Social Networking

Social Networking

Definition: The use of dedicated websites and applications to communicate with other users, or to find people with similar interests to one's own.

Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals.

The use of internet-based social media programs to make connections with friends, family, classmates, customers and clients. Social networking can be done for social purposes, business purposes or both. The programs show the associations between individuals and facilitate the acquisition of new contacts. Examples of social networking have included Facebook, LinkedIn, Classmates.com and Yelp.

Social Networking Sites: can be broadly defined as an internet or mobile-based social space where people can connect, communicate, and create and share content with others.

An Overview of Social Networking Sites:

Social networking websites are virtual communities that encourage and foster interaction among members of a group by allowing them to post personal information, communicate with other users and connect their personal profiles to others' profiles. In most instances, membership in a web community is achieved by registering as a user of that website. Frequently visiting and interacting with others who use that website makes one's network stronger. While many social networking websites are open to anyone, some are open only to people in a certain age group, or who belong to a specific real world community or occupation. Examples of popular social networking websites include MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, Last.fm, and LinkedIn.

Members of social networking websites communicate by posting weblogs (blogs), messages, video and music streams or files, and chatting. Often members of social networking sites join smaller communities within their network. For example, users of Facebook belong to groups associated with specific schools they have attended or common areas of interest, while LinkedIn members belong to groups associated with their places of employment. Members of Last.fm share music preferences with other users.

Social networking websites allow members to promote themselves and their interests by posting personal profiles that contain enough information for others to determine if they are interested in associating with that person. Critics of social networking claim that it contributes to predatory or stalking behavior and can be used to invade privacy. Since many people are free with the information they post about themselves, these websites are frequently used to investigate a person's character and social habits. Popular sites like Facebook and MySpace have been used by potential employers and law enforcement agencies to gather information about individuals.

Over the past few years, Social Networking has gone from generic websites, which try to cater to all types of users, to more targeted services catering to specific groups / verticals. For example, their are Social Networking Websites exclusively for business professionals, Social Networking Websites for parents, Social Networking Websites for College Students, etc. These targeted websites provide more tools and features catered towards those audiences and provide more in-depth, revelant information for that specific group.

Timeline of the launch dates of many major SNSs and dates when community

sites re-launched with SNS features

What to Look for in Social Networking:

1.      Networking Features: A good social network goes above and beyond simply allowing people to post a profile and update pictures. Additional features should include instant messaging, photo tagging and notifications. The best social network sites allow you to join and create groups based on your interests. You should be able to share music playlists and videos.

2.      Profiles: The heart and soul of social networking sites are people's personal profiles. Each one is its own online sanctuary – a place where people can express their thoughts and feelings, post their photographs and interact with their network of friends. The most popular social network websites put a strong emphasis on the user's profile, making it easy to use yet still reflective of each user's personality.

3.     Search: The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy-to-use environment. Common search functions include the ability to search for people by name, city, school and email address.

4.      Security: The internet can be a dangerous place to post personal information. All social networks should provide privacy customization and give you the ability to set your profile or parts of your profile to public or private. Additionally, these sites should give you the ability to report inappropriate behavior and content and to block specific people entirely.

Types of Social Networking Sites:

1.      Microblogging:

Services that focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates.  The most popular is Twitter.

2.      Social Connections / Social Networks:

Keeping in touch with friends and family members is one of the greatest benefits of social networking. Here is a list of the most widely-used websites for building social connections online.

Facebook: Arguably the most popular social media utility, Facebook provides a way for users to build connections and share information with people and organizations they choose to interact with online.

Twitter: Share your thoughts and keep up with others via this real-time information network.

Google +: This relatively new entrant to the social connection marketplace is designed to allow users to build circles of contacts that they are able to interact with and that is integrated with other Google products

MySpace: Though it initially began as a general social media site, MySpace has evolved to focus on social entertainment, providing a venue for social connections related to movies, music games and more.

3.      Multimedia Sharing:

Social networking makes it easy to share video and photography content online. Here are some of the most popular sites for multimedia sharing.

YouTube: Social media platform that allows users to share and view video content

Flickr: This site provides a powerful option for managing digital photographs online, as well as for sharing them with others.

Picasa: Similar to Flickr, Picasa provides a way to organize and share photos. It is a Google product and so offers integrated tagging and sharing with Google+.

4.      Professional:

Professional social networks are designed to provide opportunities for career-related growth. Some of these types of networks provide a general forum for professionals to connect, while others are focused on specific occupations or interests. A few examples of professional social networks are listed below.

LinkedIn: As of November of 2011, LinkedIn had more than 135 million members, making it the largest online professional network. Participants have an opportunity to build relationships by making connections and joining relevant groups.

Classroom 2.0: Social network specifically designed to help teachers connect, share and help each other with profession-specific matters.

Nurse Connect: Online community designed to help individuals in the nursing profession connect and communicate with each other.

