distribution in different spheres and the spheres are relatively autonomous’’ [14]. Information is
such a social good. Thus, in friendship, confidentiality is a default rule: it may be appropriate to
share the details of one’s sex life with a friend, but it is not appropriate for that friend to broadcast
the same information on her radio show. In medical situations, on the other hand, a certain
sharing of information—from a radiologist to a primary care physician, for example—is both
normal and expected [13].
The use of Nissenbaum’s account extends well beyond the public surveillance context to which
she applies it. Evidence from social networking sites, and Facebook in particular, suggests that
contextual integrity will be an apt analytical framework in that context as well. First, and unlike
popular perceptions and perhaps unlike other SNS, almost all of the evidence suggests that
Facebook users primarily use the site to solidify and develop their offline social relationships,
rather than to make new relationships online. Information on Facebook would predictably tend to
mirror the offline tendency to contextual situatedness.3 Second, evidence about social conflicts in
Facebook suggests that one of the greatest sources of tension is when information that would
remain internal to one context offline flows to other contexts online. This is in large part an
interface issue—there is no easy way for a user to establish and maintain the many separate and
sometimes overlapping social spheres that characterize offline life. If these fluid spheres are
difficult to explicitly create on Facebook, then managing information flows among them is likely to
be very difficult. Indeed, the underlying architecture of Facebook is largely insensitive to the
granularity of offline social contexts and the ways norms differ between them. Instead, the
program assumes that users want to project a single unified image to the world. These contextual
gaps are endemic to SNS, and a substantial source of privacy problems.4 For example, the
‘status line,’ generally gets projected indiscriminately to all friends. One can think of the status line

as an answer to the questions ‘‘How’s it going?’’ or ‘‘What’s up?’’ However, in offline life one
tailors responses to the audience one is with. While Facebook now allows users to create multiple
friend groups and then control which groups can see their status, this requires explicit,
cumbersome effort and falls far short of reflecting the many complex and overlapping spheres of
offline life [15].
Two recent Web phenomena, which pre-date social networking sites, highlight some of the
privacy issues that are relevant to Facebook and other social networking sites. The first is
blogging. The number of people who post their thoughts online in Web logs is staggering, and
growing rapidly.
Information posted to the Internet is potentially visible to all. For most people, such universal
broadcast of information has no parallel offline. In other words, offline personal information is
seldom communicated to a context anywhere near as broad as the entire Internet. As social
networking sites continue to grow and increasingly integrate with the rest of the Internet, they
should be expected to inherit some of these issues. At the same time, the contextual situation for
social networking is made both more complex and more difficult by the import of the offline
concept of ‘‘friend.’’ Information flows on social networking sites are mediated not just by the
global nature of Internet communication, but by the ways that those sites and their users interpret
the meaning of online friendship and the social norms that go with it. Not surprisingly, empirical
research indicates that SNS users (possibly excepting younger teens on Myspace) tend to
construct their identities relationally, becoming and expressing who they are by way of
highlighting whom they associate with (Papacharissi 2009; Livingstone 2008) [16].
The precursors to social networking (blogging and webcams) demonstrated two phenomena—the
risk of collateral privacy damage, and the plasticity of norms—and these phenomena are also
evident in recent changes to Facebook. We will examine the case of collateral damage first,
because its analysis is more straightforward than the plasticity of norms. In both cases, we will
suggest that the difficulties lie in the tensions between the tendency of offline social contexts to
be highly granular and specific, and the tendency of social network sites to mirror the more global
context of the Internet, even as they substantially nuance that context through the emerging
norms of online friendship. This granularity gap needs to be addressed through interface and
design decisions that highlight, rather than obscure, the new ways that information travels online
[17].
Another serious violation to the norms of distribution is that the developers behind the
applications are also largely invisible, obscuring the fact that the information is in fact leaving the
confines of Facebook and not just going to the user’s friends. A college student in Germany can
create a quiz application that matches people with the beer they are most like, running it on his
computer in his dorm. Users accessing this application will likely be completely unaware that their
profile information, and their friends’ profile information, can be accessed by a student in a dorm
room in another country. While a third party application developer, such as the student in the
dorm room in Germany, may be acting completely ethically and only accessing the profile
information needed for the application, there is no guarantee of this, and little vetting process—
anyone can become a Facebook application developer [15].
The invisibility of information flows presents a particular problem because when we do not know
what is being done with our information, we have no ability to contest it. If the architecture and
interface of Facebook essentially hides the amount of information that is shared to third parties,
then there is little that a user can do about that sharing. Indeed, there is little that she can do to
avoid the situation, other than decline to use the third party applications. The choice for users is
binary: install the application and give full access to their own and their friends’ personal
information, or don’t use the application at all.16 We can imagine designing a number of different
mechanisms that could provide greater transparency (and in some cases, greater control) of
these information flows.

The backlash was in part generated by a sense that the News Feed violated the privacy of users.
In the terms of Nissenbaum’s framework, the analogy would be to the case of public records
being placed online.20 For public records, she suggests, the privacy problem is one of the scope
of the distribution of the information. It is not that there is any more information publicly available;
it is that it is a lot easier to get to the information. It is no longer necessary to travel to a (possibly
remote) local courthouse. When an activity is easier, more people will do it. Thus, for example,
idle curiosity about ‘who owns that house, and what they paid for it’ becomes a topic that one
might actually pursue online, when the same topic would be too much like work to pursue offline.
As a result, people have less de facto privacy. Facebook similarly increased the efficiency of
accessing information that was already in principle accessible; in so doing, it reduced the de facto
privacy of its users. A more significant difference occurs on the other end, as newsfeeds do not
just automate the process of receiving updates; they automate the process of sending them. Here
a significant difference from holiday letters emerges: the process of sending those letters is
inefficient, in that it involves individually addressing and stuffing envelopes for every update. If the
letter says something that a recipient might find offensive, he gets a card but not the letter. If the
letter is going to someone that a person no longer cares to keep up with, she might not send it,
and might even remove the person from her list. In other words, being offline in this case
introduces a necessary pause between composing the letter and sending it, and this encourages
the list itself being subject to at least a casual vetting procedure. No such procedural
encouragement exists for Facebook updates. Nothing in the process of sending updates
encourages one to even notice who the full audience is, much less to assess who should be in it.
Retention of updates, combined with reminders to that effect, would further encourage users to
view their identities online as constructed and performative, moving Facebook closer to the world
of Jennicam.25 This encouragement would be magnified even more by a ‘‘Mary has just looked
at all of your updates’’ option; users would increasingly view their Facebook identities as subject
to constant surveillance, and modify them accordingly. If I knew that Mary always looked at all my
updates, I might update with her in mind. More generally, users would be encouraged to have
updates resemble the news wires from which the model was taken. Whether or not this is a
‘‘good’’ model for online friendship on a social networking site could then be discussed by users
who were encouraged to form a mental model that accurately reflected the various flows of
information on the site.
An intellectual property regime that grants strong proprietary rights and few exceptions favors
mass media over independent producers of speech. Even the placement of advertising on portal
sites matters. Recent work comparing Facebook with other SNS suggests that the architectural
features of those sites will tend to facilitate certain kinds of social interactions and not others.26
The preceding analysis underscores the important relations between privacy norms and
application and interface design. Two points bear emphasis. First, at the core of the privacy
issues discussed here is a gap between the granularity of offline social contexts and those on
Facebook. One of the greatest strengths of Nissenbaum’s contextual integrity framework is that it
highlights the importance of social contexts to privacy norms. The application of Nissenbaum’s
work to Facebook underscores the extent to which the granularity differences are driving many of
the surface-level privacy issues. Facebook, as we have argued, does not adequately reflect this
insight. As a result, offline contexts are more easily differentiated and kept separate than those on
Facebook. To the extent that Facebook users use the program to develop offline social ties, this
granularity gap will inevitably produce conflicts. Second, this gap shows that part of what is at
stake is the definition of what it means to be a ‘‘friend’’ on Facebook. The switch to the News
Feed shows that the norms for online friendship are in a state of considerable flux. While no-one
would claim that a Facebook friend is the same as an offline friend, the fact that there are many
overlapping cases means that the shared vocabulary sometimes leads us to a misperception of
sameness. In fact, the concepts of a ‘friend’ on Facebook and an offline friend may be diverging
even more, making this difference bigger. The News Feed makes updates a lot like blogging, and
Applications put users in the position of treating their friends’ information as commodities to
exchange for access to whatever the application in question does. If Facebook norms for
friendship move further away from those offline, we would expect that users’ would model their
online behavior accordingly. While few of them might endorse the sense of complete publicity that

Jennicam embraced, publicity at nearly that level is enabled by the combination of the News Feed
and a user who posts constant updates.
2.4 Social Media, Privacy and Security
Dr Ackland [18] explained that social media use leads to vast digital repositories of searchable
content such as web pages, blog posts, newsgroup posts, Wikipedia entries. Such repositories
can be thought of as information public goods that have economic value to business because
they enable people to find information efficiently – for example, by using Google to search for
answers to technical questions. For governments, the value of social media lies in the potential
for direct dialogue between citizens and government, promoting participatory democracy (that is,
broader participation in the direction and operation of government). However, people are often
not involved in social media for the instrumental reasons of creating information public goods or
strengthening democracy but for social reasons and to express their individual or collective
identity. Much of the time people’s use of social media is expressive (like voting, or cheering at
the football) rather than instrumental and people tend to be intrinsically motivated to participate –
that is, for the inherent enjoyment of the activity – rather than being extrinsically motivated (for
example, by the expectation of external rewards).
Two issues that may reduce the value of social media to business and government by adversely
affecting people’s motivation to participate.
1. Game mechanics, was not covered in detail but refers to the use of rewards such as badges
on foursquare, which may encourage some users but deter others, so may have the effect of
selecting particular types of users to participate, and may also change the way in which people
engage with online environments.
2. Privacy. The second issue identified as potentially diminishing people’s motivation to
participate in social media, and the issue of particular relevance in the context of this workshop,
was privacy. Existing research [20] is mostly survey research focusing on a particular
demographic: youth. e.g.;
 Sonia Livingstone [21] found that younger teenagers use social media for creating ‘identity
through display’ while older teenagers create ‘identity through connection’. Different risks are
associated with each of these behaviours.
 Zeynep Tufecki’s quantitative study of US college students [18] looked at how privacy
concerns affect students’ willingness to disclose information online. This research suggested
that ‘treating privacy within a context merely of rights and violations, is inadequate for studying
the Internet as a social realm’.
Further research needed. Most existing research has focused on youth in wealthy countries but
there is a need for research on other demographic groups. For understanding how people’s
participation in Government 2.0 might be affected by privacy and security concerns, for example,
it will be important to include demographic groups more relevant to these initiatives as youth tend
not be involved in political activities online [18]. Dr Ackland drew attention to a study of older
Australians and their social media use (funded by an ARC Linkage Grant) being undertaken by
the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute at The Australian National University in
partnership with National Seniors Australia. He noted that research into privacy and Government
2.0 is generally not based on data and is mainly speculation at this stage. Little is known about
people’s attitudes towards the potential for governments to use their data for purposes other than
policymaking, such as surveillance and law enforcement. Developments in network science and
mining social graphs (that is, the social connections between people or organisations). Social
media use leads to digital traces of activity that are permanent, searchable and crossindexable.
New tools are being developed to support this type of research through data mining, network
visualisation and analysis, including:
 The Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) System
(http://voson.anu.edu.au) developed by Dr Ackland.

 SAS Social Media Analytics.
 NodeXL, which enables social network data such as that gathered by VOSON to be imported
into Excel.
It was noted [23] that there is an important difference between individual privacy and social graph
security. Network scientists increasingly have the ability to mine social graphs and place people
in groups by identifying clusters in social networks and predicting the existence of social
connections. Protecting the social graph is more important –and more difficult – than protecting
personal data.
Professor Bronitt [21] drew attention to the work of the Centre of Excellence in Policing and
Security (CEPS), which is a research partnership between The Australian National University,
Griffith University, The University of Queensland and Charles Sturt University. The Centre also
brings together a range of industry partners (refer to the CEPS website for a full list) who are
committed to innovation and evidence-based research in policing and security. The Centre’s goal
is ‘to gain a better understanding of the origins, motivations and dynamics of crime and security
threats. Its objectives are to create significant transformations in crime, crime prevention and
security policies, and to bring about evidence-based reform in the practices of policing and
security to enhance Australia’s social, economic and cultural wellbeing.’ Professor Bronitt
discussed the issues of vulnerability and resilience. In relation to infrastructure, he noted that
much vulnerable infrastructure is in the hands of private companies and it will be necessary to
engage with policymakers and private companies before starting research. Social media can
make you vulnerable but also resilient. For example, in the Brisbane floods social media was
used for self-organising [20]. A key role for ‘foresight forums’, which have not previously been
used in Australia much. Laws and regulations don’t yet cover all aspects of what is now
appearing in social media – eg video. He noted that privacy in the modern context clearly goes
into the realm of the public – physically and virtually – related to human dignity. Social media has
no borders but laws are tied to territory, so addressing interjurisdictional issues poses significant
challenges.
2.5 Information Sharing and Privacy on the Facebook
Nobody is literally forced to join an online social network, and most networks we know about
encourage, but do not force users to reveal - for instance - their dates of birth, their cell phone
numbers, or where they currently live. And yet, one cannot help but marvel at the nature, amount,
and detail of the personal information some users provide, and ponder how informed this
information sharing is. Changing cultural trends, familiarity and confidence in digital technologies,
lack of exposure or memory of egregious misuses of personal data by others may all play a role
in this unprecedented phenomenon of information revelation. Yet, online social networks’ security
and access controls are weak by design - to leverage their value as network goods and enhance
their growth by making registration, access, and sharing of information uncomplicated. At the
same time, the costs of mining and storing data continue to decline. Combined, the two features
imply that information provided even on ostensibly private social networks is, effectively, public
data, that could exist for as long as anybody has an incentive to maintain it. Many entities - from
marketers to employers to national and foreign security agencies - may have those incentives.
At the most basic level, an online social network is an Internet community where individuals
interact, often through profiles that (re)present their public persona (and their networks of
connections) to others. Although the concept of computer-based communities dates back to the
early days of computer networks, only after the advent of the commercial Internet did such
communities meet public success. Following the SixDegrees.com experience in 1997, hundreds
of social networks spurred online (see [24] for an extended discussion), sometimes growing very
rapidly, thereby attracting the attention of both media and academia. In particular, [30] have taken
ethnographic and sociological approaches to the study of online self-representation; [25] have
focused on the value of online social networks as recommender systems; [25] have discussed
information sharing and privacy on online social networks, using FB as a case study; [26] have

demonstrated how information revealed in social networks can be exploited for “social” phishing;
[28] has studied identity-sharing behavior in online social networks.
FB requires a college’s email account for a participant to be admitted to the online social network
of that college. As discussed in [28], this increases the expectations of validity of the personal
information therein provided, as well as the perception of the online space as a closed, trusted,
and trustworthy community (college-oriented social networking sites are, ostensibly, based “on a
shared real space” [29]). However, there are reasons to believe that FB networks more closely
resemble imagined [30] communities (see also [28]): in most online social networks, security,
access controls, and privacy are weak by design; the easier it is for people to join and to find
points of contact with other users (by providing vast amounts of personal information, and by
perusing equally vast amounts of data provided by others), the higher the utility of the network to
the users themselves, and the higher its commercial value for the network’s owners and
managers. FB, unlike other online networks, offers its members very granular and powerful
control on the privacy (in terms of searchability and visibility) of their personal information. Yet its
privacy default settings are very permeable: at the time of writing, by default participants’ profiles
are searchable by anybody else on the FB network, and actually readable by any member at the
same college and geographical location. Based on research [27] we have some conclusions: a
total of 506 respondents accessed the survey. One-hundred-eleven (21.9%) were not currently
affiliated with the college Institution where we conducted our study, or did not have a email
address within that Institution’s domain. They were not allowed to take the rest of the survey. A
separate set of 32 (8.2%) participants had taken part in a previous pilot survey and were also not
allowed to take the survey. Of the remaining respondents, 318 subjects actually completed the
initial calibration questions. Out of this set, 278 (87.4%) had heard about FB, 40 had not. In this
group, 225 (70.8%) had a profile on FB, 85 (26.7%) never had one, and 8 (2.5%) had an account
but deactivated it. Within those three groups, respectively 209, 81, and 7 participants completed
the whole survey. We focus our analysis on that set - from which we further removed 3
observations from the non-members group, since we had reasons to believe that the responses
had been created by the same individual. This left us with a total of 294 respondents. Age and
student status are correlated with FB membership - but what else is? Well, of course, having
heard of the network is a precondition for membership. Thirty-four participants had never heard of
the FB - nearly half of the staff that took our survey, a little less than 23% of the graduate
students, and a negligible portion of the undergraduate students (1.59%). However, together with
age and student status (with the two obviously being highly correlated), another relevant
distinction between members and non-members may arise from privacy attitudes and privacy
concerns. Before we asked questions about FB, our survey ascertained the privacy attitudes of
participants with a battery of questions modelled after the Alan Westin’s studies [26], with a
number of modifications. In particular, in order not to prime the subjects, questions about privacy
attitudes were interspersed with questions about attitudes towards economic policy and the state
of the economy, social issues such as samesex marriage, or security questions related to the fear
of terrorism. In addition, while all instruments asked the respondent to rank agreement, concern,
worries, or importance on a 7-point Likert scale, the questions ranged from general ones (e.g.,
“How important do you consider the following issues in the public debate?”), to more and more
specific (e.g., “How do you personally value the importance of the following issues for your own
life on a day-to-day basis?”), and personal ones (e.g., “Specifically, how worried would you be if”
[a certain scenario took place]). “Privacy policy” was on average considered a highly important
issue in the public debate by our respondents (mean on the 7-point Likert scale: 5.411, where 1 is
“Not important at all” and 7 is “very important”; sd: 1.393795). In fact, it was regarded a more
important issue in the public debate than the threat of terrorism ( t = 2.4534, Pr>t = 0.0074; the
statistical significance of the perceived superiority was confirmed by a Wilcoxon signed-rank test:
z = 2.184 Pr>|z|= 0.0290) and same sex marriage (t = 10.5089, Pr>t = 0.0000; Wilcoxon signed-
rank test: z = 9.103 Pr>|z|= 0.0000 ); but less important than education policy (mean: 5.93; sd:
1.16) or economic policy (mean: 5.79; sd: 1.21) [24]. The slightly larger mean valuation of the
importance of privacy policy over environmental policy was not significant. (These results are
comparable to those found in previous studies, such as [29].) The same ranking of values (and
comparably statistically significant differences) was found when asking for “How do you

