Programming the Technology: The Problem of Data Poisoning in Online Social Communities

Programming the technology

Question 4

Analyse the problem of data poisoning in on-line social communities, which may include immersive environments. You may include sources such as reputable wikis and blogs here; http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/ (referencing tool)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P rivacy#Organizational
On-line social community is a medium that allow people to connect with their friends and share information, it is a way of networking but it is a social based relationship among its users. People join the social community by creating personal profile which can be set to private or made public, this network is primarily to connect with friends and share information ranging from photos, videos, comments, contact details, etc. However, many users have made their details public without carefully considering the consequence, hence; the on-line social communities have become a danger zone where people fear to tread on due to privacy policies being breached.
Online social sites is also used for business and educational purposes, this enables registered individuals or organizations to advertise their services and products, build contacts and also advertise job opportunities for prospective clients. While online social education focuses on group of friends or people with the purpose of sharing knowledge about a particular subject through links and blogs.
Generally, online social networks objective is to provide its users with a virtual environment through which connected people can share ideas and discoveries, exchange news, information and make new friends etc.
However, the issue of trust is on the rise on social networks as many people fear that their personal identifying information can be used for commercial purposes following recent research on impersonations and cyber criminals. In a statement, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told CNN that impersonation schemes affect less than one per cent of Facebook 's 150 million users. He would not comment on whether the rate of such incidents is increasing, but said any increase in the total number of impersonations could be due to the fact that the site is growing by 600,000 users per day (Sutter and Carroll, 2009).
The Internet has brought new concerns about privacy in an age where computers can permanently store records of everything: "where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever," (Rosen, 2010). There is so much information of so many people stored in different databases worldwide and unknown to these people their personal details could possibly be sold for profit purposes, also, employers look up prospective employees details for screening purposes thereby violating privacy right.
The practice of looking up employee’s information is currently having a huge effect on employment. Microsoft reports that 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals now do online research about candidates, often using information provided by search engines, social-networking sites, photo/video-sharing sites, personal web sites and blogs, and Twitter. They also report that 70 percent of U.S. recruiters have rejected candidates based on internet information and this has created a need by many to control various online privacy settings in addition to controlling their online reputations, both of which have led to legal suits against various sites and employers (Rosen, 2010).
In a bid to be secured online, many people have devised the means of being anonymous by creating false profile most of which are for malicious purposes thus poisoning their information online. The application of this kind of attack on large-scale could lead to the collapse of Social Networking platforms, affect its value for commercial purposes, as well as the utility in terms of knowledge and correlation of data provided by users, with a significant impact on its economic value (Paganinip, 2011). People who poison their data do this by providing wrong and misleading information thereby disguising to deceive online entrants. Although it is possible to amend private settings on social network online, but this has become more and more complicated especially with social networks like Facebook, Tagged, LinkedIn, etc. “some information will no longer remain private because Facebook has also added a feature, called community pages, which automatically links personal data, like hometown or university, to topic pages for that town or university” (Foremski, 2010).
Data poisoning has become a resort for many people to hide their true selves and identity from being used for commercial purposes; however, it is also a major means through which many people indulge in cyber espionage. Cyber espionage is one of the most common forms of cybercrime in this period of great concern to the world of private industry and military (Paganinip, 2012). The act of data poisoning on social network communities can range from simulation to replacement of identity etc. which gives rise to computer criminal act and fraud.
Latest research reveals problems online social networkers have experienced resulting from cyber espionage: 91.9% received spam, 54.3% received phishing, 23.3% received malware, 16.6% account sent spam, 13% account hijacked or password stolen and only 43% of the profiles on Twitter were real profiles. 57 % are classified as "other”, other types of fraudulent account creators used to phish or trap people with malware (Mikhaylova, 20210).
In conclusion, data poisoning

the scope that uses computer techniques to perform criminal acts. Computer fraud, phishing, malware development to steal sensitive information to users (e.g. banking), advanced persistent threats (APTs), ramsonware, Cyberespionage, they are all activities united by the intent to profit from the improper use of technological tools and techniques.
In addition, Alan Westin describes privacy as the ability to determine for ourselves when, how, and to what extent information about us is communicated to others http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/
In Conclusion
Where data exists, there will always be potential for it to be viewed and extracted. Website safety and security, especially where sensitive and personal information is concerned, is important to be implemented properly and updated or checked on a regular and consistent basis. It is a good idea to avoid storing data that is not needed on a website or its database. In a sense, this is inviting criminal activity in the form of theft, data poisoning, malicious file execution and disruption. personal /social bots , creating a large number of fake profiles (e.g. millions of fake profiles) managed by machines, able to interact with real users in a way likely, thus changing the ”sentiment” and ”conversation ”large-scale as well as altering all the social graph and to preclude meaningful correlations on the data.