5.      Informational:

There are MANY popular blogs and forums. Informational communities are made up of people seeking answers to everyday problems. For example, when you are thinking about starting a home improvement project or want to learn how to go green at home, you may perform a web search and discover countless blogs, websites, and forums filled with people who are looking for the same kind of information. A few examples include:

Super Green Me: Online community where individuals interested in adopting green living practices can interact

HGTV Discussion Forums: Connect with individuals interested in home design improvement via the HGTV message boards

Do-It-Yourself Community: Social media resource to allow do-it-yourself enthusiasts to interact with each other

6.      Educational:

Educational networks are where many students go in order to collaborate with other students on academic projects, to conduct research for school, or to interact with professors and teachers via blogs and classroom forums. Educational social networks are becoming extremely popular within the educational system today. Some examples of such educational social networks are listed below.

The Student Room: UK-based student community featuring a moderated message board and useful resources related to school.

The Math Forum: A large educational network designed to connect students with an interest in math, this site provides interaction opportunities for students by age group.

ePALS School Blog: This international social network for K-12 students is designed to build international connections to promote world peace.

7.      Hobbies:

One of the most popular reasons many people use the Internet is to conduct research on their favorite projects or topics of interest related to personal hobbies. When people find a website based on their favorite hobby, they discover a whole community of people from around the world who share the same passion for those interests. This is what lies at the heart of what makes social networks work, and this is why social networks that are focused on hobbies are some of the most popular. A few examples of hobby-focused social networking sites include:

Oh My Bloom: Social media site specifically for gardening enthusiasts. It features groups, forums, blogs, video content and more.

My Place at Scrapbook.com: Designed specifically for scrapbooking enthusiasts, users can create profiles, share information, post updates and more.

Sport Shouting: An online destination for sports fans to voice their opinions and connect with other enthusiasts.

8.      Academic:

Academic researchers who want to share their research and review results achieved by colleagues may find academic-specific social networking to be quite valuable. A few of the most popular online communities for academics are:

Academia.edu: Users of this academic social network can share their own research, as well as follow research submitted by others.

Connotea Collaborative Research: Online resource for scientists, researchers and clinical practitioners to find, organize and share useful information.

9.   Book Communities: 

Book lovers who want to share their interests in books and authors. E.g. BookCrossing, BookSwim

10.   Bookmarking Sites: 

Services that allow you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and resources around the internet. E.g. Delicious and Stumble upon

11.   Social news: 

Services that allow people to post various news items or links and then allows its users to vote on the items. E.g. Digg and Reddit

12.    Languages: 

Language communities are developed to help people learn a foreign language online. E.g. Friends Abroad, iTalki, kanTalk

13.  Location based services: 

Provide user location details. E.g. Check-ins, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Yelp

Advantages:

1.      Finding good people. You can learn someone's life story just by checking their page. Their friends, likes and dislikes, relationship status, phone number, address…everything.

2.      You can share your feelings and your mental stresses - and it is a great way to entertain yourself after a busy daily routine.

3.      It also makes it a lot easier to keep in touch with family and friends, especially if they live far away.

4.      Allows employees to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions and share links.

5.      Provides an opportunity to widen business contacts.

6.      Targets a wide audience, making it a useful and effective recruitment tool.

7.      Improves business reputation and client base with minimal use of advertising.

8.      Free business promotions

9.      Low cost advertising

Disadvantages:

1.      Opens up the possibility for hackers to commit fraud and launch spam and virus attacks.

2.    Increases the risk of people falling prey to online scams that seem genuine, resulting in data or identity theft.

3.  Potentially results in negative comments from employees about the company or potential legal consequences if employees use these sites to view objectionable, illicit or offensive material.

4.      The golden rule of social networking is to avoid putting anything online that could reflect badly on you or your business.

5.      Potentially results in lost productivity, especially if employees are busy updating profiles, etc.

6.      Time consuming

7.      Negative publicity

Security Issues with Social Networking Sites:

1. Spam: Spam is the common term for electronic 'junk mail' unwanted messages, advertisements sent to a person's email account.

Zombies: Server and Clients

Defense:

•         Use Spam filter software

•         Don’t disclose your email id on unknown sites

•         Proper protection of your computer

•         User education

•         Detect and block spam mails from reaching the user’s mailbox

2. Scams: These schemes often arrive uninvited by email. Many are related to the well-documented Nigerian scams or Loto scams and use similar tactics in one form or another. (Scammers Hack facebook account and demand user’s friends for assistance in transferring money to the scammer’s bank account.)

Defense:-

•         Do not send money or pay any fee via money transfer to clam prizes.

•         Never give personal details to anyone that you have not checked out first from an independent source. Internet searches can sometime provide extra information.

•         User Education in the form of Portal, Email, News letters, Customer meet etc.

3. Malware or Malicious Software: Software intended to harm computers is malicious software. Malicious software is also referred to as malware.