personally value the importance of the following issues for your own life on a day-to-day basis?”
The mean value for the importance of privacy policy was 5.09. For all categories, subjects
assigned slightly (but statistically significantly) more importance to the issue in the public debate
than in their own life on a day-to-day basis (in the privacy policy case, a Wilcoxon signed-rank
test returns z = 3.62 Pr > |z| = 0.0003 when checking the higher valuation of the issue in the
public debate)[24]. Similar results were also found when asking for the respondents’ concern with
a number of issues directly relevant to them: the state of the economy where they live, threats to
their personal privacy, the threat of terrorism, the risks of climate change and global warming.
Respondents were more concerned (with statistically significant differences) about threats to their
personal privacy than about terrorism or global warming, but less concerned than about the state
of the economy. Privacy concerns are not equally distributed across FB members and non-
members populations: a two-sided t test that the mean Likert value for the “importance” of privacy
policy is higher for non-members (5.67 in the non-members group, 5.30 in the members group) 6
is significant (t = -2.0431, Pr<t = 0.0210) [24]. Similar statistically significant differences arise
when checking for the level of concern for privacy threats and for worries associated with the
privacy scenarios described above. The test becomes slightly less significant when checking for
member/non-member differences in the assigned importance of privacy policy on a day-to-day
basis. Importantly, in general no comparable statistically significant differences between the
groups can be found in other categories. For example, worries about the global warming scenario
gain a mean Likert valuation of 5.36 in the members sample and 5.4 in the non-members sample.
(A statistically significant difference can be found however for the general threat of terrorism and
for the personal worry over marriage between two people of same sex: higher values in the non-
members group may be explained by their higher mean age.) In order to understand what
motivates even privacy concerned individual to share personal information on the Facebook, we
need to study what the network itself is used for. Asking participants this question directly is likely
to generate responses biased by self-selection and fear of stigma. Sure enough, by far, FB
members deny FB is useful to them for dating or self-promotion. Instead, members claim that the
FB is very useful to them for learning about and finding classmates (4.93 mean on a 7-point Likert
scale) and for making it more convenient for people to get in touch with them (4.92) [24], but deny
any usefulness for other activities. Other possible applications of FB - such as dating, finding
people who share one’s interests, getting more people to become one’s friends, showing
information about oneself/advertising oneself - are ranked very low. In fact, for those applications,
the relative majority of participants chooses the minimal Likert point to describe their usefulness
(coded as “not at all” useful). Still, while their mean Likert value remains low, male participants
find FB slightly more useful for dating than female.
Often, survey participants are less privacy conscious than non participants. For obvious reasons,
this self-selection bias is particularly problematic for survey studies that focus on privacy. Are our
respondents a biased sample of the Institution’s FB population - biased in the sense that they
provide more information than the average FB members? We did not find strong evidence of that.
Since we mined the network before the survey was administered, we were able to compare
information revelation by survey participants and non survey participants. It is true that, on
average, our survey takers provide slightly more information than the average FB member.
However, the differences in general do not pass a Fisher’s exact test for significance, except for
personal address and classes (where non participants provide statistically significant less
information) and political views (in which the difference is barely significant). Similarly, around
16% of respondents who expressed the highest concern for the scenario in which someone 5
years from now could know their current sexual orientation, partner’s name, and political
orientation, provide nevertheless all three types of information - although we can observe a
descending share of members that provide that information as their reported concerns increase.
Still, more than 48% of those with the highest concern for that scenario reveal at least their
current sexual orientation; 21% provide at least their partner’s name (although we did not control
for the share of respondents who are currently in relationships); and almost 47% provide at least
their political orientation. How knowledgeable is the average FB member about the network’s
features and their implications in terms of profile visibility? By default, everyone on the Facebook
appears in searches of everyone else, and every profile at a certain Institution can be read by

every member of FB at that Institution. However, the FB provides an extensive privacy policy and
offers very granular control to users to choose what information to reveal to whom. As mentioned
above, relative to a FB member, other users can either be friends, friends of friends, non-friend
users at the same institution, non-friend users at a different institution, and non-friend users at the
same geographical location as the user but at a different university (for example, Harvard vs.
MIT). Users can select their profile visibility (who can read their profiles) as well as their profile
searchability (who can find a snapshot of their profiles through the search features) by type of
users. More granular control is given on contact information, such as phone numbers. And yet,
among current members, 30% claim not to know whether FB grants any way to manage who can
search for and find their profile, or think that they are given no such control. Eighteen percent do
not know whether FB grants any way to manage who can actually read their profile, or think that
they are given no such control. These numbers are not significantly altered by removing the 13
members who claim never to login to their account. In fact, even frequency of login does not
explain the lack of information for some members. On the other hand, members who claim to
login more than once a day are also more likely to believe that they have “complete” control on
whom can search their profile. Awareness of one’s ability to control who can see one’s profile is
not affected by the frequency of login, but is affected by the frequency of update (a Pearson 2(12)
= 28.9182 Pr = 0.004 shows that the distribution is significant). Note the difference between the
two graphs and, specifically, the distribution by frequency of update for respondents who
answered “Do not know” or “No control” (graph on the right). Twenty-two percent of our sample
do not know what the FB privacy settings are or do not remember if they have ever changed
them. Around 25% do not know what the location settings are. To summarize, the majority of FB
members claim to know about ways to control visibility and searchability of their profiles, but a
significant minority of members are unaware of those tools and options. More specifically, we
asked FB members to discuss how visible and searchable their own profiles were. We focused on
those participants who had claimed never to have changed their privacy settings (that by default
make their profile searchable by everybody on FB and visible to anybody at the same Institution),
or who did not know what those settings were. Almost every such respondent realizes that
anybody at their Institution can search their profile. However, 24% incorrectly do not believe that
anybody on FB can in fact search their profile. Misunderstandings about visibility can also go in
the opposite direction: for instance, 16% of current members believe, incorrectly, that anybody on
FB can read their profile. 12 In fact, when asked to guess how many people could search for their
profile on FB (respondents could answer by selecting the following possible answers from a drop-
box: a few hundred, a few thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions), the
relative majority of members who did not alter their default settings answered, correctly, “Millions.”
However, more than half actually underestimated the number to tens of thousands or less. In
short, the majority of FB members seem to be aware of the true visibility of their profile - but a
significant minority is vastly underestimating the reach and openness of their own profile. Does
this matter at all? In other words, would these respondents be bothered if they realized that their
profile is more visible than what they believe? The answer is complex. First, when asked whether
the current visibility and searchability of the profile is adequate for the user, or whether he or she
would like to restrict it or expand it, the vast majority of members (77% in the case of
searchability; 68% in the case of visibility) claim to be satisfied with what they have - most of them
do not want more or less visibility or searchability for their profiles (although 13% want less
searchability and 20% want less visibility) than what they (correctly or incorrectly) believe to have.
Secondly, FB members remain wary of whom can access their profiles, but claim to manage their
privacy fears by controlling the information they reveal.
While respondent are mildly concerned about who can access their personal information and how
it can be used, they are not, in general, concerned about the information itself, mostly because
they control that information and, with less emphasis, because believe to have some control on
its access. Respondents are fully aware that a social network is based on information sharing: the
strongest motivator they have in providing more information are reported, in fact, as “having fun”
and “revealing enough information so that necessary/useful to me and other people to benefit
from FaceBook.” However, psychological motivations can also explain why information revelation
seems disconnected from the privacy concerns. When asked to express whether they considered

the current public concern for privacy on social network sites such as the FaceBook or MySpace
to be appropriate (using a 7-point Likert scale, fact, the majority of respondents agree (from mildly
to very much) with the idea that the information other FB members reveal may create privacy
risks to those members (that is, the other members; average response on a 7-point Likert scale:
4.92) - even though they tend to be less concerned about their own privacy on FB (average
response on a 7-point Likert scale: 3.60; Student’s t test shows that this is significantly less than
the concern for other members: t = -10.1863, P <t = 0.0000; also a Wilcoxon matched pair test
provides a similar result: z = -8.738, Pr <|z| = 0.0000). In fact, 33% of our respondents believe
that it is either impossible or quite difficult for individuals not affiliated with an university to access
FB network of that university. “Facebook is for the students” says a student interviewed in [29].
But considering the number of attacks described in [30] or any recent media report on the usage
of FB by police, employers, and parents, it seems in fact that for a significant fraction of users the
FB is only an imagined community.
In order to gauge the accuracy of the survey responses, we compared the answers given to a
question about revealing certain types of information (specifically, birthday, cell phone, home
phone, current address, schedule of classes, AIM screenname, political views, sexual orientation
and the name of their partner) with the data from the actual (visible) profiles. We found that
77.84% of the answers were exactly accurate: if participants said that they revealed a certain type
of information, that information was in fact present; if they wrote it was not present, in fact it was
not. A little more than 8% revealed more than they said they do (i.e. they claim the information is
not present when in fact it is). A little more than 11% revealed less then they claimed they do. In
fact, 1.86% claimed that they provide false information on their profile (information is there that
they claim is intentionally false or incomplete), and 0.71% have missing false information (they
claimed the information they provide is false or incomplete, when in fact there was no
information). We could not locate the FB profiles for 13 self-reported members that participated in
the survey. For the participants with CMU email address, 2 of them did mention in the survey that
they had restricted visibility, searchability, or access to certain contact information, and 3 wrote
that not all CMU users could see their profile.
2.6 Social Media Compliance Policy
Social media are powerful communication tools but they carry significant risks to the reputation of
the University and its members. A prominent risk arises from the blurring of the lines between
personal voice and institutional voice. For the purposes of this policy, social media is defined as
media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible
and scalable publishing techniques using the internet.
Examples of popular social media sites include but are not limited to:
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• MySpace
• Flickr
• Yammer
• Yahoo/MSN messenger
• Wiki’s/Blogs
All members of the University using social media tools, including via personal accounts, must be
aware that the same laws, professional expectations, and guidelines apply at all times.
Any social media announcements not issued by the Corporate Communications team, which may
include (but are not limited to) content, comments and opinions must not give the impression they
are in anyway the explicit positioning of the University of Liverpool. Any official University position

and comment must be approved by the University Corporate Communications Director or his or
her representative.
The Social Media Compliance Policy helps members of the University to use social media sites
without compromising their personal security or the security of University information assets.
The University has adopted the following principles, which underpin this policy:
• All information assets must be appropriately handled and managed in accordance with their
classification.
• University information assets should be made available to all who have a legitimate need for
them.
• The integrity of information must be maintained; information must also be accurate, complete,
timely and consistent with other related information and events.
• All members of the University, who have access to information assets, have a responsibility to
handle them appropriately and in accordance with their classification.
• Information asset owners are responsible for ensuring that the University classification
scheme (which is described in the Information Security Policy) is used appropriately [31].
Below is a table of examples of threats and risks associated with the use of social media:
Threats: Introduction of viruses and malware to the University network; Exposure of the University
and its members through a fraudulent or hijacked presence e.g. unofficial social media accounts;
Unclear or undefined ownership of content rights of information posted to social media sites
(copyright infringement); Use of personal accounts to communicate University owned information
assets; Excessive use of social media within the University.
Risks:
• Data leakage/theft.
• System downtime.
• Resources required to clean systems.
• Customer backlash/adverse legal actions.
• Exposure of University information assets.
• Reputational damage.
• Targeted phishing attacks on customers or employees .
• Exposure of customer information.
• Privacy violations.
• Network utilisation issues.
• Productivity loss.
• Increased risk of exposure to viruses and malware due to longer duration of sessions.
The University’s Information Security Policy defines the categories which are assigned to
University information assets. Those assets which are classified as Confidential, Strictly
Confidential or Secret must not be posted on social media sites. Postings must not contain
personal information concerning students, employees, or alumni. In addition, members of the
University must be aware of copyright and intellectual property rights of others and of the
University.
Members of the University should be aware of the social media terms and conditions and
ownership of content before submitting. Members should familiarise themselves with key
University policies including:
• University IT Regulations
• Information Asset Classification Policy

• Copyright Policy
• Data Protection Policy
• Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources [31]
Communication via social media sites and tools must protect the University’s institutional voice by
remaining professional in tone and in good taste. Members of the University who use personal
social media accounts must not give the impression that their social media site represents the
explicit positioning of the University of Liverpool. This should be considered when:
• Naming pages or accounts
• Selecting a profile picture or icon
• Selecting content to post [31]
Names, profile images, and posts should all be clearly linked to the particular Faculty, School,
Institute and Professional Service Department. In addition, All University pages must have an
associated member who is identified as being the information asset owner and who is responsible
for its official affiliation of the University. If you are responsible for representing official social
media accounts on behalf of the University of Liverpool when posting on a social media platform,
clearly acknowledge this.
Members of the University must be aware that the University has the right to request the removal
of content from an official social media account and from a personal account if it is deemed that
the account or its submissions pose a risk to the reputation of the University or to that of one of its
members.
All members of the University are directly responsible and liable for the information they handle.
Members of staff are bound to abide by the University IT regulations by the terms of their
employment. Students are bound to abide by the University IT Regulations when registering as a
student member of the University.
Authorised members of the University may monitor the use and management of information
assets to ensure effective use and to detect unauthorised use of information assets.
2.7 Threats and Anti-threats Strategies for Social Network Sites
Online Social Networks (OSN) such as Facebook, Tweeter, MySpace etc. play an important role
in our society, which is heavily influenced by the Information Technology (IT) [32]. In spite of their
user friendly and free of cost services, many people still remain reluctant to use such networking
sites because of privacy concerns. Many people claim, these sites have made the world more
public and less private – consequently a world with less morale is evolving. Some consider this
social change as positive because people are more connected to each other. Nowadays almost
all people use the social networking websites to share their ideas photos, videos, with their
friends and relatives and even discuss many things about their daily life not only social issues but
also others like politics which help lately to change the regime status in many countries such as
Egypt Libya and Tunisia. in 1971 started the first communications in the form of social networks
this happened in the past when the first email was send from one computer to another connected
one. The data exchanged over the phone lines was happened in 1987 where bulletin board
system set and web browsers were used for the first time to make to establish the principle of
communication. Even, social networking websites have many advantages for users to
communicate and exchanges information as we mention above, unfortunately, they have their
negative impact! Most people spend all their time using such websites and forget about their
duties and sometimes many use loss their life using such websites due to the illegal contents like
pornographic, terrorism, religiolism and many other. Social networking websites must satisfy
many security issues to work successfully and to be used by people who unfortunately trust most
of websites. Social networking websites should have save storage for personal data and tools for
managing and securing data and control access to the saved data according some limitations.
They must add some features to restrict individual data access from other users. Unfortunately

most of social networks have not had applied this issues actually There are many attacks on
social networks such as worms, viruses, Trojan horses and fishing websites. Malicious programs
vulnerabilities and many others such as sql injection top attacks users should be worried about all
types of attacks and have the right firewalls and software which protect them of being hack by
cyber criminal. Social networking features:
 Global social network where geographical and spatial barriers are cancelled.
 Interaction where sites gives space for the active participation for the viewer and reader.
 Easy to use most social networks can be use easily and they contains images and symbols
that make it easier for user interaction [34].
Types of social networks divisions depending on the service provided or targets from its inception
to the following types: personal networks; cultural networks.
Social networks also can be divided according to the way we communicate and services into
three types:
 Networks Allow For Written Communication.
 Network Allow Voice Communication.
 Network allow for visual Communication [32].
Social networks attract thousands of users who represent potential victims to attackers from the
following types (Ref: Figure 1) [34].
FIGURE 1. Threats percentage on social networks (Sophos 2010 Security Threat Report).
There are many procedures, which help us to protect as much as possible our privacy when
using social networks.
 Be careful and don’t write any sensitive information in your profile page bulletin board, instant
messaging or any other type of participation and electronic publishing in internet so that the
identity could be protected against the thefts or security threats.
 Be skeptical because social networking websites are full of illegal users, hackers and cyber
criminals.
 Be wise man and thinks twice before you write any think when using social networking
websites.

 Be polite and do not publish any illegal picture and video and even don’t write any abnormal
messages and also reflects your personal impacts and be ambassador to all others on the
internet.
 Read the privacy policy of all social networks before using them [35].
Cyber threats that might the users face can be categorized into two categories.
Privacy concerns demand that user profiles never publish and distribute information over the web.
Variety of information on personal home pages may contain very sensitive data such as birth
dates, home addresses, and personal mobile numbers and so on. This information can be used
by hackers who use social engineering techniques to get benefits of such sensitive information
and steal money. Generally, there are two types of security issues: One is the security of people.
Another is the security of the computers people use and data they store in their systems. Since
social networks have enormous numbers of users and store enormous amount of data, they are
natural targets spammers, phishing and malicious attacks. Moreover, online social attacks include
identity theft, defamation, stalking, injures to personal dignity and cyber bulling. Hackers create
false profiles and mimic personalities or brands, or to slander a known individual within a network
of friends[36].
Anti threats strategies. Recent work in programming language techniques demonstrates that it
is possible to build online services that guarantee conformance with strict privacy policies. On the
other hand, since service providers need private data to generate revenue, they have a
motivation to do the opposite. Therefore, the research question to be addressed is to what extent
a user can ensure his/her privacy while benefiting from existing online services.
There are recommended the following strategies for circumventing threats associated with social
website [33]:
a) Building awareness the information disclosure: users most take care and very conscious
regarding the revealing of their personal information in profiles in social websites.
b) Encouraging awareness -raising and educational campaigns: governments have to provide
and offer educational classes about awareness -raising and security issues.
c) Modifying the existing legislation: existing legislation needs to be modified related to the new
technology and new frauds and attacks.
d) Empowering the authentication: access control and authentication must be very strong so that
cybercrimes done by hackers, spammers and other cybercriminals could be reduced as much as
possible.
e) Using the most powerful antivirus tools: users must use the most powerful antivirus tools with
regular updates and must keep the appropriate default setting, so that the antivirus tools could
work more effectively.
f) Providing suitable security tools: here, we give recommendation to the security software
providers and is that: they have to offers some special tools for users that enable them to remove
their accounts and to manage and control the different privacy and security issues.
2.8 Facebook’s Privacy Policy in the Law
Facebook has apparently decided to delay a proposed new privacy policy after a coalition of
privacy groups asked the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday to block the changes on the
grounds that they violated a 2011 settlement with the regulatory agency.
A spokeswoman for the F.T.C. confirmed Thursday that the agency had received the letter but
had no further comment.
In a statement published by The Los Angeles Times and Politico on Thursday afternoon,
Facebook said, “We are taking the time to ensure that user comments are reviewed and taken
into consideration to determine whether further updates are necessary and we expect to finalize
the process in the coming week.”

Asked about the delay, a Facebook spokesman said he was unaware of the latest developments.
When it first announced the changes on Aug. 28, Facebook told its 1.2 billion users that the
updates were “to take effect on September 5.” [37]
The changes, while clarifying how Facebook uses some information about its users, also
contained a shift in legal language that appeared to put the burden on users to ask Facebook not
to use their personal data in advertisements. Previously, the company’s terms of use, and its
settlement with the F.T.C., had indicated that it wouldn’t use such personal data without explicit
consent. Facebook’s new terms would also allow it to use the names and photos of teenagers in
advertising, an area of particular concern to privacy advocates because children may be unaware
of the consequences of actions such as liking a brand page.
The original proposal has drawn tens of thousands of comments from Facebook users, most of
them opposed to the changes [37].
Individual differences has been found to greatly impact information disclosure and perceptions of
privacy. The traditional division of users according to their privacy attitudes was proposed by
Hofstede (Hofstede 1996): users were classified into two extreme groups, which were reminiscent
of the classic sociological concepts of individualist and collectivist societies. More recently,
ethnographic studies have explored privacy attitudes of social-networking users, especially of
Facebook ones. After surveying the same group of students twice, once in 2009 and later in
2010, Boyd et al. revealed that users’ confidence in changing their privacy settings strictly
depended on frequency of site use and Internet literacy (Boyd and Hargittai 2010). Also, gender
and cultural differences seem to affect privacy attitudes. Lewis et al. found that women’s profiles
are more likely than men’s to be private and that there is a relationship between music taste and
degree of disclosure of one’s profile (Lewis, Kaufman, and Christakis 2008). Finally, ethnicity
plays a role. Chang et al. studied the privacy attitudes of U.S. Facebook users of different
ethnicities and found that Hispanics tend to share more pictures, Asians more videos, and Afro-
Americans more status updates (Chang et al. 2010). discloses personal information partly
depends on one’s personality traits. In particular, it has been found to depend on the big five
personality traits and the self-monitoring trait, all of which are discussed next. The five-factor
model of personality, or the big five, consists of a comprehensive and reliable set of personality
concepts (Costa and Mccrae 2005; Goldberg et al. 2006). The idea is that an individual can be
associated with five scores that correspond to five main personality traits. Personality traits
predict a number of real-world behaviors. They, for example, are strong predictors of how
marriages turn out: if one of the partner is high in Neuroticism, then divorce is more likely (Nettle
2007). Research has consistently shown that people’s scores are stable over time (they do not
depend on quirks and accidents of mood) and correlate well with how others close to them (e.g.,
friends) see them (Nettle 2007). The relationship between use of Facebook and the big five
personality traits has been widely studied, yet contrasting results have emerged. To recap, the
trait of Openness has been found to be associated with higher information disclosure, while
Conscientiousness has been associated with cautious disclosure. Contrasting findings have
emerged from the traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Schrammel et al.
wrote: “personality traits do not seem to have any predictive power on the disclosure of
information in online communities” (Schrammel, K¨offel, and Tscheligi 2009). In the same vein,
Ross et al. concluded that “personality traits were not as influential as expected, and most of the
predictions made from previous findings did not materialise” (Ross et al. 2009). These
researchers, however, conceded that they only considered the big five personality traits (while
other traits might better explain the use of Facebook) and that their samples consisted of only
undergrad students. Current studies might tackle these two limitations by, for example: 1)
considering personality traits other than the big five; and 2) having participants who are not only
undergrad students, who might well be more Internet savvy than older people. Next, we will
describe how we partly tackle the first problem by considering the personality trait of “self-
monitoring”. In Section 5, we will describe how we tackle the second problem by collecting a
representative sample of Facebook users in the United States. Having identified the personality

