Privacy in Mobile Social Networking - Essay Example

Introduction Social networking is one of the technologies that are being used latterly much better than it used to be used in the earlier days. There has been increase in the use of the smart phones which are much modernized in the sense that they are very well able to assess some very important social networking information which helps the users to be able to use some of the applications in the according to their own preferences. It should be noted that currently, some of the application demands that the mobile uses have to put some security settings on some of the most private as well as specific application (Barkhuus, 2004). This is because due to the technology advancement, some people are very well able to hack into the users accounts thereby compromising their own personal security. There are so many security as well as privacy issues, which have risen up as the innovation in technologies advances hence the need for the implementation of the solutions for these problems. Privacy in Mobile Social networking Recently so many applications have been invented in the mobile phones allowing the users of these gargets to be able to locate each other no matter the location or the distances. The mobile devices therefore have been manufactured such that they are able to allow some services like asking questions to the users without necessarily letting or having them disclose their privacy or confidential information. Privacy in Mobile Social networking has currently been the main subject of concern to many mobile users and so being one of the greatest customer needs then there has been a need for the manufactures to cater for it (Boyd et el, 2007). The works that has been done earlier on the issue of Privacy in Mobile Social networking has been classified into three main groups namely the user interface, architectural and computational. The main group that matters most is the user interface. It should be noted that for the computational approaches, care is taken to ensure that location privacy is done so that that data that is disclosed will be able to meet all the levels that involves privacy protection (Vicky & Ray, 2011). The data that is protected is done for the purposes of protecting a group of users and not just an individual. This means that a certain company can take a step of protecting all the data that is exposed as long as the employees are using their mobile phones from the work place for the purposes of security. This can be done for the key leaders of the organization. The architectural approaches with reference to the location privacy ensure that there is a limit to the extent in which the information in a certain organization should be exposed especially as far as the organizational official mobile phones are to be used. These mobile phones are privately protected with good system of security to ensure they can not be easily traces by anyone. For the user interface, fair consideration is given such that people are able to personally decide to which extent of information they are comfortable with being accessed by the public. This is also the same as the implementation of the hidden friendship in the social networks like the face book whereby people are able to relate with each other without necessarily having to know the details of each other. The provision of ways for limiting access to personal information therefore enhances the private security (Vicky & Ray, 2011). The people are also able to view some of the details concerning the other person requesting for the friendship and decide whether they want to go on with the friend or they want to quit. Millions of people are currently using the mobile social networking connected to the network services as their main ways of connecting as well as interacting with each other. This means that there is a great need for the security as far as the users are concerned. The problem has been arising because most of the mobile phones have not been designed in a way that the problem has been taken care of. This is why, even though a company has put into very well consideration the issue of the 4p’s, it is not functional due to the fact that the area of security has not been catered for by many of the companies. A number of contributions have however been made towards dealing with the problem (Manikandan et el, 2009). Three classes of privacy as well as security have been identified wit reference to the social networking which are as follows; issues that are referred to as direct anonymity, the indirect or the issues which are K-anonymity and finally the issues that are associated with eavesdropping, replay, spoofing or wormhole attacks. These problems have been presenting problems in the area of security and privacy in the social networking in very different ways. In addition, a design has been presented which is referred to as the identity server and is very useful to the provision of the privacy and the security problems existing. The severs is actually manufactured in such a way that it establishes or adapts security as well as technology for the provision of the novel solution to the problems associated with the social networking through the mobile phone. The technology involved in the process of installing the security systems in the smart phones are quiet complicated this because it entails the installation in the phones of different model and make. In addition, the rate that the social network is growing is very high in such a way that so many social network programs have come up like twitter, yahoo message and face book among other. In addition, the fact that millions of people are usually using the same social network at the very same time means that the provision of their security all at the same time is very difficult at some point (Boyd & Ellison 2007). All the mobile providers have therefore come up with means and ways of providing the security to the users through installing the application on their phones some of the most commend and very well installed security and privacy programs in the mobiles are found in the blackberry and the Iphone. Problems associated with Privacy in Mobile Social networking A number of problems are associated with the technology of the provision of these services. Some of these problems ranges from peer to the peer issues as well as the client sever mobile issues of the social networking. This means that even the problems that are experienced depends on which type of mobile networking operation is involved in particular. The social networking online deals with a real relationship of friendship in real such that friend are able to exchange gifts, notes as well as massages (Kaasinen, 2003). However, this process also involves the beings ability to access each other’s private as well as very confidential massages hence the need for security to ensure any person does not just gain access without authorization from the owner. Some privacy authorization policies have also been invented for the social networking users. This is whereby the uses have been given the mandate to define the rules, which will allow the access of their information form their friends, some specific individuals, as well as particular groups of people. These rules are also very important since they allow the users or the friends to know which particular information they are allowed to access and at which particular time. Also there is protection for the people who are viewing the profile of the individual in the sense that there is no application at the moment that enables the user to view and know who has viewed his or her profile at what given time hence the vi ewer is protected as well as his or her location that he or she was when viewing the information. An application in the SNS social networking site has been invented to enable the user block some of the fiends they feel are not worthy to access their profile (Fraser & Dutta, 2008). This happens when they feel the particular friends are harassing or they are misusing their privacy information for their own gain. In such cases, he friend that is blocked is never able to exchange any kind of information with the other friend. This kind of a feature is very helpful to many people who have not been able to deal with the issues of online burying which can at time cause very serious emotional trauma. Some of the people are also very active in posting very offensive comments as well as pictures on the social networks, which are capable of causing serious emotional stress as well as trauma. A research done by one psychologist shows that several f the teenagers are never interested in the use of MySpace because of the fact that they are limited to the kind of friends they want to have, so many of them are very adamant to accept friendship through the social network because of the issue of online bullying. Conclusion Social networking site are very important as well as useful when well used. They are one of the main ways in which people are able to communicate with their loved ones anywhere in the world. However, the issue of security is very important in that interpersonal communication has been misused by some people in that they take it as one of the ways I which they bully others. Due to that, there has been a need for the installation of security and privacy settings to ensure that people are comfortable using the social network (Kaasinen, 2003). The social network users are therefore provided with many ways in which they can set their privacy settings to be able to control who gains access to their information through defining and setting some rules. Also by doing that the social networking site operating software, is able to ensure the security of the users is not compromised in any particular way. Reference Barkhuus, L. 2004. Privacy in location-based services, concern vs. coolness. In: Proceedings of workshop paper in mobile HCI 2004 workshop: location system privacy and control. Glasgow: UK. Boyd, D.& Ellison, N. 2007. "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (1). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html. Fraser, M. & Dutta, S. 2008. Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World. Wiley. ISBN 978-0470740149. http://books.google.com/?id=SP92NwAACAAJ. Kaasinen, E. 2003. User needs for location-aware mobile services. Pers Ubiquitous Comput 7(1):70–79 Vicky, H., Sabrina, W. & Ray, K. 2011. Behavior Dynamics in Media-Sharing Social Networks. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. Manikandan, A., Anubuoli, P. & Saikishore, E. 2009. International Conference on Computer Applications – Networking.Canada: Research publishing service. Read More