About Social Network

Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small exploring the interests and activities, or who are interested in person, especially in the workplace,schools,colleges and universities, it is most popular filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other people, to share first-hand information and experiences about interests like cooking,golfing,gardening,developingfriendships professionals alliances, finding employment, business-to-business marketing and even groups sharing information about baking cookies to the Thrive Movement. The topics and interests are as varied and rich as the story of our universe.

The other side of Social Network is security and privacy issues and is entirely treated as two different issues. As security issue, the third person gains unauthorized access to the information of protected resources and the privacy issues is someone can gain access to confidential information by simply watching you what you type your password. But both types of breaches are often intertwined on social networks, especially since anyone who breaches network and opens the door to easy access to private information belonging to any user. The reason behind Social network security and privacy lapses exist because of the amounts of information the sites process each and every day that end up making it much easier to exploit a single flaw in the system. Features that invite user participation - messages, invitations, photos, open platform applications, etc. – are often the avenues used to gain access to private information.

The popularity of social networking sites has increased at astonishing levels. There is no arguing the usefulness of sites such as Face book, Twitter and LinkedIn. They can be used for professional networking and job searches, as a means to increase sales revenue, as a tool to keep the public informed of safety and other issues or as a way to reconnect with friends from way-back-when.

Uses of Social Networking

• Meeting the people online across the world
• Making friendship with the people who are far away
• Profile building
• Self representation
• Exchanging / Sharing the information related to studies or education, current affairs, sports, business, transport, movies, latest news updates, event announcements, exchanging the thoughts etc
• Share the data files, videos, music, photos   
  
  
  
  Social Networking Risks and Challenges
  Social networking has become most popular activity in today’s Internet world, with billions of people across the world are using this media to meet old friends, making new friends, to collect and share information, social networking while being a popular media has several disadvantages associated with it. These sites can be trapped by scammers or hackers leading to loss of confidentiality and identity theft, of the users. Social Networking sites are becoming very popular especially among the growing kids. These sites expose the kids to various risks like online bullying, disclosure of personal information, cyber-stalking, access to inappropriate content, online grooming, child abuse, etc. In addition there are many more risks like fake profiles with false information, malicious application, spam, and fake links which leads to phishing attacks etc.,
  a. Illegal content:
  In General, anybody who access social networking or media sites may not deliberately seek out inappropriate content and may inadvertently access content while undertaking online access or searches or they may seek it out or be referred content by others. The content that includes sexually explicit, illegal images of sexual abuse, violence, criminal activity or accidents, from video clips, promotes extreme political views, potentially used in the radicalization of vulnerable members of the community, basis of race, religion, sexual preference or other social/cultural factors. They may also exposes to online advertising which promotes adult content.
  The illegal content on the sites, images of child abuse and unlawful hate speech. Age-inappropriate content on the sites, such as pornography or sexual content, violence, or other content with adult themes which may be inappropriate for young people and they might discover content through their smart phones that may be blocked by home and school internet filters
  b. Spam
  As we all know that spam is usually unwanted e-mail advertising about a product sent to list of e-mails or group of e-mail addresses. Similarly spammers are sending the unwanted mails or messages to the billions of users of social networking sites which are free; and are easily accessible by spammers to gather the personal information of the unsuspecting users.
  Social spam is unwanted spam content appearing on social networks and any website with user-generated content (comments, chat, etc.). It can be manifested in many ways, including bulk messages, insults, hate speech, malicious links, fraudulent reviews, fake friends, and personally identifiable information. Bulk messages in social networking sites are a set of comments repeated multiple times with the same or very similar text. These messages, also called as spam-bombs, can come in the form of one spammer sending out duplicate messages to a group of people in a short period of time, or many active spam accounts simultaneously posting duplicate messages.
  c. Abusive, vulgar, or irreverent language:
  User-submitted comments that contain swear words or slurs are classified as profanity or abusive or vulgar or irrelevant language. Common techniques include “cloaking” works by using symbols and numbers in place of letters. These bad words are still recognizable by the human eye, though are often missed by website monitors due to the misspelling.
  d. Insults:
  User-submitted insults are comments that contain mildly or strongly insulting language against a specific person or persons. These comments range from mild name-calling to severe bullying. Online bullies often use insults in their interactions, referred to as cyber bullying. Hiding behind a screen name allows users to say mean, insulting comments with anonymity; these bullies rarely have to take responsibility for their comments and actions.
  e. Threats:
  User-submitted threats of violence are comments that contain mild or strong threats of physical violence against a person or group.  It may also quickly turn into a stream of racism and provoke to insulting comments, and threats against others. This is a more serious example of social spam.
  f. Hate speech:
  User-submitted hate speech is a comment that contains strongly offensive content directed against people of a specific race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
  g. Malicious links: User-submitted comments can include malicious links that will inappropriately harm, mislead, or otherwise damage a user or computer. These links are most commonly found on video entertainment sites, such as Youtube. What happens when you click on malicious links can range from downloading malware to your device, to directing you to sites designed to steal your personal information, to drawing unaware users into participating in concealed advertising campaigns