traits that have been associated with information disclosure in the literature, we now need to
model the process of disclosure itself. By doing so, we will be able to quantify a user’s disposition
to disclose her/his personal information. One measure of information disclosure is the count of
fields (e.g., birthday, hometown, religion) a user shares on her/his profile. The problem of this
approach is that some information fields are more revealing than others, and it is questionable to
assign arbitrary (relevance) weights to those fields. An alternative way is to resort to a
psychometric technique called Item Response Theory (IRT), which has already been used for
modeling information disclosure in social media (Liu and Terzi 2009). Next, we detail what IRT is,
why choosing it, and when and how it works. What IRT is. IRT is a psychometric technique used
to design tests and build evaluation scales for those tests. It extracts patterns from participants’
responses and then creates a mathematical model upon the extracted patterns, and this model
can then be used to access an estimate of user attitude (de Bruin and Buchner 2010) (MacIntosh
1998) (Vishwanath 2006).
Limitations of our data. Critics might rightly put forward one important issue with our data: some
users might have responded untruthfully to personality tests. However, validity tests on the
personality data suggest that users have responded to the personality questions accurately and
honestly, and that is likely because they installed the application motivated primarily by the
prospect of taking and receiving feedback from a high quality personality questionnaire. Critics
might then add that, since our sample consists of self-selected users who are interested in their
personality, these users might be more active than the general Facebook population. We have
looked into this matter and found that our users do not seem to be more active than average - we
have reported that the number of contacts for the average user in our sample is 124 whereas
Facebook reports an average of 1303. Limitation of our study. Our study has four main
limitations. First, we have computed exposure scores only upon user-specified fields, while we
should have ideally considered additional elements (e.g., photos, wall comments, fan page
memberships, segmentation of one’s social contacts into friend groups). We were not able to do
so as we did not have full access to user profiles - we could access only the elements that we
have been studying here. So we looked at sharing of profile fields, which is the simplest instance
of sharing, making it an ideal starting point. Yet, even by considering only profile fields, we have
learned that our users are far from behaving in the same way - very different privacy attitudes
emerge (Figure 1). Second, we have considered Facebook users who live in the United States.
Since cultural guidelines clearly exist about what is more and less private and public, one should
best consider that our results are likely to hold for Facebook users in the United States. We would
refrain from generalizing our results to other social-networking platforms (e.g., Twitter) or to any
other society - or even to certain subcultures within the United States or within Facebook. To
partly tackle this limitation, we are currently studying users of countries other than United States
and platforms other than Facebook (i.e., Twitter). Third, information disclosure and concealment
might be likely confounded by Facebook activity and one thus needs to control for it. We did not
do so because activity information is not readily available from Facebook’s API, and future
studies should propose reasonable proxies for Facebook activity4. Fourth, information disclosure
might be confounded by the general desire to complete one’s profile: fields like “interested in” are
quick to fill out, whereas “work information” just takes more effort and is not generally relevant to
Facebook interactions. Yet, this reflects what the “relationship currency” of Facebook is (Nippert-
Eng 2010) - that is, it reflects which fields are used to maintain relationships and which are
instead concealed without causing any harm.
Novelty of Information Disclosure Model. IRT has already been used to model privacy attitudes of
social-networking users (Liu and Terzi 2009). Therefore, our methodology closely followed what
has been proposed before. However, since IRT has never been applied to large-scale
socialnetworking data, we have run into a number of problems. First, algorithms used for
estimating IRT’s parameters turned out to have a greater impact on result accuracy than what
one might expect.We found that best results are achieved if scores are computed in ways
different than those proposed in (Liu and Terzi 2009) and similar to those proposed in
psychometrics research (Baker 2001). Second, for a large number of users, errors associated
with their exposure scores are unacceptably high. We had to filter those users out, yet we

worked with a sample of 1,323 users. However, for studies starting off with a smaller initial
sample, this problem should be addressed. Theoretical Implications. Studies that have attempted
to understand how individuals conceptualize privacy offline and online have often resorted to in-
depth interviews. This methodology has enabled scholars to better ground their work on exactly
what people say about privacy in their daily experiences. We have proposed the use of a
complementary methodology: we have studied what people do on Facebook by modeling the
work of disclosure and concealment which their profiles reflect. As a result, we have quantified
the extent to which personality traits affect information disclosure and concealment, and we have
done so upon large-scale Facebook data that has been collected unobtrusively as the users were
on the site. We have found that Openness is correlated, albeit weakly, with the amount of
personal information one discloses. By contrast, after controlling for Extraversion, the self-
monitoring trait’s contribution disappears, suggesting that high self-monitors might present
themselves in likable ways, as the literature would suggest, but they do not tend to share more
private information or to make that information more visible. In addition to differentiating users
based on their personality traits, we have also found important differences among profile fields
and quantified the extent to which not all private fields are equally private: for example, work-
related (job status) information is perceived to be more private than information on whether one is
looking for a partner. Practical Implications. There are two areas in which our findings could be
practically applied in the short term. The first is social media marketing. Marketing research has
previously found that individuals high in Openness tend to be innovators and are more likely to
influence others (Amichai- Hamburger and Vinitzky 2010). Since we have found that these
individuals also tend to have less restrictive privacy settings, social media marketing campaigns
would be able to identify influentials by determining which users have less restrictive privacy
settings. The second area is privacy protection. Our results suggest that, by simply using age and
gender, one could offer a preliminary way of personalizing default privacy settings, which users
could then change. One could also imagine building privacy-protecting tools that inform users
about the extent to which they are exposing information that is generally considered to be
sensitive by the community. This tool could also exploit the independence assumption behind IRT
to parallelize the estimation of the model’s parameters and thus be able to monitor who is
exposing privacy sensitive information in real-time.
2.9 Social Media Report and the Law
Social media is an increasingly important means of communicating and connecting with
customersEven if you do not directly engage with social media, you should consider monitoring
activity on social media that relates to your organisation. Not all interaction on social media will
be positive. You should be prepared for active and sometimes critical debate with social media
users. Attempting to suppress it may backfire. Garner support from the social media community
and argue your case on the merits. Care must be taken over social media postings. They could
lead to serious embarrassment or even be actionable. Social media is subject to the same rules
as information published by other means. If you have paid or otherwise arranged for others to
post on your behalf, you should make this clear. Do not try to pass these posts off as genuine
user-generated content. In some cases, you may become liable for user-generated content. You
should consider monitoring usergenerated content or, at the very least, putting an effective notice
and take down procedure in place. If your organisation is listed, you should ensure you comply
with relevant disclosure rules for inside information. In most cases, information should be
disclosed via a regulatory information service and not just via social media. Those using social
media to communicate on behalf of your organisation should be given very clear guidelines and
training [39].
For most companies, some engagement with social media is unavoidable. Regardless of whether
or not a company has an “official” social media page or account, it is very likely that it is the
subject of a number of unofficial pages, its employees are interacting with social media and it is
the subject of lively discussion online. For example, our review of the FTSE 100 Companies’ use
of social media also looked at unofficial Facebook pages, i.e. pages that do not appear to have
been authorised by that company7. These have typically been set up by employees, ex-

employees, customers or pressure groups and are not always complimentary. A key reason to
become involved in social media is engagement. Social media provides a means for that
organisation to directly interact with its customers and to obtain feedback from them. Handled
properly, this can help to build a brand and create a buzz and awareness to help generate new
marketing leads and attract new customers. Perhaps the most beneficial outcomes from this
interaction is social validation – users who start to “organically” advocate your organisation or its
aims and ideals. This “electronic word of mouth” can be a very powerful marketing and
influencing tool. Engagement with users might include commenting on topical issues and the
organisation using social media to put their side of the story across. One example comes from
energy companies who have used their social media presence to comment on rising fuel costs
and discuss the link between costs and wholesale energy prices, as well as providing information
on related topics such as energy efficiency. One exercise most organisations will want to do,
even if they do not directly engage with social media, is to listen to social media conversations to
find out what users are saying about them. There are a number of off-the-shelf and cloud-based
tools that can be used for this purpose. They not only allow monitoring of individual conversations
but also monitoring on a macro-level, for example through sentiment analysis. These tools
automatically analyse the 500 million tweets sent every day and report on how often a topic is
mentioned and whether it is mentioned in a positive or negative context[39]. Finally, social media
is an increasingly important tool for advertising. Some social media platforms are able to build
detailed profiles about their users including their sex, age, location, marital status and
connections. This allows advertising to be targeted precisely. One risk of social media is too
much engagement. Some users are more than happy to share their views in very
uncompromising terms. A thick skin is vital. For example, energy companies using social media
accounts to comment on rising fuel costs have received direct and frank feedback from their
customers. The same is true in financial services and many other industry sectors. Attempting to
suppress critical comment may backfire. Instead you need to engage with customers and argue
your case on the merits. This means your social media team need to be properly resourced. They
will also need to update your social media presence to ensure it remains fresh and manages to
respond to user comments. This engagement with users is a vital part of any social media
strategy, either to build a distinctive brand (as is the case with Tesco Mobile) or to mollify users’
concerns (as is the case with energy companies). Another problem is embarrassing or ill-judged
posts. There are numerous topical examples. For example, Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight,
sent a Tweet in September referring to “boring snoring rachel reeves” (Shadow Chief Secretary to
the Treasury) following her appearance on the programme. He had intended to send a private
message to a friend. The circumstances in which the Tweet was sent are not clear but there have
certainly been other cases in which late night rants on Twitter have caused significant
embarrassment[39]. Some postings may not just be stupid but also actionable. One example is
the notorious Tweet by Sally Bercow: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*”. That
Tweet was made when there was significant speculation about the identity of a senior unnamed
politician who had been engaged in child abuse. The Tweet was false and found to be seriously
defamatory11. It highlights a number of risks with social media. Firstly, the repetition rule applies
such that those repeating a defamatory allegation made by someone else are treated as if they
had made it themselves. This is relevant when retweeting or reposting content. Secondly, while
the courts provide some leeway for the casual nature of social media and the fact that those who
participate “expect a certain amount of repartee or give and take”12, that protection only extends
so far. Civil and criminal liability for social media postings can also arise in a number of other
ways. Paul Chambers was initially convicted for sending a “menacing” message13 after
Tweeting: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit
together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”. He was fined Ј385 and ordered to pay
Ј600 costs. However, this prosecution was overturned on appeal. As with more traditional
formats, sales and marketing use of social media must be decent, honest and truthful. Most of the
specific social media issues arise out of social validation, i.e. users who “organically” advocate
that organisation or its aims and ideals. As this is such a powerful tool there is a real risk of it
being misused. The Office of Fair Trading has already taken enforcement action against an
operator of a commercial blogging network, Handpicked Media, requiring them to clearly identify
when promotional comments have been paid for. This included publication on website blogs and

microblogs, such as Twitter18. It is also important to comply with any sales and promotions rules
for the particular platform being used for that promotion. In the case of Facebook, this includes
prohibitions of promotions appearing on personal timelines, a complete release for Facebook by
each entrant and an acknowledgement that it is not associated with Facebook [39]. Failure to
comply can result in ejection from the platform. Liability can arise not only from content posted by
an organisation itself, but that posted by its users. The sales and promotion rules will
automatically include any content “adopted” by that organisation. What adoption means will vary
depending on the circumstances, but a drinks company adopted the content of a third party
website by linking to it20 and Amazon adopted a book description by including it as part of a
product description21. However, organisations will not generally adopt organic-user generated
reviews by simply allowing them on their sites22. An organisation might also become a data
controller in respect of its personal data posted on its social media page23 or may become a
publisher of that material for defamation purposes, particularly once the organisation has been
notified that the material is defamatory[32]. Organisations should therefore consider if they wish
to actively moderate content on their social media pages and, at the very least, should ensure
that they have an effective notice and take down process to benefit from the various defences this
affords.
Employees and social media
 There is no specific regulation of social media, so existing employment and data protection
laws apply.
 Tell applicants if you intend to use social media for any preemployment vetting. That use
should be proportionate, avoid decisionmaking on discriminatory grounds and steps should be
taken to confirm the accuracy of any findings.
 There is considerable freedom for employers to dictate what constitutes acceptable use by
employees through the use of an internal social media policy. It may be difficult to enforce
appropriate use without such a policy.
 Social media policies should clearly state that they continue to apply to the use of social media
in the employee’s personal capacity, using their own computer equipment and outside of
normal working hours.
 Tell employees if you intend to actively monitor their social media postings or usage. This
should be included in your social media policy.
 The social media policy should be consistent with other policies and disciplinary rules.
 If any disciplinary action is taken in response to social media usage, it should follow approved
procedures and be proportionate, recognising the individual’s freedom of expression.
It is increasingly common for employers to review candidates’ social media footprints as part of
the recruitment process. An ACAS Research Paper in 201329 found that 61% of employers did
so and 15% planned to start doing so in the future. There are a number of reasons why an
employer would want to do this, especially for public-facing roles. A good example of this is the
appointment of the 17-year old Paris Brown as Britain’s first youth police and crime
commissioner. After her appointment she was found to have sent a number of offensive, and
potentially racist, Tweets. The subsequent media firestorm resulted in both her resignation and
criticism of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner for failing to adequately vet her
appointment. However, applicants are not necessarily aware these checks are carried out and do
not appear to agree with them. A 2011 ACAS Research Paper30 found that 58% of applicants
surveyed would be angry, very angry or outraged if an employer refused them a job on the basis
of social media research. Social media vetting also raises a range of risks for employers. Perhaps
the key risk is that the employer obtains information about protected characteristics31 and an
applicant subsequently claims the decision not to hire them was based on those characteristics
and thus discriminatory. Privacy is also important. The Information Commissioner Employment
Practices Code contains a range of general requirements for vetting of employees that are
equally relevant to social media vetting. These include:

 informing applicants that social media vetting will take place. As much as anything this may
encourage the applicant to clean up their social media accounts or alter their privacy settings
to ensure their information is not publicly available;
 giving candidates the opportunity to comment on the accuracy of any findings. This is to
mitigate the risk that some information about that individual may be inaccurate or may be
about someone else with the same name;
 the search should be proportionate. Clearly, those in a prominent, publicfacing role will
demand more scrutiny than those in less important roles; and
 the search should be undertaken as late in the process as possible.
For example, only at the point that the applicant is short-listed, or even conditionally appointed.
Whilst not included in the Code, the Information Commissioner has also warned against gaining
access to an applicant’s social media profile by deception (for example, trying to be become a
“friend” using a fake identity) or asking applicants for their username and password to conduct a
full review of their social media account. There is anecdotal evidence of this sort of forced access
in the US, and several States have legislated against it. Whilst there is no specific legislation in
the UK, it is bad practice and is likely to be a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Most issues have arisen where there has been damage to reputation. A typical example is Weeks
v Everything Everywhere where Mr Weeks made several postings to his wall describing his place
of work as “Dante’s inferno” [39]. Everything Everywhere had a social media policy that expressly
applied to postings in the employee’s own time and included a requirement not to criticise
Everything Everywhere. Mr Weeks was dismissed for gross misconduct, a decision subsequently
upheld by the Employment Tribunal. However, disciplinary action against employees must be in
accordance with established disciplinary policies and procedures. The employer must act fairly
and the response must be one which a reasonable employer could have made. One implication
of this is that the employer must consider actual impact on business rather than assumed or
feared impact. Social media also provides a medium for online bullying and harassment. This
could take a number of forms, including the posting of offensive photos or comments as well as
the risk of social exclusion. This could lead to claims for claims for discrimination or constructive
or unfair dismissal as employers are vicariously liable for the acts of one employee to another in
the course of their employment. Again, it is important that social media and bullying policies are
updated to clearly set out what sort of behaviour is acceptable and extend their scope to cover
cyber-bullying outside of the workplace. However, any subsequent action against the employee
must reflect the seriousness of the alleged behaviour. Excessive usage of social media by
employees can lead to a loss of productivity and overburden the employer’s computer systems.
So this is one area in which the fact postings are made during normal working hours, or using the
employer’s computer systems, is relevant. Some employers have responded to this issue by
blocking access to social media sites at work though this may be unpopular and does not prevent
employees from using social media on their smartphones. Alternatively, employers might want to
monitor their employee’s use of social media, though that will need to comply with data protection
laws as with any other employee monitoring (see below) and employees should be given clear
guidance about what constitutes excessive use. These issues are potentially complicated by the
overlap with human rights law including the right to privacy and freedom of speech, protected in
the European Union by both the European Convention of Human Rights and the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union. These rights might be relied upon by employees to
claim that their social media postings are private and therefore should not be subject to their
employer’s disciplinary policy. Many social media accounts can be set up so that posting and
other information are only available to that person’s “friends” and, indeed, in many cases, the
employer only becomes aware of the offending posting when the “friend” reports it to them.
However, these arguments have fairly limited success. Equally, whilst most cases seem to arise
from “friends” notifying the employer of offending content, if an employer wants to actively monitor
its employees’ social media postings it should respect their right to privacy and comply with data
protection laws. Whilst there is no direct guidance from the Information Commissioner, this is
likely to be subject to Part 3 of his Employment Practices Guide: Monitoring at work. This
suggests, amongst other things, notifying employees through an appropriate policy and carrying

out a privacy impact assessment. Finally, an employee might also argue that restrictions on his
use of social media infringe his right to freedom of expression. This right was considered in Smith
v Trafford House Trust [2012] EWHC 3221. Mr Smith was disciplined for setting out his negative
views on the proposal to introduce gay marriage in the UK via his Facebook account. His
comments, which were clear, reasoned and unaggressive in nature, caused upset to a fellow
employee who was also a “friend” on Facebook. When the “friend” drew the employer’s attention
to Mr Smith’s comments on gay marriage the employer took disciplinary action against him on the
basis that the employer was a housing trust which included gay people among its clients. It
therefore considered that his statements were inappropriate and that disciplinary action was
justified as they breached its Code of Conduct that stated that employees should not “promote
their political or religious views”.
Corporate social media accounts Ownership of corporate social media accounts is relatively
straightforward. The starting point is to identify what accounts your organisation currently owns
and what accounts you want to own. Acquiring new accounts for more popular social media sites
may give rise to “name-squatting” problems, similar to those that arise in relation to domain
names. Whilst most social media sites have express squatting policies40, that does not help
where there is genuine conflicting use. Certainly, if you are one of the many people to
congratulate John Lewis on its recent #bareandhare Christmas adverts and you sent your Tweet
to the handle @johnlewis, you might be surprised to get a response from the computer science
professor, John Lewis of Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. It’s also sensible to control passwords to
those accounts and ensure they are not held by one person alone. This will help to manage the
risk of an employee leaving with control of that corporate account or deliberately sending
unauthorised messages. For example, this could have avoided mild embarrassment at the
insolvent retailer HMV after its social media planner used its Twitter account to provide real-time
updates on the dismissal of its staff. The Courts are also likely to be sympathetic to claims that a
corporate account has been misused or misappropriated. For example, a company successfully
obtained an injunction preventing its ex-employees from using a corporate LinkedIn group in a
competing business[35].
Personal social media accounts Employee social media accounts are more difficult to deal
with. The idea that a company “owns” its employees’ social media accounts is conceptually
difficult, as its contents, connections and interactions are normally personal to that employee.
Quite apart from this conceptual difficulty of corporate ownership of personal social media
accounts, there are also difficulties in identifying what legal rights exist in those accounts and
therefore in protecting them in a meaningful way. An analysis of one professional social network
(overleaf), LinkedIn, illustrates these difficulties.
Is social media compatible with privacy? New technology has challenged traditional concepts
of privacy for well over a century. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis’ seminal 1890 paper on
“The Right to Privacy” grappled with the prospect of “numerous mechanical devices” and
“instantaneous photographs” creating a world in which “what is whispered in the closet shall be
proclaimed from the house-tops”. Social media, smartphones and other wearable technology,
such as Google Glass, has brought this threat to life. In the intervening hundred years, the law
has evolved to provide generalised rights to privacy or specific data protection laws or both. New
technologies are also redefining social attitudes to privacy. Many users disclose significant
amounts of personal information about themselves on social media. Indeed, for many, the very
purpose of social media is to provide an endless stream of information about themselves from the
trivial, to the intimate to the tragic. However, and perhaps counterintuitively, users remain very
concerned about their privacy and want to keep tight control of their information.
Big Data Social media generates huge volumes of information. Facebook alone generates 500
terabytes of data a day, including 2.7 billion new likes and 300 million new photos. This is fertile
ground for Big Data analysis. To the extent that this involves personal information, it will be
subject to privacy and data protection legislation, a question European privacy regulators
grappled with earlier this year in its Opinion on purpose limitation45. For the regulators the key

