POP-SNAQ:Privacy-preserving Open Platform forSocial Network Application Queries

Brian ThompsonHuijun Xiong

Online Social Networks

• Use of OSNs continues to increase

Online Social Networks

• To accommodate growing needs, a greater variety of OSNs has appeared

Motivation

• Need a way to collect info from many different OSNs and provide it to the user in a clean and organized fashion

Must also be careful not to compromise

users’ privacy!

Brian and Huijun at the Concert

• Current Solution:many individual queries

“Where is my friend Huijun?”

FacebookMy

SpaceiLike

Motivation

“Where is my friend Huijun?”

QUERYALL

Motivation

• Our Proposed Solution:cross-network query

POP-SNAQ

Privacy-preserving Open Platform for Social Network Application Queries

• provides a unified framework thatsupports cross-network queries

• uses a common language• employs security measures to

protect users’ privacy

POP-SNAQ

Privacy-preserving Open Platform for Social Network Application Queries

• provides a unified framework thatsupports cross-network queries

• uses a common language• employs security measures to

protect users’ privacy

POP-SNAQ

System architecture

POP-SNAQ

Privacy-preserving Open Platform for Social Network Application Queries

• provides a unified framework thatsupports cross-network queries

• uses a common language• employs security measures to

protect users’ privacy

POP-SNAQ

• OpenSocial– By Google– A common API for

social network apps– “Develop once,

Use Everywhere”– Supported by >20

social networks

POP-SNAQ

Privacy-preserving Open Platform for Social Network Application Queries

• provides a unified framework thatsupports cross-network queries

• uses a common language• employs security measures to

protect users’ privacy

POP-SNAQ

Communication Model

POP-SNAQ

• server-side app means OSNs have control over release of data– filter data before releasing– limit output to public profile info– “Free Input, Selective Output”

• two kinds of filtering1) based on user preferences2) based on social network preferences

POP-SNAQ

• text-to-image conversion– performed server-side– built into communication protocol

• open source implementationsalready available– GD library

imagettftext()• protects against large-scale

data harvesting attacks

• To evaluate our project, we compareit with an existing system:

Analysis of POP-SNAQ

Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect

• similar platform to Facebook Apps• allows information sharing between

Facebook and external websites• enables external websites to

access Facebook’s user database• potential websites must first be

reviewed and approved by Facebook

THE BATTLE

POP-SNAQFacebook Connect

BATTLE 1: Utility

• direct access to user database

• access all public profile info

• two-way communication

• single-network solution

• filtered access to user database

• apps can use private info too!

• one-way communication

• cross-network solution

POP-SNAQFacebook Connect

TIE!

BATTLE 2: Openness

• approve apps after careful inspection

• look into every submission. . . eventually

• applications are automatically approved

• accept every submission immediately

POP-SNAQFacebook Connect

POP-SNAQ WINS!

BATTLE 3: Privacy

• privacy enforced by policies

• manually check for data abuse

• external website controls data flow to users

• privacy enforced by technology

• built-in protection against abuse

• social networks control data flow to users

POP-SNAQFacebook Connect

POP-SNAQ WINS!

VICTORY: POP-SNAQ!

POP-SNAQFacebook Connect

VICTORY: POP-SNAQ!

Sounds great!But can it be

true?

Is POP-SNAQ just a dream, or can it

be reality?

Simulation

Hold on to your seats!

Conclusions

• POP-SNAQ is a solution to the problem of performing cross-network queries

• Achieves a balance between providing utility and protecting users’ privacy

• Improves on existing solution of Facebook Connect

• Future work: Requires implementation of extended OpenSocial API

Questions?