Stealing private data harness harnessed http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CB8QFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mckinsey.com%2F~%2Fmedia%2Fmckinsey%2Fdotcom%2Fclient_service%2FHigh%2520Tech%2FPDFs%2FImpact_of_Internet_technologies_search_final2.ashx&ei=P-eQUPHiO86S0QXv-oGoCg&usg=AFQjCNHydnriIss_Bpxken2g0L_HtiP8Qw (must open at uni) http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/05/poisoning_the_w.php http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/352/digital-id/social-network-poisoning-they-want-to-spy-on-us-we-evade.html http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/22077-Facebook-the-Poisoned-Network-83-Million-Questionable-Profiles.html http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/3158/cyber-crime/cyberespionage-and-new-opportunities-for-cybercrime.html

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Network_Poisoning

On the Web, cookie poisoning is the modification of a cookie (personal information in a Web user 's computer) by an attacker to gain unauthorized information about the user for purposes such as identity theft. The attacker may use the information to open new accounts or to gain access to the user 's existing accounts.
Cookies stored on your computer 's hard drive maintain bits of information that allow Web sites you visit to authenticate your identity, speed up your transactions, monitor your behavior, and personalize their presentations for you. However, cookies can also be accessed by persons unauthorized to do so. Unless security measures are in place, an attacker can examine a cookie to determine its purpose and edit it so that it helps them get user information from the Web site that sent the cookie.
To guard against cookie poisoning, Web sites that use them should protect cookies (through encryption, for example) before they are sent to a user 's computer. Ingrian Networks ' Active Application Security platform is one means of securing cookies. When cookies pass through the platform, sensitive information is encrypted. A digital signature is created that is used to validate the content in all future communications between the sender and the recipient. If the content is tampered with, the signature will no longer match the content and will be refused access by the server. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/cookie-poisoning data poisoning is where the effectiveness of a system would decrease over time because of bad data being introduced into the mix
Data poisoning: Providing wrong or misleading information. A main type is subject fraud, especially where a survey instrument is forwarded to individuals outside the intended sample.
Avatar: A representation of a human, animal or other animate object enabling the representation 's participation in some form of online interaction. http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/phishing-fraud/phishing-email-methods/ Be aware of poisoned data.
Poisoned Data is data that is false, or created to function as bait or create a diversion.
For example: during an election, someone could create false reports about violence at a polling station, or supporters of one candidate could create false reports about intimidation by an opposing candidate.
The ability to do online inquiries about individuals has expanded dramatically over the last decade. Facebook for example, as of July 2010, was the largest social-networking site, with nearly 500 million members, or 22 percent of all Internet users, who upload over 25 billion pieces of content each month. Twitter has more than 100 million registered users. The Library of Congress recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006, reports Rosen.[10]
According to some experts, many commonly used communication devices may be mapping every move of their users. Senator Al Franken has noted the seriousness of iPhones and iPads having the ability to record and store users locations in unencrypted files,[11] although Apple denied doing so.[12]
New technologies can also create new ways to gather private information. For example, in the U.S. it was thought that heat sensors intended to be used to find marijuana growing operations would be acceptable. However in 2001 in Kyllo v. United States (533 U.S. 27) it was decided that the use of thermal imaging devices that can reveal previously unknown information without a warrant does indeed constitute a violation of privacy.[9] http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/technology-bares-privacy-issues-prof-says-372025/ https://www.privacyrights.org/ar/Privacy-IssuesList.htm

http://www.dhanjani.com/blog/social_bookmarking/ http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse571-11/ftp/social/index.html https://www.watsonhall.com/resources/downloads/top10-website-security-issues.pdf http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/cookie-poisoning Bibliography
Jeffrey Rosen. (July 25, 2010). The Web Means the End of Forgetting. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?_r=2&ref=technology. Last accessed 25th Oct 2012.
Tom Foremski . (May 18, 2010 ). Poisoning The Well - A Response To Privacy Concerns... . Available: http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/05/poisoning_the_w.php. Last accessed 26th Oct 2012. paganinip . (2nd Dec 2011). Social Network Poisoning … they want to spy on us, we evade. Available: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/352/digital-id/social-network-poisoning-they-want-to-spy-on-us-we-evade.html. Last accessed 29 Oct 2012. paganinip . (2012). Cyberespionage and new opportunities for cybercrime. Available: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/3158/cyber-crime/cyberespionage-and-new-opportunities-for-cybercrime.html. Last accessed 29th Oct 2012.
John Sutter and Jason Carroll (6 Feb 2009). Fears of impostors increase on Facebook http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/05/facebook.impostors/index.html. Last accessed 31 Oct 2012
Elena Mikhaylova. (July 3rd, 2012). Social Network Poisoning - Why You Should Care. Available: http://zero3computers.com/blog/social-network-poisoning-why-you-should-care. Last accessed 31 Oct 2012.

Bibliography: Jeffrey Rosen. (July 25, 2010). The Web Means the End of Forgetting. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?_r=2&ref=technology. Last accessed 25th Oct 2012. Tom Foremski . (May 18, 2010 ). Poisoning The Well - A Response To Privacy Concerns... . Available: http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/05/poisoning_the_w.php. Last accessed 26th Oct 2012. paganinip . (2nd Dec 2011). Social Network Poisoning … they want to spy on us, we evade. Available: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/352/digital-id/social-network-poisoning-they-want-to-spy-on-us-we-evade.html. Last accessed 29 Oct 2012. paganinip . (2012). Cyberespionage and new opportunities for cybercrime. Available: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/3158/cyber-crime/cyberespionage-and-new-opportunities-for-cybercrime.html. Last accessed 29th Oct 2012. John Sutter and Jason Carroll (6 Feb 2009). Fears of impostors increase on Facebook http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/05/facebook.impostors/index.html. Last accessed 31 Oct 2012 Elena Mikhaylova. (July 3rd, 2012). Social Network Poisoning - Why You Should Care. Available: http://zero3computers.com/blog/social-network-poisoning-why-you-should-care. Last accessed 31 Oct 2012.