distinction is whether the analysis is just intended to detect general trends and correlations (for
example, sentiment analysis) or is intended to support measures in respect of an individual.
Unsurprisingly, the former is unlikely to be objectionable so long as there are proper safeguards
in place. The regulators stress the need for “functional separation” such that the output of this
analysis cannot be linked back to an individual. In contrast, if the analysis could be used to
support measures in respect of an individual, then greater care will be needed. The regulators
have an antipathy for profiling, e.g. direct marketing, behavioural advertisement, data-brokering,
location-based advertising or trackingbased digital market research, and suggest it would “almost
always” require specific, informed and unambiguous consent. The legitimacy of other uses will
depend on the circumstances but, to a large degree, will depend on whether the new Big Data
analysis is compatible with the purpose of the original social media posting.
Future of data protection regulation The European Union intends to deal with many of the
challenges raised by social media through its proposed General Data Protection Regulation. A
draft of the regulation was issued by the European Commission in January 2012 and is now
being debated by the European Parliament and European Council, with the European Parliament
voting through its draft of the regulation in October 2013. The regulation contains a number of
provisions that are relevant to social media. For example, it contains restrictions on “profiling” that
are likely to require consent for many types of profiling, mirroring the position already advocated
by many European regulators. It also contains a “right to be forgotten”. This provides enhanced
rights to ask that personal data be deleted. It is intended to deal with the problem that the internet
may reveal information about individuals that is unfair, out of date or just plain wrong. However,
this right is nuanced and is subject to a number of carve outs, such as where it would conflict with
another person’s freedom of expression. This will make it difficult to apply in practice. For
example, while it should be easier for an individual to remove material they have posted about
themselves, forcing someone else to remove information they have posted about the individual
will involve a harder tussle between competing fundamental rights.
2.10 Social Media Monitoring
Political communication has become a major focus in the growing field of social media studies.
Re-searchers across disciplines and across the globe analyze political online communication with
a spe-cific focus on elections – particularly since election campaigns increasingly take place in
social media, a process that was prominently recognized during the US election campaign in
2008.
Our goal is to examine various aspects of the communication structures in online media and how
such data can add new insights in comparison to existing data from surveys and (traditional)
media anal-yses. By collecting data from both Twitter and Facebook we also add new dimensions
to current stud-ies on social media use during elections. Our approach is situated in the broader
framework of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), a long term research project that
examines the German federal elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017 with the aim to track the German
electoral process over an extended period of time (Schmitt-Beck, Rattinger, Roßteutscher &
Weßels, 2010). By collecting Twit-ter and Facebook data about the German Bundestag elections
we can supplement traditional research data as used in the GLES. Specifically, the candidate
study of the GLES (based on interviews with candidates) can be compared to the actual behavior
of candidates on Twitter and Facebook. Similarly, the media corpus analysis of the GLES
(analyzing different mass media channels) may be compared with the social media corpus.
The role of online communication and internet technology in German politics has also been
studied from different perspectives (Albrecht & Schweizer, 2011; Jungherr & Schoen, 2013;
Meckel et al., 2012). The German federal government structure allows to compare elections
across the different states, like Elter (2013) has done for seven different German federal state
elections. The project “Po-litical Deliberation on the Internet: Forms and Functions of Digital
Discourse Based on the Mi-croblogging System Twitter” also monitors several regional as well as
the various state elections and analyzes the broader impact of Twitter on political debates in
Germany (Thimm, Einspänner & Dang-Anh, 2012). Siri and Seßler (2013) as well as Thamm and

Bleier (2013) focus on a set of politicians rather than on selected events like elections. Dang-
Xuan et al. (2013) combine the two dimensions and take a closer look at influential individuals
during an electoral event in order to investigate emotionali-ty and discussed topics. There are a
number of ongoing projects collecting tweets around the 2013 German Bundestag election and
some new publications can be expected in the near future.
Previous research has also been inspired by the challenge to use social media to predict election
re-sults (e.g., Birmingham & Smeaton, 2011; Tumasjan et al., 2011) which has resulted in a
considerable amount of skepticism and some counter examples (e.g., Jungherr, Jürgens &
Schoen, 2012; Metaxas, Mustafaraj & Gayo-Avello, 2011). Predictions are a particular case that
shows how selected methods and applied modes for data collection (e.g., based upon keywords
vs. users, selection of time span) influence the potential outcome of a study. Much more research
is conducted, however, not to predict election outcomes but to investigate the roles of politicians,
media and publics from various perspec-tives, for example, by focusing on deliberation and
participation. In all cases, however, the chosen methods highly influence what types of
conclusions can be drawn. Current approaches comprise quan-titative analyses (e.g., number of
interactions, network analyses), qualitative analyses (e.g., content analysis of posts) and
combined methods – some of them automated, others carried out manually. In all approaches the
modes of data collection also have an effect on the scope and limits of the study; if data collection
from Twitter is, for example, based on one single hashtag, one needs to be aware that parts of
the conversation are lost, as the same topic is likely to be discussed under the heading of dif-
ferent hashtags and not every user includes the same hashtag despite the fact that he or she is
referring to the same discussion or topic [40].
Before actual social media data can be collected, researchers need to decide about the scope of
the data corpus. Therefore, we had to construct a list of names of the relevant candidates. This
list was the starting point for our search of the social media accounts for both corpus 1 and 2.
Relevance was de-fined as the reasonable likelihood of becoming a member of the Bundestag
(see appendix for more details). We refer to this list as the list of candidates although the
complete number of overall candi-dates was higher. The data was collected in a two-stage
process.
If the candidate had an account which he or she used for private purposes in addition to his
profes-sional account3, only the professional account was included in our list. During our search
for the ac-counts, this problem occurred primarily with Facebook accounts. Since a list of
candidates of the 2009 Bundestag election was already available from the 2009 GLES candidate
study, we also searched Facebook accounts for these candidates.
Since Twitter is a fast moving medium which takes up and redistributes new information quickly, it
is likely that conventional media also use Twitter as a data source. We assume that conventional
media select information from Twitter and refine and redistribute the topics over the more
conventional media. Corpus 3 was designed to reflect this. We refer to the individuals who would
follow such an information gathering approach as “gatekeepers” and searched for them among
journalists and editors. In a first step, we identified journalists and editors working in internal
political divisions of national daily newspapers and magazines (see appendix) and searched their
Twitter accounts. The leading principle in selecting the media sources was whether they were
included in the print media content analysis of GLES. The result of this first step is a list of all
Twitter gatekeepers of conventional media.
In a second step, we retrieved all accounts that the gatekeepers followed. The assumption behind
this approach is that the gatekeepers themselves track what we call “information authorities”. The
infor-mation authorities push topics into Twitter and it is likely that they play a central role in
shaping the agenda on Twitter. In order to be counted in the list of information authorities we
introduced the crite-rion that at least 25 percent of the gatekeepers have to follow the account.
The list is extended by accounts which are followed by at least 25 percent of the journalists or 25
percent of the editors.

Applying the list of candidate names which have an active professional Twitter account in the
2013 elections we used the Twitter streaming API4 to receive messages directly from these
candidates as well as the retweets of and replies to their messages. We also collected the
@messages/mentions and messages which included a hashtag from our lists. For that purpose
we developed a software compo-nent called TweetObserver that is instantly reading the stream
from Twitter resulting from our query in a stable manner. The software needs to register as a
Twitter application in order to continuously receive update events for the requested items from the
Twitter service. For each account the search query includes the account ID and the name, so that
the application is geared towards receiving tweets from a certain account as well as any
mentioning of its name. The software was implemented in Java and relied on the Twitter library
twitter4j5. The software is connected to a MongoDB6 in which we store the data in JSON format.
In the following we describe the data structure of the tweets in the Twitter data set.
Although various research projects are currently using social media data, and particularly data
collect-ed from Twitter, almost no datasets are available for secondary analysis and replication.
This is partly due to the complicated legal environment in which social media is situated. The
terms of use of com-panies generating social media data especially add to this effect. In terms of
sustainability and verifia-bility of research it seems desirable, however, to find feasible solutions
for long-term archiving and sharing of social media datasets.
Consequently, we outline requirements and conditions for archiving and distribution of social
media datasets. For GESIS this means assessing the scope and requirements for archiving a
social media dataset and identifying the differences to survey data which the GESIS data archive
is used to dealing with and for which we can rely on well-developed tools for archiving,
documentation and modes of distribution.
In the following we outline three important areas in which the collected data pose challenges for
ar-chiving and distribution.
Documentation, data structure, tools: Social media research so far is still in its beginnings and
conse-quently lacks certain standards and methodologies. This applies to both data collection
and data analy-sis. In order to enable re-use of archived datasets, one needs a good description
of the available data and the data collection process has to be carefully documented, including
the selected tools for gather-ing the data, data cleaning strategies and data formats. We expect
that this document helps to under-stand what we collected and how we collected our data. We
hope that it enables other researchers to compare our approach with others to understand the
differences with other datasets that have recently been collected by other projects researching
the German election through Twitter or Facebook.
2. XKEYSCORE TECHNOLOGY
3.1 Xkeyscore
XKeyscore or XKEYSCORE (abbreviated as XKS) is a formerly secret computer system first
used by the United States National Security Agency for searching and analyzing Internet data it
collects worldwide every day. The program has been shared with other spy agencies including
Australia's Defence Signals Directorate, New Zealand's Government Communications Security
Bureau and the German Bundesnachrichtendienst.
The program's existence was publicly revealed in July 2013 by Edward Snowden in The Sydney
Morning Herald and O Globo newspapers, though the codename is mentioned in earlier articles,
and like many other codenames can also be seen in job postings, and in the online resumes of
employees.
XKeyscore is a complicated system and various authors have different interpretations about its
actual capabilities. Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald explained XKeyscore as being a

system which enables almost unlimited surveillance of anyone anywhere in the world, while NSA
said that usage of the system is limited and restricted.
According to The Washington Post and national security reporter Marc Ambinder, XKeyscore is
an NSA data-retrieval system which consists of a series of user interfaces, backend databases,
servers and software that selects certain types of data and metadata that the NSA has already
collected using other methods.
An NSA presentation about XKeyscore from 2008 says that it's a "DNI Exploitation
System/Analytic Framework". DNI stands for Digital Network Intelligence, which means
intelligence derived from internet traffic. In an interview with the German Norddeutscher
Rundfunk, Edward Snowden said about XKeyscore: "It’s a front end search engine" [41].
Data sources. XKeyscore consists of over 700 servers at approximately 150 sites where the
NSA collects data, like "US and allied military and other facilities as well as US embassies and
consulates" in many countries around the world. Among the facilities involved in the program are
four bases in Australia and one in New Zealand.
According to an NSA presentation from 2008, these XKeyscore servers are fed with data from the
following collection systems:
 F6 (Special Collection Service) – joint operation of the CIA and NSA that carries out
clandestine operations including espionage on foreign diplomats and leaders.
 FORNSAT – which stands for "foreign satellite collection", and refers to intercepts from
satellites.
 SSO (Special Source Operations) – a division of the NSA that cooperates with
telecommunication providers.
In a single, undated slide published by Swedish media in December 2013, the following additional
data sources for XKeyscore are mentioned:
 Overhead – intelligence derived from American spy planes, drones and satellites.
 Tailored Access Operations – a division of the NSA that deals with hacking and cyberwarfare.
 FISA – all types of surveillance approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
 Third party – foreign partners of the NSA such as the (signals) intelligence agencies of
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, etc.
From these sources, XKeyscore stores "full-take data", which are indexed by plug-ins that extract
certain types of metadata (like phone numbers, e-mail addresses, log-ins, and user activity) and
index them in metadata tables, which can be queried by analysts. XKeyscore has been integrated
with MARINA, which is NSA's database for internet metadata.
However, the system continuously gets so much Internet data that it can be stored only for short
periods of time. Content data remain on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is
stored for up to 30 days.[41] A detailed commentary on an NSA presentation published in The
Guardian in July 2013 cites a document published in 2008 declaring that "At some sites, the
amount of data we receive per day (20+ terabytes) can only be stored for as little as 24 hours."
Capabilities
For analysts, XKeyscore provides a "series of viewers for common data types", which allows
them to query terabytes of raw data gathered at the aforementioned collection sites. This enables
them to find targets that cannot be found by searching only the metadata, and also to do this
against data sets that otherwise would have been dropped by the front-end data processing
systems. According to a slide from an XKeyscore presentation, NSA collection sites select and
forward less than 5% of the internet traffic to the PINWALE database for internet content.

Because XKeyscore holds raw and unselected communications traffic, analysts can not only
perform queries using "strong selectors" like e-mail addresses, but also using "soft selectors", like
keywords, against the body texts of e-mail and chat messages and digital documents and
spreadsheets in English, Arabic and Chinese.
This is useful because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are
anonymous" and therefore those activities can't be found by just looking for e-mail addresses of a
target. When content has been found, the analyst might be able to find new intelligence or a
strong selector, which can then be used for starting a traditional search[42].
Besides using soft selectors, analysts can also use the following other XKeyscore capabilities:
 Look for the usage of Google Maps and terms entered into a search engine by known targets
looking for suspicious things or places.
 Look for "anomalies" without any specific person attached, like detecting the nationality of
foreigners by analyzing the language used within intercepted emails. An example would be a
German speaker in Pakistan. The Brazilian paper O Globo claims that this has been applied to
Latin America and specifically to Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela.[43]
 Detect people who use encryption by do searches like "all PGP usage in Iran". The caveat
given is that very broad queries can result in too much data to transmit back to the analyst.
 Showing the usage of Virtual private networks (VPNs) and machines that can potentially be
hacked via TAO.
 Track the source and authorship of a document that has passed through many hands.
 Most of these things cannot be detected by other NSA tools because they operate with strong
selectors (like e-mail and IP addresses and phone numbers) and the raw data volumes are
too high to forward them to other NSA databases.[42]
In 2008, it was planned to add a number of new capabilities in the future, like:
 VoIP
 More networking protocols[clarify]
 Exif tags, which often include geolocation (GPS) data.
The NSA slides published in The Guardian during 2013 claimed that XKeyscore had played a role
in capturing 300 terrorists by 2008 [41]. This claim could not be substantiated as the redacted
documents do not cite instances of terrorist interventions.
A 2011 report from the NSA unit in Griesheim (Germany) says that XKeyscore made it easier and
more efficient to target surveillance. Previously, analysis often accessed data they were not
interested in. XKeyscore allowed them to focus on the intended topics, while ignoring unrelated
data. XKeyscore also proved to be an outstanding tool for tracking active groups associated with
the Anonymous movement in Germany, because it allows for searching on patterns, rather than
particular individuals. An analyst is able to determine when targets research new topics, or
develop new behaviors[42].
To create additional motivation, the NSA incorporated various features from computer games into
the program. For instance, analysts who were especially good at using XKeyscore could acquire
"skilz" points and "unlock achievements." The training units in Griesheim were apparently
successful and analysts there had achieved the "highest average of skilz points" compared with
all other NSA departments participating in the training program.
A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior
authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories
of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "widestreaching"

system for developing intelligence from the internet. The latest revelations will add to the intense
public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as
senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing
classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone
records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.
FIGURE 2: The Query Hierarchy [41].
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine
enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification
for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is
processed. Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-
time" interception of an individual's internet activity. Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain
an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no
such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets.
But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US
persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying
information, such as their email or In a second Guardian interview in June, Snowden elaborated
on his statement about being able to read any individual's email if he had their email address. He
said the claim was based in part on the email search capabilities of XKeyscore, which Snowden
says he was authorized to use while working as a Booz Allen contractor for the NSA. One top-
secret document describes how the program "searches within bodies of emails, webpages and
documents", including the "To, From, CC, BCC lines" and the 'Contact Us' pages on websites".
To search for emails, an analyst using XKS enters the individual's email address into a simple
online search form, along with the "justification" for the search and the time period for which the
emails are sought. The analyst then selects which of those returned emails they want to read by
opening them in NSA reading software. The system is similar to the way in which NSA analysts

generally can intercept the communications of anyone they select, including, as one NSA
document put it, "communications that transit the United States and communications that
terminate in the United States". The quantity of communications accessible through programs
such as XKeyscore is staggeringly large. One NSA report from 2007 estimated that there were
850bn "call events" collected and stored in the NSA databases, and close to 150bn internet
records. Each day, the document says, 1-2bn records were added. William Binney, a former NSA
mathematician, said last year that the agency had "assembled on the order of 20tn transactions
about US citizens with other US citizens", an estimate, he said, that "only was involving phone
calls and emails". A 2010 Washington Post article reported that "every day, collection systems at
the [NSA] intercept and store 1.7bn emails, phone calls and other type of communications." The
XKeyscore system is continuously collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for
short periods of time. Content remains on the system for only three to five days, while metadata is
stored for 30 days. One document explains: "At some sites, the amount of data we receive per
day (20+ terabytes). To solve this problem, the NSA has created a multi-tiered system that allows
analysts to store "interesting" content in other databases, such as one named Pinwale which can
store material for up to five years[41]. It is the databases of XKeyscore, one document shows,
that now contain the greatest amount of communications data collected by the NSA can only be
stored for as little as 24 hours." IP address, is known to the analyst (Fig.3).
FIGURE 3: XKS and Sessions [41].
Legal v technical restrictions. While the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 requires an
individualized warrant for the targeting of US persons, NSA analysts are permitted to intercept the
communications of such individuals without a warrant if they are in contact with one of the NSA's
foreign targets. The ACLU's deputy legal director, Jameel Jaffer, told the Guardian last month
that national security officials expressly said that a primary purpose of the new law was to enable
them to collect large amounts of Americans' communications without individualized warrants.

Additional food for thought — that many have been seriously concerned about lately as well — is
this all-powerful digital dragnet may explain why generals to senators to candidates have been
compromised. It may well explain why votes and positions have become so erratic and mis-
aligned with expectations. From McCain to Roberts to Petraeus — if you are on the wrong side of
the power curve, you lose.
Regardless your political persuasion, your ideological opposite could be the current or next
POTUS, or in any other position of power and use this ultimate spy power to destroy you and
your position. Political donors can be easily destroyed. Operatives destroyed. No person, no
entity, no one is safe as long as this power exists and is unchecked.
Therefore, our Republic hangs in the balance controlled by the few and the powerful, which
means — we really do not have a Republic any longer — regardless the perception that our
Republic remains. We, in fact, can only have a de-facto totalitarian oligarchy as long as this
power remains.
Finally, by definition of my beliefs and convictions, the fact that the aforementioned is true means
I am a de-facto enemy of this oligarchy as I want to remove its power — its ability to completely
control. What does this say for my future as long as this power exists? What does it say for your
future if you are a true American? It says the days of any true Americans — who claim their
birthright of Constitutionally protected individual liberty, privacy and rights to due process — are
numbered. And, it is only a matter of time.
FIGURE 4. Facebook Spying [41].
And, of course, the NSA is pushing back. Yet, their denial and later admission, denial and later
admission and apology pattern, is not stellar. We must push for clear and complete oversight
down to the gnat’s eyelash on any of NSA mining capabilities. Else, all trust in government is
gone.