•   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.

•       E.g.: Virus, Worms, Trojan horses, Logic bombs, Backdoors, Spyware, Key-Loggers (E.g. Free Key-Logger, Perfect Key-Logger)

Defense:

•         Install and update good Anti Virus and Anti Spyware software regularly. (Email Content Filter)

•         “Virtual Keypad” on the server to prevent Key-Logging

•         Awareness and Education in the form of emails, Newsletters, SMS, Advertisements etc.

•         Do not download software from un-trusted Web sites or other sources

•         Do not open any executable file created by someone you do not know

•         Make sure software patches are installed and up to date

•         For backdoor check source code by an independent team

•         Anti-spyware software to detect and block spyware

4. Identity Theft: (Identity Clone/Fake Profile)

•         Sniffers

•         Dumpster Diving

•         Shoulder Surfing

•         Social Engineering

Defense:

•         Strong Passwords

•         SSL

•         Clear Screen / Desk Policy

•         Good Anti Virus  and Anti Spyware

•         Awareness

5. Phishing: Criminally fraudulent process of acquiring user’s credentials (2009 – Fake Facebook login pages inviting the users friends to click on a link posted on the original user’s Wall.)

Attack Vectors:

•       URL Obfuscation Attacks: Sending email for asking your username, password details related to banking sites.

•  Cyber Squatting: Registration of similar sounding domain e.g. http://www.mybank.com, http://www.mybank1.com, http://www.mybank.org, http://www.mybank.in

•         Cross Site Scripting(CSS): Executed by poor application coding

•      Trojans: Named after Greek Story of Trojan Horse. Backdoor entry. Most dangerous attack vector.

Defense:

•     At client side: Anti Virus, Personal Firewall, Anti Spyware,  and User Awareness.

•      At server side: Firewall, Network Intrusion Preventive System, Host Intrusion Preventive System, Secured Code,  SSL certificate, Anti-Phishing Service, Two Factor Authentication and Transaction Monitoring.

•   Two factor authentication required not only insert password but also provide verification Code (PIN) that was sent to users mobile device.

6. Pharming:

•         Variant of Phishing. Redirect User to Bogus Website.

•         Executed by: Changing the hosts file on user’s computer, DNS Poisoning.

Defense:

•      Receive alert if similar sounding domain is registered (Domain and Brand Monitoring like Mark Monitor, RSA, Verisign)

•         Protection of DNS servers and client PCs.

7. Man-In-The- Middle attack (MITM): Old but dangerous attack. Active Eavesdropping, Communication between Client-Server is intercepted and customer is directed to hacker’s proxy server carried out through:

•         DNS Cache Poisoning

•         Browser Proxy Configuration

Defense: (Best Multi Factor Authentication)

•         Mutual Authentication (Client-Server SSL)

•         Transaction Monitoring, Encrypting and authenticating IP packets.

8. Man-In-The-Browser attack:

•         Variant of MITM

•         Trojan is used to infect Internet Browser and has the capability manipulate the transactions.(E.g.: Silentbanker)

Defense:

•         Virus scans can also detect, quarantine, and delete Trojan horses

•         Transaction Verification

•         Transaction Monitoring

9. 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 unknowing and even opening a microphone and web camera to record the user.

•         Twitter in 2009 when twitter was plagued by a “Don’t Click” attack.

Defense: Don’t click the unknown links and User Education

10. Physical Threat: Social network users might encounter, physical threat is another issue that social network users need to concern. Physical threat is physical harm to a person, or to a person’s property such as theft, stalking, blackmailing, or physical harassment. With the characteristics and features provided in the social networks websites, social network users at risk of such threats. (Cyber Abuse)

Defense: If someone is harassing or threatening you, remove them from your friends list, block them, and report them to the site administrator.

•       Internet Security Solutions: Antivirus, Firewall and Internet Protection Layer.

•   Norton Safe Web: Symantec’s Norton Safe Web is a facebook application with more than 5,00,000 users. It scans the facebook user’s News feed and warns the user about unsafe links and sites.

Tips for Social Networking Safety:

1.   Use caution when you click links that you receive in messages from your friends on your social website.

2.      Know what you've posted about yourself.

3.      Don't trust that a message is really from who it says it's from.

4.     To avoid giving away email addresses of your friends, do not allow social networking services to scan your email address book.

5.   Type the address of your social networking site directly into your browser or use your personal bookmarks.

6.      Be selective about who you accept as a friend on a social network.

7.      Choose your social network carefully.

8.      Be careful about installing extras on your site.

9.      Think twice before you use social networking sites at work.

10.  Protect your hardware: Safety and security start with protecting computers. Install a security suite (antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall) that is set to update automatically.

11.  Use strong passwords

12.  Remove unnecessary personal information.

13.  Adjust privacy and security settings 

Important Links:
1. Facebook Law of India, Case Studies and other Courseware