On Social Networks, You Are Who You Know 171
Posted
by
kdawson
from the spy-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends dept.
from the spy-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends dept.
santosh maharshi writes "On social networks like Facebook, even if you have kept your profile very private, people can just look at your friends list and infer lots of vital information about you. Most of the social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn allow people to see your picture and your friends list as part of the open access for visitors (the article says that only 5% of Facebook users have bothered to hide their friends list). In a study titled You Are Who You Know: Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks (PDF), conducted by Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, an algorithm was tested that can accurately infer the personal attributes of Facebook users simply by looking at their friend lists. 'At Rice [University], the algorithm accurately predicted the correct dormitory, graduation year, and area of study for the many of the students. In fact, among these undergraduates, researchers found that “with as little as 20 percent of the users providing attributes we can often infer the attributes for the remaining users with over 80 percent accuracy."'"
I'm sure that marketing companies have known this (Score:4, Interesting)
Not so shocking (Score:3, Interesting)
So true (Score:3, Interesting)
I friended an old colleague of mine who has a prominent sales position at a tech firm, and was curious why he hid his friend list. So I browsed his news and watched his wall for ahwile and soon realized he just didn't want people to know he was gay. It wasn't blatent, but you could tell that a large number of people leaving messages were loudly gay, talking about gay iissues like gay marriage, etc..
Of course I never knew this whan I actually worked with him, and we litterally spent man weeks together at customer sites - although I afterwards realized that he was very good looking and never seemed to have a current girl friend, only talked about ex's. It all fit really.
So the article struck a chord with me.
What this study shows is the value of network data (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's how they do it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Go to www.zabasearch.com and type in your name.
It will probably turn up a few addresses. Now all that's left is to geo-locate your IP address and dump the addresses close to that location onto Google Maps.
Even if you have an unlisted phone number your address is easy to find.
Re:i'm not on facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
Henry David Thoreau said it best 150 years ago:
Re:You have friends (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not nobody (Score:2, Interesting)
You are a sysadmin and use BSD, GNU/Linux, AIX, IRIX and SunOS/Solaris but GNU/Linux exclusively on your personal PC (but think Macs are okay and are quite capable at using them as well), think Windows OSes barely qualify for the "OS" label, know what a Vax is and even know your way around VMS, and are a first rate perl-monger.
You think emacs is of the devil and probably have many esoteric vi command keys memorized.
While you surf the intarwebs regularly you know there were tubes before webs and still read Usenet on occasion.
You are fairly libertarian but likely not a card-carrying member of the Libertarian party.
Furthermore, you are an avid reader and at one time played DOOM way too much.
Oh, and despite all this, you found someone who loved you enough to accept your marriage proposal.
I could tell you more about yourself but that's just what I got in the first 60 seconds.
Re:What this study shows is the value of network d (Score:4, Interesting)
It's valuable. Why you would give away your social networking data to Facebook, Twitter, or Google for free?
Actually you don't give it for free---you in fact pay them for the privilege of giving them that info (indirectly, via ads). Presumably you get something in return though.
I do agree with you on the value; personal information is a commodity, and as a commodity that is inherently mine, if you want it you should have to get my consent.
A software-licensing scheme seems like the perfect solution for personal information: you only lease my information; that doesn't give you the right to resell it, you may only use it as I explicitly direct, and I can withdraw your permissions at any time for any reason.