Knowing what I know, I highly doubt the complete veracity of these agencies in their responses.
They are CYA oriented and have inordinate power. Without a clear, citizen-verified adherence to
our Constitutional protections, I will have no confidence:
‘The implication that NSA’s collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false,’ the agency said.
‘NSA’s activities are focused and specifically deployed against — and only against — legitimate
foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information
necessary to protect our nation and its interests.’ The agency said those with access to the
system are trained on their ‘ethical and legal obligations.’ The agency complained that the
ongoing leaks continue to jeopardize security. The statement said the programs as a whole have
helped defend the nation, and that as of 2008, ‘there were over 300 terrorists captured using
intelligence generated from XKEYSCORE. “[44].
“We will keep you safe”, said Hitler, Lenin, Mao, and now, our U.S. government. On the contrary,
here in America, it is “We the People” who keep ourselves safe. First, with our 2nd amendment
protected natural rights to self-defense and formation of state militias to repel government
tyranny. Second, we keep ourselves safe with the volunteering of our own brave and courageous
men and women, sons and daughters to serve in our armed forces only to fight real aggressors
against our country. And, third, with those we elect to serve in public office and the agencies of
public office, to uphold the line and letter of the U.S. Constitution that, first and foremost, protects
each individual’s liberties and natural rights, and then, within its constrained war powers,
authorizes the legitimate repelling of real aggressors against us.
No, we as a free society do not need the ‘government’s’ protection. As long as we are a free
people, we never will. Unlike any other nation in history, our government serves at our will. We
do, however, need those who would betray our only purpose as a nation — stepping beyond the
boundaries of our individual liberties and natural rights — to be prosecuted as traitors to ‘We the
People’ of America. “Thanks, but no thanks, for your offer,” say We the People, “we will keep
ourselves safe.”
3.2 Case to Think: Mr. Snowden Interview Speaking about Xkeyscore
Main concepts of Snowden’s Interview are [45]:
 The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post World War II era where the Anglophone
countries are the major powers banded together to sort of co-operate and share the costs of
intelligence gathering infrastructure. So we have the UK’s GCHQ, we have the US NSA, we
have Canada’s C-Sec, we have the Australian Signals Intelligence Directorate and we have
New Zealand’s DSD. What the result of this was over decades and decades what sort of a
supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn’t answer to the laws of its own countries.
 If you ask the governments about this directly they would deny it and point to policy
agreements between the members of the Five Eyes saying that they won’t spy on each other’s
citizens but there are a couple of key points there. One is that the way they define spying is
not the collection of data. The GCHQ is collecting an incredible amount of data on British
Citizens just as the National Security Agency is gathering enormous amounts of data on US
citizens. What they are saying is that they will not then target people within that data. They
won’t look for UK citizens or British citizens. In addition the policy agreements between them
that say British won’t target US citizens, US won’t target British citizens are not legally binding.
The actual memorandums of agreement state specifically on that that they are not intended to
put legal restriction on any government. They are policy agreements that can be deviated from
or broken at any time. So if they want to on a British citizen they can spy on a British citizen
and then they can even share that data with the British government that is itself forbidden from
spying on UK citizens. So there is a sort of a trading dynamic there but it’s not, it’s not open,
it’s more of a nudge and wink and beyond that the key is to remember the surveillance and the
abuse doesn’t occur when people look at the data it occurs when people gather the data in the
first place.

 You could read anyone’s email in the world. Anybody you’ve got email address for, any
website you can watch traffic to and from it, any computer that an individual sits at you can
watch it, any laptop that you’re tracking you can follow it as it moves from place to place
throughout the world. It’s a one stop shop for access to the NSA’s information. And what’s
more you can tag individuals using “XKeyscore”. Let’s say you saw you once and I thought
what you were doing was interesting or you just have access that’s interesting to me, let’s say
you work at a major German corporation and you want access to that network, you can track
your username on a website on a form somewhere, you can track your real name, you can
track associations with your friends and you can build what’s called a fingerprint which is
network activity unique to you which means anywhere you go in the world anywhere you try to
sort of hide your online presence hide your identity, the NSA can find you and anyone who’s
allowed to use this or who the NSA shares their software with can do the same thing.
Germany is one of the countries that have access to “XKeyscore”.
 The contracting culture of the national security community in the United States is a complex
topic. It’s driven by a number of interests between primarily limiting the number of direct
government employees at the same time as keeping lobbying groups in Congress typically
from very well funded businesses such as Booze Allen Hamilton. The problem there is you
end up in a situation where government policies are being influenced by private corporations
who have interests that are completely divorced from the public good in mind. The result of
that is what we saw at Booze Allen Hamilton where you have private individuals who have
access to what the government alleges were millions and millions of records that they could
walk out the door with at any time with no accountability, no oversight, no auditing, the
government didn’t even know they were gone.
 The NSA goes where the data is. If the NSA can pull text messages out of telecommunication
networks in China, they can probably manage to get facebook messages out of Germany.
Ultimately the solution to that is not to try to stick everything in a walled garden. Although that
does raise the level of sophistication and complexity of taking the information. It’s also much
better simply to secure the information internationally against everyone rather than playing
“let’s move the data”. Moving the data isn’t fixing the problem. Securing the data is the
problem.
 It’s becoming increasingly clear that these leaks didn’t cause harm in fact they served the
public good. Because of that it will be very difficult to maintain sort of an ongoing campaign of
persecution against someone who the public agrees serve the public interest.
3.3 US surveillance programs and their impact on EU citizens' fundamental rights
A careful analysis of US privacy laws compared to the EU Data Protection framework shows that
the former allows few practical options for the individual to live their lives with selfdetermination
over their personal data. However a core effect of Data Protection law is that if data is copied
from one computer to another, then providing the right legal conditions for transfer exist, the
individual cannot object on the grounds that their privacy risk increases through every such
proliferation of “their” data5. This holds true if the data is copied onto a thousand machines in one
organization, or spread onward to a thousand organisations, or to a different legal regime in a
Third Country. The individual cannot stop this once they lose possession of their data, whereas
for example if the data was “intellectual property”, then a license to reproduce the data would be
necessary by permission. We are all the authors of our lives, and it seems increasingly
anomalous that Internet companies lay claim to property rights in the patterns of data minutely
recording our thoughts and behaviour, yet ask the people who produce this data to sacrifice their
autonomy and take privacy on trust. The EU Data Protection framework in theory is categorically
better than the US for privacy, but in practice it is hard to find any real-world Internet services that
implement DP principles by design, conveniently and securely. Privacy governance around the
world has evolved around two competing models. Europe made some rights of individuals
inalienable and assigned responsibilities to Data Controller organizations, whereas in the United
States companies inserted waivers of rights into Terms and Conditions contracts allowing
exploitation of data in exhaustive ways (known as the ‘Notice-and-Choice” principle). The PRISM
crisis arose directly from the emerging dominance over the last decade of “free” services
operated from remote warehouses full of computer servers, by companies predominantly based

in US jurisdiction, that has become known as Cloud computing. To explain this relationship we
must explore details of the US framework of national security law[51]. After the terrorist attacks of
September 11th 2001, privacy and data protection has been deeply challenged by exceptional
measures taken in the name of security and the fight against terrorism. The USA PATRIOT Act of
2001 was enacted by the US Congress on October 26, 2001, and its primary effect was to greatly
extend law enforcement agencies’ powers for gathering domestic intelligence inside the US. The
revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act of 2008 (FAA) created a power of
mass-surveillance specifically targeted at the data of non-US persons located outside the US.
Numerous new surveillance programmes and modalities were further suggested to President
Bush by NSA Director Gen. Hayden, without explicit authorization under statute, and approval
was nevertheless given. Those programmes were retroactively deemed lawful in secret
memoranda prepared by a relatively junior legal14 official, under the Authorisation to Use Military
Force (AUMF) for the war in Afghanistan and associated War on Terror operations. Amongst
these programmes was one codenamed Stellar Wind which involved placing fibreoptic cable
“splitters” in major Internet switching centres, and triaging the enormous volumes of traffic in real-
time with a small high-performance scanning computer (known as a deep-packet inspection box),
which would send data filtered by this means back to the NSA. An AT&T technical supervisor in
the San Francisco office was asked to assist in constructing such a facility (“Room 641A”) and
was concerned that this activity manifestly broke US Constitutional protections, because the
cable carried domestic as well as international traffic. He took his story with documentation to the
New York Times, which did not publish15 the story for a year, until 2005 after the re-election of
President Bush [48]. The complexity of inter-related US legislation pertaining to ‘foreign
intelligence information’, and its interpretations by secret courts and executive legal memoranda,
has led to unlawful practices affecting both US citizens and non-US citizens. The consequences
of this legal uncertainty, and lack of Fourth Amendment protection for non-US citizens, means
that no privacy rights for non-Americans are recognized by the US authorities under FISA The
accelerating and already widespread use of Cloud Computing further undermines data protection
for EU citizens. A review of the mechanisms that have been put in place in the EU for data export
to protect EU citizens’ rights shows that they actually function as loopholes. entrusted to, or
necessary to use a service provided by, a “third party” such as a bank or telephone company,
there was no reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore no warrant was required by the
Fourth Amendment, which protects privacy against unreasonable searches without a particular
warrant, issued on “probable cause” (meaning evidence of a 50% likelihood of criminality).
Consequently such business records as credit-card transactions, bank statements, and itemized
phone bills can be obtained by law enforcement authorities through administrative procedures
authorized by the law enforcement agency rather than an independent judge, and no “probable
cause” has to be evidenced. This doctrine has been subject to continuous criticism throughout the
development of mobile communications which track individuals' location, Internet services which
record website browsing and search-engine activity, and social networks in which merely the
structure and dynamics of social interaction reveal intimate28 details of private life29. Obviously
these conditions could not have been foreseen by courts in the 1970s, yet every challenge so far
to overturn the doctrine has been unsuccessful. Such privacy concerns were increased by s.215
of the PATRIOT Act 2001, that attracted considerable controversy. It allows security authorities to
obtain “tangible” business records from companies under a secret judicial order. Although secret
non-judicial orders to obtain “non-content” data (i.e. “metadata”) were already available under a
procedure called a 'National Security Letter', s.215 is applicable to any kind of “tangible” data held
by a great variety of private-sector businesses. After the first revelations about the PRISM
programme, Gen. Alexander (Director of the NSA) confirmed over two public hearings of
Congressional intelligence review committees that the NSA collects (both domestic and
international) telephone call metadata from all major carriers and maintains a database of all such
calls for five years30. By the NSA's own account it uses this data for the sole purpose of deciding
whether there is a “reasonable articulable suspicion” of a connection to a terrorist investigation.
The database is searched for whether a candidate target telephone number is within “three hops”
(i.e. when there exists a “chain” of calls sometime over a 5 year period) to a nexus of numbers
previously associated with terrorism. It is striking that so far in the evolution of the ‘Snowden
affair’, domestic US political commentary has almost exclusively referred to the rights of

Americans. This is not a rhetorical trope and is meant literally - no reciprocity ought to be
assumed (in law or popular discourse) which extends rights further40. The rights of non-
Americans have scarcely been mentioned in the US media41 or legislature. It is even more
surprising that careful analysis of the FISA 702 provisions clearly indicates that there exist two
different regimes of data processing and protection: one for US citizens and residents
(“USPERs”), another one without any protection whatsoever for non-US citizens and residents
(“non- USPERs”). Cloud providers are transnational companies subject to conflicts of
international public law. Which law they choose to obey will be governed by the penalties
applicable and exigencies of the situation, and in practice the predominant allegiances of the
company management. So far, almost all the attention on such conflicts has been focussed on
the US PATRIOT Act, but there has been virtually no discussion of the implications of the US
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment Act of 2008. §1881a of FAA for the first time
created a power of mass-surveillance specifically targeted at the data of non-US persons located
outside the US, which applies to Cloud computing. Although all of the constituent definitions had
been defined in earlier statutes, the conjunction of all of these elements was new.....the most
significant change escaped any comment or public debate altogether. The scope of surveillance
was extended beyond interception of communications, to include any data in public cloud
computing as well. This change occurred merely by incorporating “remote computing services”
into the definition of an “electronic communication service provider”. The EU/US Safe Harbour
Agreement of 2000 implemented a process for US companies to comply with the EU Directive
95/46/EC on the protection of personal data. If a US company makes a declaration of adherence
to the Safe Harbour Principles then an EU Controller may export data to that company (although
a written contract is still required). Sometimes described as a 'simultaneous unilateral
declaration', the Agreement left ambiguous whether it covered the situation of remote processing
of data inside the US, on instruction from Controllers inside the EU. Especially in the case of
Cloud computing, such remote processors were most unlikely to be capable of giving effect to the
Safe Harbour Principles, which, the US argued, thus became void. Did the deal still apply, for
unrestricted export of EU data for remote processing under essentially a self-regulatory
framework? In 2000, the EU Commission over-ruled objections from civil society and some DPAs,
to conclude a deal. The US negotiators in the Department of Commerce worked closely with US
trade lobbies, on a series of “FAQs” for US companies to interpret the Agreement to marginalize
EU privacy rights, building in loopholes on such questions as what counted as identifiable data,
refusing rights of access, and avoiding any duty of finality or right-of-deletion. In this light, BCR-
for-processors can be seen as an expedient strategy both for the Commission and for Data
Protection Authorities (DPAs) who wish to maintain the semblance of legal control over EU data,
and for the Cloud providers who find the existing EU Data Protection regime generally
inconvenient, especially for tax purposes69. The Commission promoted the legal status of the
BCR-for-processors concept in the text of the new draft Regulation. Subsequently, national DPAs
would have no alternative but to accept their validity once issued. So far, only a few dozen of the
existing Controller BCRs have been approved, and the standard of compliance already is not
reassuring [49]. the mechanism of BCRs-for-processors, apparently tailor-made to ease the flow
of EU data into Third Country cloud computing, is not sufficient to safeguard rights. It contains a
loophole that condones unlawful surveillance. It is thus quite surprising that at various stages of
development, the concept has been endorsed by the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party
(WP29), the European Data Protection Supervisor79 (EDPS), and the French Commission
Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) which led their formulation. No evidence has
emerged that these DPAs understood the structural shift of data sovereignty implied by Cloud
computing. Rather, an unrealistic and legalistic view has allowed the protection of EU citizens to
be neglected [51]. Prominent notices should be displayed by every US web site offering services
in the EU to inform consent to collect data from EU citizens. The users should be made aware
that the data may be subject to surveillance (under FISA 702) by the US government for any
purpose which furthers US foreign policy. A consent requirement will raise EU citizen awareness
and favour growth of services solely within EU jurisdiction. This will thus have economic impact
on US business and increase pressure on the US government to reach a settlement. Since the
other main mechanisms for data export (model contracts, Safe Harbour) are not protective
against FISA or PATRIOT, they should be revoked and re-negotiated. In any case, the

requirement above for informed consent after a prominent warning notice should apply to any
data collected, in the past or in the future, by a public or private sector EU controller, before it can
be exported to the US for Cloud processing. A full industrial policy for development of an
autonomous European Cloud computing capacity based on free/open-source software should be
supported. Such a policy would reduce US control over the high end of the Cloud e-commerce
value chain and EU online advertising markets. Currently European data is exposed to
commercial manipulation, foreign intelligence surveillance and industrial espionage. Investments
in a European Cloud will bring economic benefits as well as providing the foundation for durable
data sovereignty. The PRISM scandal and Snowden’s revelations have not been the first
warnings to EU institutions in relation to EU citizens’ rights. Privacy activists for instance warned
the Commission in 2000 that the Safe Harbour Agreement contained dangerous loopholes88.
More recently, the above-mentioned note produced on Cloud Computing for the European
Parliament’s LIBE Committee clearly highlighted the loopholes of FISA and their consequences
on EU citizens’ rights and protection. The Committee even held a hearing for the presentation of
the Note, following a session on the EU Cybersecurity strategy on Feb 20th 2013. Afterwards
MEPs asked for immediate proposals to meet the LIBE amendment deadline91 on the Data
Protection Regulation. However, from March onwards, the level of interest in the Note declined,
and there seemed only a remote possibility that Parliament would support fundamental revisions
of the DP regulation. Thanks to the PRISM scandal and Snowden’s revelations, such warnings
and elections, or by the Parliament; - inclusion of a special technical Commissioner, nominated
from the functional constituency of academic computer scientists specializing in privacy, and
potentially another Commissioner from the field of Surveillance Studies, also with small
independent staffs; - a requirement that DP Commissioners must be appointed by national
Parliaments and not the executive; - a minimum quota for DPAs of 25% technical staff with
suitable qualifications (or equivalent experience) with a career path100 to the most senior
positions; - a subvention of funds to support the civil society sector, although great care must be
taken to ring-fence this allocation. Funds should be distributed fairly and on merit, but avoiding
the stifling effect of bureaucracy and the danger of institutional capture101. In the United States,
the culture of philanthropy and mass-membership civil society supports four highly professional
national NGOs102, with diverse approaches, which litigate test cases in privacy and freedom of
information, and conduct world-class technical critique of government policies. In contrast, the EU
still has a patchwork of dozens of NGOs, who with few resources and lacking the consistent
capacity of a permanent research staff, did not campaign on FISA before Snowden.
3.4 An Idea to Defend Private Sphere against Xkeyscore
One of Edward Snowdens most important leaks was about XKeyscore. A software which allows
intelligence services to grab and analyse the whole internet traffic. NSA analysts can see mostly
everything of the whole Internet activity by grabbing data directly from important Internet nodes.
E-Mails, search queries and private messages. Nothing is safe from NSA and its partners.
In the last weeks many people were frightened about that issue as the data analysis works out of
legal borders of consitutional law. No judicial orders were needed for grabbing and analysing that
data. This way a basic principle of modern democracies was bypassed: Separation of powers
between judiciary and executive.
The good thing: People started fighting against this attack touching civil rights by encrypting their
Mails, Messages, using Tor and informing about cryptographie techniques like PGP for example.
But this is not enough: Many people are still not aware of the issues a surveillance society has or
are not willing to defend themself against this kind of total control as it is sometimes still
complicated and not easy enough to use cryptography and surf anonymously through the
internet.
Another idea to defend civil rights and to show civil disobedience against these anti democratic
programs like XKeyscore might be interfering Signals that XKeyscore just receives white noise.
The idea behind that is as follows:

NSA is using data mining techniques to filter out interesting stuff from Internet communication.
They are interested in if people are communicating about evil stuff by filtering keywords, or if one
is communicating with wrong and evil people. The side effect: They know almost everything one
might send over the internet. If we want to stop them spying out our private lifes, we have to
disturb their eavesdropping techniques. This would be possible by sending lots of interfering
signals all around the internet.
If lots of people start creating fake identities (for example mail and social network accounts) all
over the internet and also every of this fake indentities is starting to communicate normal and also
evil stuff to other fake identities, as well as to real people, maybe we can manage it to make
XKeyscore absolutely useless. Lets set up mails, messages and search queries, the NSA might
find interesting. If enough people are using and faking internet identities this way, the NSA will
receive nothing but white noise with XKeyscore, as they cannot distuinguish between real and
fake communication.
At this point you may note, that this would be a high manual effort for everyone, which want to be
part of that protest. There is no need for that, if we can use intelligent botting techniques. If we
can implement some softwares which are creating fake identities for themself and are
communicating over the internet like real persons, one has just to install such a software on a
home PC. And the best thing is: No one has to do something illegal. It is not illegal to create fake
identities and it is also not illegal to let these fake identities communicate [52].
3.5 TFC
TFC is a proof-of-concept set of tools for Pidgin; a low cost solution that enables truly private
conversations and a possibility to opt out of the dragnet surveillance. TFC aims to address major
vulnerabilities present in current IM applications.
1. Weak encryption algorithms: messages are one-time-pad encrypted. OTP is the only algorithm
proven to provide perfect secrecy; messages are unbreakable without the key.
2. Weak entropy of encryption keys: TFC utilizes hardware random number generator. This
ensures all bits used to generate encryption keys are truly random.
3. Compromise of end point security: TFC uses data diodes that prevent exfiltration (theft) of
plain-texts and encryption keys on hardware level[53].
To put the concept of TFC to practice, a prototype setup was built and simple programs were
written in Python. The security of the platform was audited by analyzing the attack vectors
remaining. TFC appears to be the only system that protects message confidentiality against the
advanced attacks the Snowden leaks revealed NSA to utilize on massive scale; TFC if not
unbreakable but it succeeds in making ubiquitous, unethical monitoring with implied presumption
of guilt very expensive and by enforcing targeted surveillance, helps preserve the balance
between individual privacy and collective security.
Unconvenient operation makes mainstream use difficult. The goal of TFC is to act as a proof-of-
concept: a road sign for future high security IM applications. Google Talk w/o HTTPS offer no
encryption to protect the messages. In the example, Bob wants to send Alice a password she
requests. With Yahoo! Messenger (Yahoo warns the user about missing encryption), the
conversation held would be viewable by any third party who has access to the raw TCP packets:
Such parties include network administrators, ISP of either party, intelligence agencies and the
staff in charge of the IM service's server. Packet inspection was performed with Wireshark: by
searching packet contents for the string 'pwd' the password was found without effort. Thus,
complicated attacks are not required for dragnet surveillance of unencrypted of communications.
Every packet traveling through the borders of US that involves a foreigner is intercepted. NSA
may have compromised Internet exchange points that manage the backbone of the Internet. This
means that even if the packet does not cross US borders, it still might be intercepted.
Communications intercepted in foreign outposts are not under the US jurisdiction and messages
involving US citizens can be viewed. Most IM clients and servers today utilize SSL or similar

encrypted connections that protect the messages from prying eyes. Such clients include Skype,
Trillian, Apple's FaceTime, Kik Messenger, WhatsApp, Yullop and Pidgin. Contributing factors to
security of connection and client side software include the type and implementation of encryption
algorithm, source of randomness and availability of source code to verify non-existence of back-
doors; After market products may be required by law to contain capability for lawful interception.
law-abiding company must respect the ethically questionable gag-orders, data retention laws and
lawful requests for user data. Additionally, the Snowden-leaks revealed some of the largest US-
based web services are part of the PRISM program, that mirrors traffic traveling to and from
servers for analysis. Encryption isn't an issue since it's dealt with pre-obtained private keys.
PRISM compliant services include those offered by Facebook (chats, service), Apple (FaceTime,
iCloud), Microsoft (Skype, Hotmail, SkyDrive) and Yahoo (email, messenger). In the case a
service operates under foreign jurisdiction it's not required to comply with lawful requests unless
the law-enforcement agencies are co-operating. In case lawful requests are not available, tactics
such as coercion or bribery may be used to obtain data of interest. Alternatively NSA may resort
to compromising the security of the connection between user and the server: By obtaining private
keys of certificate authorities with any of the previously mentioned methods, NSA is able to
perform man-in-the-middle attacks without detection. The client is unable to detect false
certificate with valid CA signature. The Snowden-leaks revealed NSA has a cyber-espionage unit:
Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the main purpose of which is to exploit vulnerabilities and
gain access to systems of interest. War against terrorism has been used as the main excuse for
proactive security, but the leaks indicate that NSA performs industrial espionage against foreign
businesses as well as monitors the communications of it's allied nations' politicians[2]. In this
example if the TAO would break into the Openfire server, access to log file at external database
or in the embedded one at /var/lib/openfire/embedded-db/openfire.script would lead to the
compromise of all stored conversations. Since the NSA is, quoting Bruce Schneier, “prioritizing
techniques providing bulk payoff”, the server provides the easiest access to large number of log
files and is more practical to subvert than the devices of end users[53].
Unknown vulnerability However, an article by New York Times claims NSA is able to “Unlock
private communication such as end-to-end encryption (that cannot be decrypted even by the
messaging service) such as the one used in Adium” The technique how NSA is able to subvert
the flagship implementation of security remains unknown. Different attack methods may however
be speculated:
OTR MITM against ignorant targets Not all users verify the hash of public key with their partner:
in theory any unverified conversation could be MITM'd.
OTR hash swapping Unless hashes are verified face to face, they can be swapped to those
calculcated from the key offered by adversary. Interception of common external routes used for
hash verification compromise overall security. Quantum computer OTR uses Diffie-Hellman key
exchange, the security of which relies on the discrete logarithm problem. There is no proof that
easy solution to the problem doesn't exist. Furthermore, the problem can be solved with quantum
algorithm designed by Peter Shor. According to the leaks NSA does not yet have a computer
capable of running the algorithm. However, it should noted Snowden did not have access to files
classified as ECI (extremely compartmentalized information). Information about existence of a
computer that is able to break the cryptography present everywhere on the Internet, would most
likely be classified as such[53].
Undermined RNG NSA may have undermined existing cryptographic algorithms such as the
Dual EC random bit generator In other news, the academic world has learned it's possible to
undermine functionality of RNG inside the Intel's Ivy Bridge Processors[1]. Compromised device
outputs proper length bit strings but the truly random entropy pool used for seeding by the
processors PRBG can be shrunk in a malicious way. The self test mechanism of the processor is
unable to detect it's undermined performance. Cryptographic key generators rely on random
numbers. If NSA has undermined the capability of computers to generate random numbers,

implementations of cryptography that rely on kernel's cryptographic services (Pidgin mainly
utilizes /dev/random) may be easy to break[53].
Encryption: One-time pad Asymmetric algorithms have not been proven to be secure
Public key encryption relies on mathematical problems the true difficulty of which remain
unknown. So far the intelligence community has been a decade ahead of the academic world and
Shor's algorithm could in theory have been in use since quantum computers such as the D-Wave
are slowly introduced to the public market. The use of post-quantum public-key cryptography
such as the one based on lattices could in theory be secure but such algorithms should not be
used before their security is properly audited.
Symmetric algorithms' keys are harder to contain Symmetric key cryptography with pre-
shared-key is resilient against Shor's algorithm with large key lengths (256 bits or more). While it
is reasonable to expect proper security from symmetric algorithms, the short key length is in
theory much easier to exfiltrate through covert channel.
Auditability of crypto math applied OTP has been proven by Claude Shannon to be
unbreakable. It is very easy algorithm to implement and requires less expertise from both the
author and the user who wishes to audit the software. Whereas AES algorithm library is 1300
lines long, OTP requires two mathematical operations and the method used for encryption totals
12 lines of code.
Trust of every self-generated key relies on manual verification Public key crypto relies on
users manually verifying the hash of public key. If key is transmitter over insecure platform such
as the Internet, it must be digitally signed and thus security relies on passing manually the signing
key's public portion so user can be sure of it's authenticity. Convenient methods such as public
key hash verification over the phone places trust on the assumption voice content has not been
tampered with. Another common way for adding trust in users' keys is a key signing party, the
main purpose of which is to verify public keys of users. Secure symmetric key cryptography relies
on users manually pre-sharing the key to their contact prior to conversation. OTP relies on users
manually passing the entropy information used for message encryption prior to conversation as
well.
Key generation The Vernam cipher requires large quantities of truly random bits for encryption
(7 bits / char using the standard ASCII). For security reasons, messages of TFC are padded: the
default length is 100 characters. The deskewing process and padding when short messages are
used waste excessive amounts of bits; 700 deskewed (or ~2800 biased bits). The possibility that
keys generated by processor come from low entropy pool cannot be skated over. Furthermore,
without hardware acceleration, the /dev/random is very slow. Readily available peripheral devices
for random bit generation also share the risk of undermined functionality such as was in the case
of Crypto AG. In many cases, the high price makes after market solutions unavailable to the
general audience. This calls for a cheap external device, where the simplicity of the design
ensures that hidden features are unlikely to be present. The TRNG used in this paper generates
randomness through quantum phenomenon called avalanche noise that is generated by a
reverse biased transistor. The noise signal is linearly amplified by an op-amp. It is then converted
into digital signal in a comparator and finally regulated to level of [-1.4, 1.4] volts in respect to the
virtual ground of the TRNG device. This enables entropy collection through GPIO pin of a
Raspberry Pi by measuring the voltage level at regular intervals. In author's initial tests, the
Raspberry Pi collected two 256MB files from two separate TRNGs in less than 6 hours. The
entropy files measured an average of 0.8% error at 'monte carlo pi' test when using 100 000
points. This paper does not dive into the aspects of testing since tools and instructions for that are
available at the designer's web page.
Risk analysis
Software vulnerabilities The security approach of TFC relies on policies how hardware interacts
and comes in contact. Security implementations in physical layer prevents software security

vulnerabilities. Most important aspect of security in the software is the auditability of the source
code. Probably the biggest challenge of TFC is to keep maintain minimal and easy to interpret
source code.
Physical attack vectors are not assessed TFC addresses techniques for mass-scale
compromise of end point devices. All other setups are just as vulnerable to following attacks;
most of them require physical access to devices.
EMSEC Emissions security is mainly a concern of high value stationary targets known to the
adversaries, such as governmental and military facilities, large businesses, or smaller ones in
fields of high interest. In TFC the main emission sources are the cables of display units and
keyboards connected to TxM and RxM: these emissions leak plain text information. Low power
usage and heat radiation allows raspberry to be enclosed within a shielded case that block
signals from escaping. Thermal conductance can be improved with submerging the device in oil
and adding convection cooling to the outside surface of the case. Encapsulation of display and
cables requires metallic mesh the density of which is suitable to blocks signals of frequency range
specific to the used display device. The keyboard is much more difficult to protect. The use of
retro reflectors as revealed by the leaks in EMSEC compromise might indicate TEMPEST type of
monitoring of cable emissions is not effective enough. Covert channels Covert channels can in
theory be injected to future versions of Raspberry Pi. Current devices may be subjected to such
compromise via firmware/OS upgrade. This however, is unlikely, since data diode only transmits
when messages are sent and existence of a hidden data transfer is easy to detect with multiple
instruments ranging from oscilloscopes to spectrum analyzers.
Acoustic Cryptanalysis Most common approach is to listen to the sounds emitted by keyboard
of TxM via a dedicated bugging device, the integrated microphone of the NH or a smart phone, or
by using the accelerometer of the latter[53]. Thus, a bug sweep adds to the overall security.
Interdiction NSA was revealed to perform interdiction of hardware ordered online. Thus, ordering
a Raspberry Pi online could result in receiving a compromised device with airgap capability
defeated. What remains unclear is how the Pi would be able to connect to Internet: signals
transmitted through data diode are easy to detect.
3.6 NSA & defend against NSA spying
The National Security Agency is running a surveillance program, named XKeyscore, that allows
intelligence analysts to search databases of people's email, online chats and browsing histories
without prior authorization, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Documents obtained by the newspaper from former government contractor Edward Snowden
describe how analysts can obtain Internet data — including the content of email messages,
Facebook chats, private messages and search histories — by filling out a simple on-screen form.
The form asks for a justification for conducting the search, but the online request is not reviewed
by a court or other NSA personnel before it's processed, allowing analysts to target U.S. citizens
for electronic surveillance without a warrant, the newspaper claims.
In addition, the surveillance program allows analysts to access "ongoing" interception of a
person's Internet activity in real-time[54].
The NSA has come under fire for broadly interpreting surveillance law to collect massive troves of
phone and Internet data of Americans. The new revelations about XKeyscore are likely to spur
calls from civil libertarians for greater oversight of the intelligence community.
Top intelligence officials and congressional leaders on the intelligence committees though argue
that the NSA surveillance programs have thwarted potentially devastating terrorist attacks. They
maintain that the spy agency has stayed within its legal bounds.

The leak about XKeyscore comes ahead of a speech that NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander is
scheduled to give on Wednesday to the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas.
NSA documents credit the XKeyscore program with capturing 300 terrorists by 2008, according to
The Guardian. The program allows analysts to monitor someone's email communications if they
have the person's email or IP address alone.
The NSA told The Guardian in a statement that its XKeyscore program is only targeted at
"legitimate foreign intelligence targets."
"NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against — and only against – legitimate
foreign intelligence targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information
necessary to protect our nation and its interests," the spy agency said. "Allegations of
widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true."
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that he did not know whether
members of Congress had been informed about the XKeyscore program, but also declared
"some of the claims made in that article are false."[55].
"As we've explained and the intelligence community has explained, allegations of widespread,
unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are false," Carney said during the daily White
House press briefing. "Access to all of NSA's analytic tools is limited to only personnel who
require access for their assigned tasks, and there are multiple technical, manual and supervisory
checks within the system to prevent from those who don't have access from achieving that
access."
In an Op-Ed piece published Tuesday in The New York Times, Eli Dourado, a research fellow at
George Mason University, argued that companies using open hardware would be in a better
position to detect backdoors or vulnerabilities planted by the NSA or any other government
agency.
"To make the Internet less susceptible to mass surveillance, we need to recreate the physical
layer of its infrastructure on the basis of open-source principles," wrote Dourado, who is with the
technology policy program at George Mason's Mercatus Center.
Some experts were skeptical of the idea, saying the NSA would find other means to compromise
systems, whether it was through the cooperation of software vendors or finding unknown
vulnerabilities in the hardware.
"I don't see how this attempt at disintermediation would succeed," Al Pascual, analyst for Javelin
Strategy & Research, said.
According to Dourado, success would come from the fact that anyone could fully audit the
hardware, make changes and then distribute the modifications to others. This model has driven
the success of open source software used across the Internet today. Such technology includes
the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server.
Mistrust over the security of proprietary technology has been fed by revelations that the NSA
collaborated with companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google to program encryption weaknesses
into popular consumer products and services, which gave the agency the ability to siphon user
data. The revelations are based on documents leaked to the media by former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden.
The documents have also described how the NSA has been able to tap into the infrastructure of
the Internet, intercepting traffic flowing through cables, routers and switches.

Such hardware would be much more difficult to tap undetected, if the companies using it could
see all of the underlying technology, including the firmware, Dourado says.
"There is reason to be skeptical about the security of these networking products. The hardware
firms that make them often compete for contracts with the United States military and presumably
face considerable pressure to maintain good relations with the government. It stands to reason
that such pressure might lead companies to collaborate with the government on surveillance-
related requests," he wrote.
Examples of U.S. companies that make such hardware include Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and
Juniper Networks. However, the same reasoning could apply to competitors based in foreign
countries.
While the ability to fully audit hardware sounds good, the reality is many organizations do not
have the people with the expertise to continuously examine updates of low-level code in
hardware, Murray Jennex, a professor of information system security at San Diego State
University, said.
"In principle a good idea, but in practice not so much," he said.
"Auditing code is always difficult, this will be low-level code that is difficult to follow. I think it will
create an illusion of openness that will still be relatively easy to conceal backdoors and such in."
Dourado has his supporters. James W. Gabberty, a professor of information systems at Pace
University, said "no other information security control trumps the importance of regular and
comprehensive auditing."
"Moving towards an Internet infrastructure that is 100% auditable by both governments and
companies alike makes the most sense since, after all, we live in an era of increasing paranoia
exacerbated by highly publicized regular hacking incidents of our most important societal
systems," he said.
Trust of U.S. technology in light of the NSA revelations has become a concern for vendors selling
overseas. Malcolm Harkins, vice president and chief information security and privacy officer for
Intel, recently told Network World that customers have expressed a lack of confidence in U.S.-
based tech vendors[55].
3. SOCIAL MEDIA & CYBER SECURITY RISKS
4.1 Threats to Your Security when Using Social
As the use of online social networks becomes progressively more embedded into the everyday
lives of users, personal information becomes easily exposed and abused. Information harvesting,
by both the online social network operator itself and by third-party commercial companies, has
recently been identified as a significant security concern for OSN users. Companies can use the
harvested personal information for a variety of purposes, all of which can jeopardize a user’s
privacy. Today, many online social networks have tens of millions registered users. Facebook,
with more than billion active users, is currently the biggest and most popular OSN in the world.
Other well-known OSNs are Google+, with over 235 million active users [52]; Twitter, with over
200 million active users [41]; and LinkedIn, with more than 160 million active users [65]. While
some experts insist that online social networks are a passing fashion and will eventually be
replaced by another Internet fad, current user statistics concur that OSNs are here to stay. A
recent survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project [17] revealed that
72% of online American adults use social networking sites, a dramatic increase from the 2005
Pew survey which discovered that just 8% of online American adults used social networking sites.
Moreover, the survey revealed that 89% of online American adults between the ages of 18 to 29
use social network sites, while in 2005 only 9% of the survey participants in this age group used
this type of site. These survey results are compatible with a previous report published by Nielsen
in 2011 [56], disclosing that Americans spent 22.5% of their online time on OSNs and blogs, more

than twice the time spent on online games (9.8%). Other common online activities that consume
Americans’ time include email (7.6%); portals (4.5%); videos and movies (4.4%); and searches
and instant messaging at 4% and 3.3%, respectively. The amount of collective time spent on
OSNs, especially on Facebook, is enormous and ever-growing. U.S. users spent a total of 53.5
billion minutes on Facebook during May 2011, 17.2 billion minutes on Yahoo [51], and 12.5 billion
minutes on Google [50]. Mobile devices, or cellular phones, also serve as platforms for Internet
usage statistics. The Nielsen report suggested that almost two out of five OSN users access
online social networks from mobile devices. Social applications are the third most-used type of
application by smartphone users who download applications. It should be noted that the use of
OSNs on mobile devices not only allows for an even “closer relation” to social networks but also
can pose additional privacy concerns, especially around the issues of collecting location data and
providing opportunities for advertisers to identify specific types of users. Besides being popular
among adults, online social networks have hugely attracted children and teenagers. A
comprehensive 2010 study [68], carried out in 25 European countries with 25,000 participants,
produced the following statistics: 60% of children 9-16 years old who access the Internet use it
daily (88 minutes of use on average) and 59% of 9-16 year olds who use the Internet have a
personal OSN site profile (26% of 9-10 year olds; 49% of 11-12 year olds; 73% of 13-14 year
olds; 82% of 15-16 year olds). Note that the terms of use governing OSNs do not officially allow
users under the age of 13. Furthermore, 26% of the children in the European study had their
social network profile set to “public” (e.g., accessible to strangers), 14% reported having their
address or phone number listed on their profile, and 16% admitted that their profile displayed an
inaccurate age. Details of the study revealed that 30% of the children surveyed reported having
an online connection with a person they had never met face to face, 9% reported having actually
met face to face with someone with whom they had only an online connection, 9% reported
experiencing a misuse of personal data, 21% reported encountering one or more types of
potentially harmful user-generated content, and 6% reported receiving malicious or hurtful
messages on the Internet. These findings reiterate our previous claim: the use of online social
networks is embedded in the everyday lives of children and teenagers, and can result in personal
information being exposed, misused, and potentially abused. Interestingly, about a third of the
parents in this European study claimed that they filter their children’s use of the Internet, while a
quarter specifically stated that they use monitoring tools.
Classic Threats Classic threats have been a problem ever since the Internet gained widespread
usage. Often referred to as malware, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, or even phishing (among
others), they continue to be an ongoing issue. Though these issues have been addressed in the
past, they have recently become viral due to the structure and nature of online social networks
and have begun to spread more quickly among network users. Classic threats can take
advantage of a user’s personal information published in a social network to attack not only the
user but also their friends simply by adjusting the threat to accommodate the user’s personal
information. For example, an attacker a user’s details from his or her Facebook profile. Due to the
personal nature of this crafted message, the chances that the innocent user will open the
message and get infected are likely. In many cases, these threats target essential and everyday
user resources, such as credit card numbers, account passwords, computing power, and even
computer bandwidth (in order to send spam emails). The different classic threats are illustrated
below, along with real-life scenarios, where these types of menaces have jeopardized a real
user’s privacy and security.
Malware. Malware is malicious software developed to disrupt a computer operation in order to
collect a user’s credentials and gain access to his or her private information. Malware in online
social networks uses the OSN structure to spread itself between users and their friends in the
network. For example, Koobface was the first malware to successfully propagate through OSNs.
This malware succeeded in attacking users in many different online social networks, such as
Facebook, MySpace [56], and Twitter. Upon infection, Koobface attempts to collect login
information and join the infected computer in order to be part of a botnet [56], a so-called “zombie
army” of computers, which in many cases is then used for criminal activities, such as sending
spam messages and attacking other computers and servers in the Internet.

Phishing Attacks. Phishing attacks are a form of social engineering to acquire user-sensitive
and private information by impersonating a trustworthy third party. A recent study [6] showed that
users interacting on a social networking website are more likely to fall for phishing scams due to
their innate social and trusting natures. Moreover, in recent years, phishing attempts within OSNs
have increased sharply. According to the Microsoft security intelligence report [19], 84.5% of all
phishing attacks target social networks sites. One such phishing attack occurred at Facebook. In
2009, a phishing scam lured users onto fake Facebook login pages. Then, the phishing attack
spread among Facebook users by inviting the users’ friends to click on a link posted on the
original user’s wall [79]. Fortunately, Facebook acted to stop this attack.
Spammers. Spammers are users who use electronic messaging systems in order to send
unwanted messages, like advertisements, to other users. Online social network spammers use
the OSN platform in order to send advertisement messages to other users by creating fake
profiles [42]. The spammers can also use the OSN platform to add comment messages to pages
which are viewed by many users in the network. An example of the prevalence of network
spamming can be found in Twitter, which has suffered from a massive amount of spam. In August
2009, 11% of Twitter messages were spam messages. However, by the beginning of 2010,
Twitter had successfully cut down the percentage of spam message to 1% [53].
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). A cross-site scripting (XSS) attack is an assault against web
applications. The attacker who uses the cross site-scripting exploits the trust of the web client in
the web application and causes the web client to run malicious code capable of collecting
sensitive information. Online social networks, which are types of web applications, can suffer from
XSS attacks. Furthermore, attackers can use an XSS vulnerability combined with the OSN
infrastructure to create an XSS worm that can spread virally among social network users [54]. In
April 2009, such an XSS worm, called Mikeyy, rapidly transmitted automated tweets across
Twitter and infected many users, among them celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher.
The Mikeyy worm used an XSS weakness and the Twitter network structure to spread through
Twitter user profiles [56]. Internet Fraud. Internet fraud, also known as cyber fraud, refers to
using Internet access to scam or take advantage of people. In the past, con artists used
traditional in-person social networks, such as weekly group meetings, to gradually establish
strong bonds with their potential victims. More recently, according to the North American
Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) [84], with the rising popularity of online social
networks, con artists have turned to OSNs in order to establish trust connections with their
victims, and they now operate using personal data published in the victims’ online profiles. In
recent years, for example, fraudsters have been hacking into the accounts of Facebook users
who travel abroad. Once they manage to log into a user’s account, the scammers cunningly ask
the user’s friends for assistance in transferring money to the scammer’s bank account. One victim
of this type of fraud was Abigail Pickett. While travelling in Colombia, Abigail discovered that her
Facebook account had been hijacked from someone in Nigeria and was being used to send
requests for money to friends on the pretext that she was “stranded” [53].
Modern Threats Modern threats are additional current online threats that are typically unique to
online social network environments. These threats use the OSN infrastructure to collect and
expose personal information about a user and their friends and have even successfully lured
users into clicking on specific malicious links. Today’s attackers can also combine these two
types of attacks - classic and modern - in order to create a more sophisticated attack. For
example, an attacker can use a Trojan in order to collect a user’s Facebook password and then
post a message, which contains clickjacking attack, on the user’s timeline in order to lure the
user’s trusting Facebook friends to click on the posted message and install a hidden virus onto
their own computers. Another example is using cloned profiles to collect personal information
about the cloned user’s friends. Using the friends’ personal information, the attacker can send
uniquely crafted spam email containing a virus. Due to the usage of personal information, the
virus is more likely to be activated. The recovery processes for these two types of threats are very
distinct from each other. In order to recover from a classic attack, like a virus, in most cases it is
possible to simply reinstall the operating system, change the current passwords, and cancel the

affected credit cards. However, in order to recover from a modern OSN attack that “steals your
reality” [5], more effort must be invested due to the fact that resetting personal information is
excessively time consuming and not always 100% possible. For example, you can change your
email address, but it takes a significantly greater amount of effort to change your home address.
In the rest of this section, we illustrate the various modern threats and real-life scenarios where
these types of threats have jeopardized an OSN user’s privacy and security.
Clickjacking. Clickjacking is a malicious technique which tricks users into clicking on something
different from what they intended to click. By using clickjacking, the attacker can manipulate the
user into posting spam messages on his or her Facebook timeline, performing “likes” to links
unknowingly (also referred as likejacking), and even opening a microphone and web camera to
record the user [56]. An example of a clickjacking attack occurred at Twitter in 2009 when Twitter
was plagued by a “Don’t click” attack. The attacker tweeted a link with the message “Don’t click”
along with a masked URL, in which the actual URL domain is hidden. When Twitter users clicked
on the “Don’t click” message, the message automatically spread virally and was posted onto their
Twitter accounts [56].
Threats Targeting Children Related to online social network threats is the issue of trust. Recent
studies illustrate that OSN users tend to trust their friends in the network. In many cases, this trust
can lead to further means of communication, possibly escalating to face-to-face encounters [56].
An additional major threat to children and teenagers is cyberbullying in which OSN users suffer
from abuse initiated from people they know, such as classmates, or from strangers. The different
threats that typically target children are illustrated below, along with studies’ findings on each
threat. Naïve Trust. Children, in particular, are susceptible to trusting social network friends
without question, yet the said friend’s profile may really be a mask for sinister intentions. Online
Predators. The greatest concern for the personal information safety of children is reflected in the
growing apprehension about Internet pedophiles, also referred to as online predators. Livingstone
and Haddon [67] of EU Kids Online defined a typology in order to understand the risk and harm
related to the following online activities: online harm from content (child’s exposure to
pornography or harmful sexual content); harm from contact (a child who is contacted by an adult
or another child for the purposes of sexual abuse); and harm from conduct (the child as an active
initiator of abusive or risky behaviors). Behaviors considered to be Internet sexual exploitation of
children include adults using children for the production of child pornography and its distribution,
consumption of child porn, and the use of the Internet as a means to initiate online or offline
sexual exploitation.
Solutions In recent years, social network operators, security companies, and academic
researchers have tried to deal with the above-mentioned threats through proposing a variety of
solutions.In this section we describe in detail possible solutions which can assist in protecting the
security and privacy of online social network users. or logging into the online social network is a
real person and not a socialbot or a compromised user account, OSN operators are using
authentication mechanisms, such as CAPTCHA [56], photos-of-friends identification, multi-factor
authentication [56], and in some cases even requesting that the user send a copy of his or her
government issued ID [50]. As an example, Twitter recently introduced its two-factor
authentication mechanism, requiring the user to not only insert a password when logging into
Twitter but also provide a verification code that was sent to the user’s mobile device. This
mechanism prevents a malicious user from logging in through hijacked accounts and publishing
false information through those hijacked accounts. Such a mechanism would thwart incidents
such as when hackers hijacked the Associated Press (AP) Twitter account, resulting in the rapid
propagation of false information about explosions in the White House, which caused panic on
Wall Street . Security and Privacy Settings. Many online social networks support a configurable
user privacy setting that enables users to protect their personal data from others in the network
[56]. For example, Facebook users can choose which other Facebook users are able to view their
details, pictures, posts, and other personal information that appear in their Facebook profile [41].
However, many Facebook users simply maintain the default privacy settings, letting their data be
exposed to strangers. Some online social networks also support extra security configurations

which enable the user to activate secure browsing, receive login notifications, and establish other
safety features [56]. Internal Protection Mechanisms. Several online social networks protect their
users by implementing additional internal protection mechanisms for defense against spammers,
fake profiles, scams, and other threats [ 56]. Facebook, for example, protects its users from
malicious attacks and information collecting by activating the Facebook Immune System (FIS).
The FIS is described as an adversarial learning system that performs realtime checks and
classifications on read and write actions on Facebook’s database [56].
4.2 Risk of Social Media for Corporate Reputation
It is no understatement to say that there is a worldwide obsession with social media – Facebook,
Twitter, and Foursquare are all the rage and while the social network of the moment may change,
social media as a communications channel is here to stay.
While consumers may have been first to jump on the social media bandwagon, the number of
businesses utilizing social media is growing, with 83% of Inc. 500 companies using at least one
social network in 2010 according to a study by the Center for New Communications Research
and they are increasingly reaping the benefits of having a direct communication line to their
customers. We, at DuPont Sustainable Solutions, use this forum to have a dialogue with you
about the most pressing issues for a 21st Century business. Being able to interact and build more
direct relationships with consumers provides innumerable opportunities for all companies
including ours.
However, businesses using social media face inherently greater risks than traditional
communications’ channels, particularly to their reputation and financial success. Given DuPont’s
history and values in ethics, safety and risk management, DuPont understands the importance of
engaging audiences through online social channels openly, honestly and transparently in order to
gain their trust. Doing otherwise risks damage to the company’s reputation.
So how do organizations find a way to balance the benefits of social media with the risks? The
short answer is with corporate policies and proper training.
One risk businesses face when it comes to social media is the sharing of information. Either
employees can share opinions in ways that reflect badly on the company or they can release
confidential information or intellectual property. .Confidential information being leaked, data
breaches, privacy violations, offensive tweets – all of these possibilities make organizations
hesitant to adopt social media.
Aside from the risks stemming from improper employee use of social media, there is also the
ability of consumers and competitors to use social media to attack a company’s reputation.
However, not engaging in social media can become a risk in itself. Most every company and
brand are being discussed through online social channels. It is important that the company
provides its voice in these discussions and conversations. If the company does not provide a
voice, others will regardless. Social media is developing into a standard practice for
communications and rather than avoiding it, businesses should actively take steps to engage
these online audiences.
Since social media is becoming a standard practice for many businesses or at the very least a
good way to interact with customers and partners , it is important for employees to understand the
best practices for engagement with particular emphasis on ethics and legal responsibilties.
Having a good company policy on social media with an active governance plan is not longer
optional. It is essential to mitigating the risks associated with social media communications.
At DuPont, we are mitigating the risks posed by social media through corporate policies and
education and training for our employees. We have created a DuPont Web Based Social
Networking and Digital Media Policy that provides guidelines and expectations related to our

employees’ use of social media on behalf of the company. The Policy addresses internal social
networks, external social networks, codes of conduct and guidelines. We also have a Social
Network Steering Committee that reviews and approves the creation and use of all social
networks to ensure adherence to issued guidelines and standards. Education and training is
equally important and DuPont is establishing a social media training program that will educate
employees on the risks of social media, best practices for using social media and DuPont’s
policies.
Yes, there are risks to communicating through social media, but if a company communicates
ethically and transparently, these risks are minimized. DuPont sees the value in using these new
communicatoins’ channels to reach our customers and prospects and we understand that these
audiences expect us to use social media responsibly.
4.3 Social Networks and Cyber Forensics
Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google Buzz can be a treasure trove for
forensics investigations. The expanding ocean of data in those networks is irresistible to
investigators.
Marketers are already exploiting social data to analyze associations among consumers. A startup
named 33Across looks at relationships among social media users to ascertain who, for example,
would be a good prospect for viewing an ad on costume jewelry. If Jane is a good prospect, then
some of her friends — or maybe just people who circulate in the same social group — might be
too. 33Across uses tools like tracking cookies to follow relationships.
Just as this style of data gathering and analysis can help marketing, it can help law enforcement
or dispute resolution. Police have already learned that drug dealers socialize online with other
drug ring members, and street gangsters network with their cohorts.
A simple investigation might view just the publicly-available text and images posted on a
suspect's social page. Deeper investigations may require the investigator to acquire special
authority. In an internal corporate investigation, that authority might come in the form of consent
from a company employee who has the right to access a page. Or, in a civil lawsuit or certain
government investigations, the authority might come in the form of a subpoena. In a criminal
investigation, it might be a search warrant.
A sophisticated investigation will examine more than just the data appearing on the face of social
web page. It might, say, go for the cache of data collected at 33Across to ascertain who might be
involved with a Medicare fraud scheme.
As an investigation team seeks authority such as a subpoena or search warrant, it will be prudent
to address privacy concerns. Here are example steps to reduce privacy risks:
1. Deliberate in writing about the privacy risks, how they can be minimized and why they are
justified taking in the case at hand.
2. Consult a third party expert (or panel of experts) on how to proceed with the investigation in a
way that respects privacy.
3. Mask personally-identifying information from individual researchers.
4. Secure data against use or disclosure beyond the investigation.
5. Be transparent to the extent consistent with the mission of the investigation. Modern society
rewards openness and transparency. Investigation teams do themselves a favor when they
publicize their techniques and open them to scrutiny.
6. Document all efforts to protect privacy.

4.4 Using Social Media & Cyber Security Risks
Network World - Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn increasingly are
being used by enterprises to engage with customers, build their brands and communicate
information to the rest of the world.
But social media for enterprises isn't all about "liking," "friending," "up-voting" or "digging." For
organizations, there are real risks to using social media, ranging from damaging the brand to
exposing proprietary information to inviting lawsuits.
Here are five of the biggest social media security threats:
1. Mobile apps
The rise of social media is inextricably linked with the revolution in mobile computing, which has
spawned a huge industry in mobile application development. Naturally, whether using their own
or company-issued mobile devices, employees typically download dozens of apps because, well,
because they can.
Social networking security threats taken too lightly
But sometimes they download more than they bargained for. In early March, Google removed
from its Android Market more than 60 applications carrying malicious software. Some of the
malware was designed to reveal the user's private information to a third party, replicate itself on
other devices, destroy user data or even impersonate the device owner[22].
And all because this new game is supposed to be even better than Angry Birds!
2. Social engineering
A favorite of smooth-talking scammers everywhere, social engineering has been around since
before computer networks. But the rise of the Internet made it easier for grifters and flim-flam
artists to find potential victims who may have a soft spot in their hearts for Nigerian royalty.
Social media has taken this threat to a new level for two reasons: 1) People are more willing than
ever to share personal information about themselves online via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare
and Myspace, and 2) social media platforms encourage a dangerous level of assumed trust.
From there it's a short step to telling your new friend about your company's secret project. Which
your new friend really might be able to help with if you would only give him a password to gain
access to a protected file on your corporate network. Just this once.
3. Social networking sites
Sometimes hackers go right to the source, injecting malicious code into a social networking site,
including inside advertisements and via third-party apps. On Twitter, shortened URLs (popular
due to the 140-character tweet limit) can be used to trick users into visiting malicious sites that
can extract personal (and corporate) information if accessed through a work computer. Twitter is
especially vulnerable to this method because it's easy to retweet a post so that it eventually could
be seen by hundreds of thousands of people.[54]
4. Your employees
You knew this was coming, but even the most responsible employees have lapses in judgment,
make mistakes or behave emotionally. Nobody's perfect all of the time.
But dealing with an indiscreet comment in the office is one thing; if the comment is made on a
work-related social media account, then it's out there, and it can't be retrieved. Just ask Ketchum
PR Vice President James Andrews, who two years ago fired off an infamous tweet trashing the
city of Memphis, hometown of a little Ketchum client called FedEx, the day before he was to
make a presentation to more than 150 FedEx employees (on digital media, no less!).
The tweet was discovered by Fedex employees, who emailed angry missives to Ketchum
headquarters protesting the slight and wondering why FedEx was spending money on a snooty

New York PR firm while employees were dealing with a 5% salary cut during a severe recession.
Andrews had to make a very public and humiliating apology.
Remember, this wasn't some low-level employee not tuned into the corporate mission. This was a
high-level communications executive who damaged his company's brand and endangered an
account. Imagine what a disgruntled low-level employee without as much invested in his job
might be able to do with social media tools and a chip on his shoulder.
5. Lack of a social media policy
This one's totally on you. Without a social media policy for your enterprise, you are inviting
disaster. You can't just turn employees loose on social networking platforms and urge them to
"represent." You need to spell out the goals and parameters of your enterprise's social media
initiative. Otherwise you'll get exactly what you're inviting - chaos and problems.
Who is allowed to use social media on behalf of the organization and what they're allowed to say
are the two most obvious questions that must be addressed in a social media policy. You need to
make all this clear or employees will make decisions on their own, on the fly. Does that sound like
a good thing?[55].
Two more imperatives related to social media policy: 1) Organizations must conduct proper
training for employees, if only to clear up issues regarding official social media policies, and 2) A
social media initiative needs a coordinator and champion. And that means a social media
manager.
4.5 Exploiting of Vulnerability to Secure User Privacy on a Social Networking Site
Attributes available for every user on a social networking site can be categorized into two major
types: individual attributes and community attributes. Individual attributes characterize individual
user information, including personal information such as gender, birth date, phone number, home
address, etc. Community attributes characterize information about friends of a user, including
friends that are traceable from a user's pro_le (i.e., a user's friends list), tagged pictures, wall
interactions, etc. Both types of attributes are always accessible to friends but may not to other
users. Using privacy settings of a pro_le, a user can control the visibility of most individual
attributes, but cannot control the visibility of most community attributes. For example, Facebook
users can control traceable link information about friends but cannot control exposure of friends
through photo tagging and wall interactions. On most social networking sites, privacy related
e_orts have been concentrated on protecting individual attributes only. Thus, users are often left
vulnerable through community attributes. We propose a mechanism that enables users to
protect against vulnerability. The mechanism is tunable to accommodate individual preferences
across the spectrum, from reclusive users to gregarious users. A novel way to de_ne a vulnerable
friend from an individual user's perspective is dependent on whether or not the user's friends'
privacy settings protect the friend and the individual's network of friends (which includes the
user). An individual is vulnerable if any friend in the network of friends has insu_cient privacy
settings to protect the entire network of friends. Thus, whether or not an individual re- ciprocates
privacy settings with their friends within a friend network can impact the entire network. Before
presenting a formal de_nition of vulnerable friends, we propose four indexes, I-index, C-index, P-
index, and V-index, based on individual and community attributes for each user on a social
networking site. These indexes can be used to estimate user's privacy, quantify how well a user
protects friends, spec- ify how public or private user pro_les are, and compute the vulnerability of
individual users on a social network. For the _rst set of experiments, we compare V-index for
each of user with two optimal algorithms and six intuitive strategies for unfriending to reduce
vulnerability. For each graph in Figure 3, the X-axis and Y-axis indicate users and their V-index
values, respectively. For simplicity, we sort all users in ascending order based on existing V-
index, and then we plot their corresponding V-index before and after unfriending. Figure 3
indicates performance of all eight algorithms which will help us to decide whether unfriending
makes users more or less vulnerable. The eight algorithms are[57]: _ Most vulnerable friend. For
a user, the most vulnerable friend is the one whose removal lowers the V-index score the most.

For each user, we _rst _nd the most vulnerable friend and then estimate the new V-index value
(M1-index) after unfriending him/her. As expected, see Figure 3(a), V-index values for users de-
crease in comparison with V-index values before unfriending the most vulnerable friend.
Unfriending the most vulnerable friend makes all users more secure. _ Two most vulnerable
friends. If we sort all of user's vulnerable friends in ascending order based on their new V-indexes
(after unfriending), the top two in the list are the two most vulnerable friends. For each user, we
_rst _nd two most vulnerable friends and then estimate the new V-index value (M2-index) after
unfriending them. As expected, see Figure 3(b), V-index values for all users decrease in
comparison with V-index values before unfriending the two most vulnerable friends. Unfriending
the two most vulnerable friends also make all users more secure. _ Least V-friend. For each user,
we choose to unfriend the friend whose V-index is the lowest among all friends. This friend is the
least V-friend. V-index values increase for 65% of 100K users, and increase for 43% of the 2M+
users, in comparison with V-index values before unfriending the least V-friend. See Figure 3(c),
L-index refers to the new V-index value after unfriending the least V-friend. V 0 u > Vu for some
users because, Pl < Vu where Pl is the P-index of the least V-friend. Unfriending the least V-
friend does not make all users insecure. _ Random friend. For each user, we randomly choose to
unfriend a friend. V-index values increase for 24% of 100K users, and increase for 23.5% of the
2M+ users, in comparison with V-index values before unfriending a random friend. See Figure
3(d), R-index refers to the new V-index value after unfriending a random friend. V 0 u > Vu
because Pr < Vu, where Pr is the P-index of the random friend. Unfriending a random friend does
not make all users secure.
4. PRACTISES FOR PRIVICY ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
5.1 Best Practices for privacy on Social Networking Sites Security and Privacy Issues
Below are some helpful tips regarding security and privacy while using social networking sites:
 Ensure that any computer you use to connect to a social media site has proper security
measures in place. Use and maintain anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, and a firewall
and keep these applications and operating system patched and up-to-date.
 Be cautious when clicking on links. If a link seems suspicious, or too good to be true, do not
click on it....even if the link is on your most trusted friend's page. Your friend's account may
have been hijacked or infected and now be spreading malware.
 If you are going to request that your account be deleted, first remove all of the data. Request
that the account be deleted, rather than deactivated.
 Type the address of your social networking site directly into your browser or use your personal
bookmarks. If you click a link to your site through email or another website, you might be
entering your account name and password into a fake site where your personal information
could be stolen.
 Be cautious about installing applications. Some social networking sites provide the ability to
add or install third party applications, such as games. Keep in mind there is sometimes little or
no quality control or review of these applications and they may have full access to your
account and the data you share. Malicious applications can use this access to interact with
your friends on your behalf and to steal and misuse personal data. Only install applications
that come from trusted, well-known sites. If you are no longer using the app, remove it. Also,
please note that installing some applications may modify your security and privacy settings.
 Use strong and unique passwords. Using the same password on all accounts increases the
vulnerability of these accounts if one becomes compromised. Use different passwords for
different accounts, and do not use a password you use to access your organizations network
on any personal sites you access.
 Be careful whom you add as a “friend,” or what groups or pages you join. The more “friends”
you have or groups/pages you join, the more people who have access to your information.
 Do not assume privacy on a social networking site. For both business and personal use,
confidential information should not be shared. You should only post information you are
comfortable disclosing to a complete stranger.

 Use discretion before posting information or comments. Once information is posted online, it
can potentially be viewed by anyone and may not be able to be retracted afterwards. Keep in
mind that content or communications on government-related social networking pages may be
considered public records.
 When posting pictures, delete the meta data, which includes the date and time of the picture.
 Do not announce that you are on vacation or away for an extended period of time.
 Configure privacy settings to allow only those people you trust to have access to the
information you post, and your profile. Also, restrict the ability for others to post information to
your page. The default settings for some sites may allow anyone to see your information or
post information to your page.
 Review a site’s privacy policy. Some sites may share information, such as email addresses or
user preferences, with other parties. If a site’s privacy policy is vague or does not properly
protect your information, do not use the site.
5.2 A Legal Guide to the Use of Social Media in the Workplace
An important tool in managing the legal risks associated with employees’ use of technology and
social networking sites is a wellcrafted technology and social media policy that balances company
needs and concerns against employees’ legal rights. Some of the business and legal risks that an
employer should address in a technology and social media policy include:
• Covered technology and devices: Employers should consider whether the policy will extend
only to employerpaid or provided devices or whether the employer may lawfully and should
extend the policy to personallyowned devices used for work purposes. The law is still evolving in
this area, and it is not clear that employers have the legal right in all jurisdictions to search an
employee’s personal device or personal email account on a company or personally-owned
device. However, having a clearlyworded policy can improve an employer’s legal position in
arguing that it has the right to access any technology devices used by an employee for work
purposes.
• Privacy considerations: Due to the privacy issues discussed above, a policy should include an
express warning that the employer retains the right to monitor and review the use of and content
on any technology and devices covered by the policy. As discussed above, however, there have
been court decisions finding employers liable for improperly accessing or using online content,
particularly where the content was on a website with restricted privacy settings, such as
Facebook.com. As such, employers should take care to ensure they lawfully access online
content, and they should consult with counsel as appropriate to ensure compliance.
• Permissible and impermissible uses: The policy should explain the permissible and
impermissible uses of technology and social media. Items to address might include, for example,
personal use of technology on work time, employees’ obligation not to use technology to engage
in unlawful behavior, the need to protect confidential or trade secret information, and the need to
respect others’ intellectual property rights. An employer may also want to prohibit employees from
engaging in any company-related blogging, tweeting or the like without express written
permission of the company to engage in such social networking activities on behalf of the
business.
• Lawfully Protected Employee Activity: In setting out any prohibited conduct in a workplace
policy, employers must take care to balance the employer’s needs against employees’ legal
rights. As discussed above, a job applicant’s or employee’s use of technology and online content
may be legally protected by discrimination, antiretaliation, lawful consumable products, lawful
activity, labor law, or other laws. As such, an employer should be cautious in rejecting a job
candidate or disciplining or terminating an employee for online activity to ensure that adverse
action is not taken based on legally-protected activities by the individual.
• Wage and Hour issues: As discussed above, non-exempt employees generally must be paid at
least minimum wage for all time worked and overtime pay, which can, depending on the
circumstances, include time spent checking voice mails or e-mails away from work. In addition,
wage and hour issues may arise for employees that use remote technology while telecommuting
or while on a leave of absence. As such, an employer should consider addressing limits on the

use of technology by non-exempt employees outside of normal working hours or by employees
on leave.
• Photography and Recording: Smartphones and other mobile devices make it far easier than in
the past for employees to secretly record conversations at work or to take unauthorized
photographs or videos that might be widely disseminated on the internet and go “viral.”
Depending on the employer’s business and its unique risks, a technology policy might include
language prohibiting the use of devices to make recordings or take photographs or videos. Again,
however, an employer should consult with counsel to ensure that any such language does not run
afoul of individuals’ Section 7 labor law rights or other employment law rights.
• Testimonials: As discussed above, the FTC has taken the position that false and misleading
advertising laws apply to online postings. As such, employers should include language in any
policy that advised employees of the need to comply with FTC requirements when making
endorsements or testimonials about the company.
• Return of Company Data: An employer should make clear that all company data, including any
electronic data stored on an employee’s personally-owned devices, such as a smartphone, tablet,
or personal computer, must be returned to the company upon request or when an employee
leaves employment. An employer that has a BYOD (bring your own device) approach to
workplace technology should consider including language in a technology policy stating that
employees agree to turn over their personal devices to the company to permit the company to
wipe any company data from the device. In addition, many companies have the capability to
remotely cut off access to company technology and to remotely wipe company-owned or
employee-owned devices. An employer that has a BYOD approach, should consider including
language in a policy that provides that an employee that is permitted to use a personal device for
work agrees to permit the company to remotely wipe the device even if that may result in
personal data on the device being deleted.
5.3 Protection against Online Spying, NSA PRISMFairview
Americans (and now other countries) are becoming increasingly concerned with the online
protection of their personal information. There have been numerous stories in the press lately of
hacked websites, identity theft, and eavesdropping, among many other alarming “criminal” acts.
Recently, the Washington Post ran a story that included the publishing of four slides, all leaked
from the United States National Security Agency (NSA). These slides clearly discussed, in
extreme detail, how the domestic PRISM program collects its data.
Other countries are also being “spied” on with a different surveillance program called Fairview. A
recent example is the surveillance on millions of citizens of Brazil.
Alarmingly enough, the collection process is incredibly simple. All that has to transpire in order for
data collection to begin is for an NSA analyst to identify a potential target for surveillance and
then ask a supervisor to approve the request. What if you happen to be one of these unfortunate
individuals who is targeted? Is there a way that you can forgo the monitoring process and
increase your online protection for your data and browsing activities?
Most experts agree that PRISM is capable of creating “wiretaps” on high capacity fiber optics and
watches the data flows past. These wiretaps are easily placed at the Internet connections of such
noteworthy conglomerates as Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, and Google, with most of their servers
located in the United States.
Copies of the information traveling along these optic signals are diverted and re-routed to a
location that is specifically operated by the NSA. Here it is categorized and indexed. Afterwards, it
is sent back for analysis to the NSA. Most of this collected data is transferred by methods of plain
text protocols. These are simply packets of information that contain a simple text header with a
clear payload (the actual data).
However, what the Washington Post story also revealed is that when the payload is encrypted,
the NSA is typically unable to crack the code. The below checklist includes ways to minimize the

threat of potential NSA (and other hackers/spyware/trojans) monitoring for both digital voice and
Internet traffic, leading to an increase in protection for your online activities[58].
1. Encryption of Internet traffic
A sure sign that communication between your web browser and a website is encrypted will be the
use of the “https://” SSL protocol preceding the website address. By always typing this prior to
entering your URL name into the browser, an encryption certificate will be downloaded from the
website automatically (if it supports encryption). If the “https” is not clearly showing in your web
browser, then the communication between your browser and the webserver is not encrypted.
Check your most commonly visited websites for encryption. Some websites have better
encryption than others. You can easily test all websites by visiting SSL Labs.
2. Disable website tracking
The two methods used to protect your site from online tracking include “black listing” (blocking)
and “white listing” (approving). Programs of black listing will block spyware. PeerBlock is a good
example of a free black list program. White listing programs turn off JavaScript, which is the very
common language for programming that is often used in your search engine browsers. This is the
language that is most often used for tracking techniques when you visit common websites with
minimal online protection encryption. By turning off JavaScript, the spies find it infinitely more
difficult to monitor your activities.
3. Search anonymously
Everyone is well aware that Google keeps track of all of our searches and Internet activity. This is
how they create profiles on us and generate revenue. Ever notice that when 2 different people
search for the same thing on Google, you each receive different results.
There are many other types of search engines which are significantly less concerned with our
virtual actions. By switching to one of these other available options, such as Startpage or
Duckduckgo, you’ll see significant online protection against unwanted monitoring and tracking.
4. Never trust anyone for your confidential data
If you happen to be one of those online users who is using Dropbox, iCloud, SkyDrive, or Google
Drive, your online protection may be in severe jeopardy. Make sure to encrypt all of your files
before you transmit them online. Never rely on the encryption protection provided by the cloud
provider. AxCrypt is considered a viable choice and complements online storage services.
5. File encryption
TrueCrypt (also free) is a type of encryption system used for scrambling the contents of files. By
using this or a similar type of system with a strong algorithm and big “key”, you will be better able
to control the access of your files and documents by outside sources through the use of password
protection methods.
6. Use traffic tunnels
The installation of a proxy server or VPN network will encrypt your online activity by sending your
data to another outside location for decryption first, which will significantly increase your
protection. Every time that you transmit data, emails, or web requests of any kind, the Internet
tracks your activity through the use of headers that contain personal information of your address,
the address of your destination, and the time and date of the activity. Proxy servers and VPN
networks obscure your actions and effectively help make them anonymous. Here is an article with
a listing of free anonymous web proxy servers.
7. Secure your operating system
Install an operating system that is “read-only”. This will provide significant online protection for
your PC against all forms of unwanted programs, applications, and software. Many Linux
distributions have the ability to automatically detect PC hardware immediately upon booting of
your system. Privatix and Puppy Linux are some good examples for increased security.
8. Use safe text
You might be surprised to learn that all Skype conversations are monitored by Microsoft.
Additionally, texting features on digital phones is not at all secure. Most email services do not
employ encryption protocols and therefore do not provide online protection either.
Some people try to secure their systems by installing PGP software (Pretty Good Privacy). This is
a type of encryption software (supporting email) that attempts to make your conversations
unreadable. However, PGP can be difficult to install and manage. There are instead some very

reliable phone apps that can encrypt all types of text messages and conversations. Examples
include iChat, CryptoCat, and Silent Circle apps.
9. Regulate your voice activity
Smartphones are a wonderful invention, but their lack of security and encryption features leaves
us vulnerable to malicious apps, phishing scams, and numerous forms of malware. Microsoft
even allows the weakening of Skype voice encryption services to accommodate lawful
interception of our signals and voice conversations. Silent Circle launched recently to facilitate
end-to-end encrypted communication (voice smartphone calls, conference calls, text messages,
video, emails) where the encryption keys are kept by the subscribers and not on their servers.
Of course, even if you were to follow this entire checklist of options, there is no perfect method for
protecting your systems from a very determined intruder. These recommendations will definitely
make tracking your virtual activity increasingly more difficult. Ensure you research each option
before implementing to understand what you are doing and don’t accidentally lock yourself out of
your own files[58].
5.4 Solutions
In recent years, various commercial companies have expanded their traditional Internet security
options, and now offer software solutions specifically for OSN users to better protect themselves
against threats. In this section, we present mainstream software and application-protection
solutions, which were developed by well-known security companies such as Symantec and
Check Point, as well as solutions which were created by several startup companies such as
United Parents. Internet Security Solutions. Many security companies, such as AVG, Avira,
Kaspersky, Panda, McAfee, and Symantec [33], offer OSN users Internet security solutions.
These software suites typically include anti-virus, firewall, and other Internet protection layers
which assist OSN users in shielding their computers against threats such as malware,
clickjacking, and phishing attacks. For example, McAfee Internet Security software [51] provides
its users with protection against various threats, such as malware, botnet, and inappropriate sites.
Norton Safe Web. Symantec’s Norton Safe Web [56] is a Facebook application with more than
500,000 users. It scans the Facebook user’s News Feed and warns the user about unsafe links
and sites. Trend Micro Privacy Scanner. Trend Micro Privacy Scanner for Facebook [57] is an
Android application which scans the user’s privacy settings and identifies risky settings which
may lead to privacy concerns. It then assists the user in fixing the settings. Websense Defensio.
Websense’s Defensio web service [56] helps in protecting social network users from threats like
links to malware that can be posted on the user’s Facebook page. The Defensio service also
assists in controlling the user’s published content, such as removing certain words from posts or
filtering specific comments. ZoneAlarm Privacy Scan. Check Point’s ZoneAlarm Privacy Scan [55]
is a Facebook application which scans recent activity in the user’s Facebook account to identify
privacy concerns and to control what others can see. For instance, ZoneAlarm Privacy Scan can
identify posts that expose the user’s private information. ContentWatch Net Nanny.
ContentWatch’s Net Nanny [25] is software which assists parents in protecting their children from
harmful content. Net Nanny lets parents monitor their children’s social media activity on different
online social network websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr [45]. Infoglide
MinorMonitor. Infoglide’s MinorMonitor [56] is a parental control web service which gives parents
a quick, dashboard view of their child’s Facebook activities and online friends. By using
MinorMonitor, parents can be alerted about questionable content that may have been revealed to
their child, or they can identify over-age friends in their child’s Facebook friends list. United
Parents Child Protection Service. The United Parents Child Protection Service [55] assists
parents in protecting their children by monitoring and tracking a child’s activity in online social
networks and identifying suspicious patterns in their child’s online profile. The child’s privacy is
maintained, but this service can help identify and report to the child’s parents, via email or text
message, when the child is approached by online strangers or cyberbullied. Several recently
published studies have proposed solutions to various online social networks threats. These
solutions have primarily focused on identifying malicious users and applications. In this section,
we present studies which provide solutions for detecting phishing attacks, spammers, cloned
profiles, socware, and fake profiles.1 Phishing Detection. Many researchers have suggested anti-
phishing methods to identify and prevent phishing attacks; most of these methods have been

based on techniques which attempt to identify phishing websites and phishing URLs [56]. In
recent years with the increasing number of phishing attacks on online social networks [55],
several researchers have suggested dedicated solutions for identifying OSN phishing attacks. In
2012, Lee et al. [56] introduced the WarningBird, a suspicious URL detection system for Twitter,
which can handle phishing attacks that conceal themselves by using conditional redirection
URLs. Later in the same year, Aggarwal et al. [4] presented the PhishAri technique, which can
detect if a tweet posted with a URL is phishing or not by utilizing specific Twitter features, such as
the account age and the number of followers of the user who posted the suspicious tweet.
Spammer Detection. Many researchers have recently proposed solutions for spammer detection
in online social networks In 2009, Benevenuto et al. [12] offered algorithms for detecting video
spammers, which succeeded in identifying spammers among YouTube users. In 2010, De-Barr
and Wechsler used the graph centrality measure to predict whether a user is likely to send spam
messages. Wang proposed a method to classify spammers on Twitter by using content and
social network graph properties. Stringhini et al. created more than 300 fake profiles (also
referred as “honey-profiles”) on three online social networks sites, Twitter, Facebook, and
MySpace, and successfully identified spammers who sent spam messages to the fake profiles.
Lee et al. also presented a method for detecting social spammers of different types by using
honeypots combined with machine learning algorithms. In 2013, Aggarwal et al. [3] presented
machine learning algorithms for detecting various type of spammers in Foursquare [46]. Recently,
Bhat and Abulaish introduced a community-based framework to identify OSN spammers. Cloned
Profile Detection. In 2011, Kontaxis et al. [57] proposed a methodology for detecting social
network profile cloning. They designed and implemented a prototype which can be employed by
users to investigate whether users have fallen victim to clone attacks. In 2013, Shan et al.
presented the CloneSpotter which can be deployed into the OSN infrastructure and detect cloning
attacks by using various users’ data records, such as a user’s login IP records, which are
available to the OSN operator. Socware Detection. In the last few years a number of studies have
tried to better understand and identify socware. In 2012, Rahman et al. [94] presented the
MyPageKeeper Facebook application which aims to protect Facebook users from damaging
posts on the user’s timeline. Rahman et al. also presented the Facebook’s Rigorous Application
Evaluator (FRAppE) for detecting malicious applications on Facebook [57]. In 2013, Huang et al.
[55] studied the socware ecosystem and discovered several insights about socware propagation
characteristics that can assist in future research on the detection and prevention of socware
propagation.
We advise OSN users who want to better protect themselves in these platforms to implement the
following six recommendations in each of their OSN accounts:
1. Remove Unnecessary Personal Information. We advise OSN users to review the details they
have inserted into their online social network accounts and remove extraneous information about
themselves, their family, and their friends. It is also recommended that users hide their friends list
if possible to prevent inference attacks.
2. Adjust Privacy and Security Settings. In many online social networks, like Facebook, the
default privacy settings are insufficient. Moreover, a recent study showed that many Facebook
users tend to stay with their default privacy settings [41]. In order for users to better protect
themselves on Facebook and in other online social networks, we recommend modifying the
privacy settings so that users’ personal data will be exposed only to themselves, or at most to
their friends only (for example, see Figure 4). Additionally, if possible, we advise users to activate
the secure browsing option and any other available additional authentication mechanisms, such
as Twitter’s two-factor authentication [56].
3. Do Not Accept Friend Requests from Strangers. As we demonstrated in Section 3, fake profiles
are quite common and often dangerous. Therefore, if a user receives a friend request from an
unknown person, we recommend ignoring such a request. If the user is uncertain and is
considering approving the friend request, we recommend performing a short background check
on the new “friend” and, at a minimum, insert the friend’s profile image to Google Images Search
[51] and submit the friend’s full name and other details to other search engines in order to
validate the authenticity of the individual. In order to identify and remove strangers who are

already listed as friends with the user, we recommend OSN users examine their friends list, or
use applications such as the Social Privacy Protector [40], and periodically remove friends whom
they are not familiar with or friends, such as exes, who should not have access to personal
information. Additionally, if parents want to better monitor their children’s activity, it is also
strongly recommended that they and their children scan the friends lists together in order to
remove unwelcomed “friends.”
4. Install Internet Security Software. We advise OSN users to install at least one of the many
commercial Internet security software products; Facebook offers several free security downloads
[33].
5. Remove Installed Third-Party Applications. Unbeknown to many users, third-party applications
are frequently collecting online personal data. A recent study showed that 30% of an examined
group of Facebook users had at least forty applications installed on their accounts [41]. It is
recommended that a user not install new unnecessary applications on his or her account.
Moreover, users are advised to go over their list of installed applications and remove any
unnecessary applications. 6. Do Not Trust Your OSN Friends. As we described in Section 3.3,
OSNs users tend to naively trust their friends in the social network. This trust has a negative side,
as was demonstrated in the case of Abigail Pickett[53]. Therefore, we recommend OSN users
take extra precautions when communicating with their online friends. We also recommend users
to think twice before offering any personal and sensitive information about themselves, even
when posting photos. Online social network users should definitely avoid revealing their home
address, phone number, or credit cards numbers.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Online social networks have become part of our everyday life and, on average, most Internet
users spend more time on social networks than in any other online activity. We enjoy using online
social networks to interact with other people through the sharing of experiences, pictures, videos,
and other types of information. Nevertheless, online social networks also have a dark side ripe
with hackers, fraudsters, and online predators, all capable of using online social networks as a
platform for procuring their next victim. In this paper, we have presented scenarios which threaten
online social network users and can jeopardize their identities, privacy, and well-being both in the
virtual world and in the real world. In addition, we have provided examples for many of the
presented threats in order to demonstrate that these threats are real and can endanger every
user. Moreover, we have emphasized certain threats which challenge the safety of children and
teenagers inside the online social network cyberspace. There are remedies to these threats, and
we have offered a range of solutions which aim to protect the online social network user’s privacy
and security (see Section 4). We have outlined some recommendations that are simple to
implement for OSN users to better protect themselves. However, as demonstrated in Table 1, the
presented solutions are not magical antidotes which provide full protection to a user’s privacy and
security. In order to be well protected against the various online threats, users need to employ
more than one solution, and in many cases must count on the OSN provider’s assistance in
providing tools both to better protect their privacy and to identify the threats. Therefore, we
recommend that online social network users not only adopt our recommendations, but also
educate themselves and their loved ones about online threats which can entice users and
potentially end disastrously. All social network users must very carefully consider what personal
information is being revealed about themselves, about their friends, and about their workplace.
Moreover, as parents, we are obligated to educate our children to be aware of potential threats
and teach them not to engage with strangers either in the real world or in the cyber world. If a
user’s personal information falls into the wrong hands, it can cause a vast amount of damage,
and in many cases there is no way to recapture what has been lost. The field of online social
network security and privacy is a new and emerging one, filled with many directions to follow.
Security researchers can continually offer better solutions to online threats; they can also
discover new security threats to address. We believe that in order to improve the present
solutions, the next step is to create synergy among the different security solutions. This will create
more robust and effective security solutions for detecting fake profiles, spammers, phishing
attacks, socware, and other threats. Another possible direction is to utilize various Natural

Language Processing (NLP) techniques and temporal analysis algorithms, combining them with
existing solutions to provide better and more accurate protection against online social networks
threats. For example, researchers can predict many users’ private traits, such as age and gender,
based on their Facebook likes [55]. Combining this algorithm with other topological-based fake
profile detection methods can assist in spotting fake details, such as a false age, thus identifying
fake profiles. An additional possible future research direction includes studying the emerging
security threats due to the increasing popularity of geo-location tagging of social network users
and offering solutions for threats unique to geosocial networking. All big social media security
systems were analyzed in this research and existed and new ways of defense were suggested.
Overall, researches can play a significant role by recognizing the value of solution synergies, by
applying useful techniques and algorithms, and by understanding unique threat situations within
online social networks.
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