Towards Secure Data Sharing Processes in Online Social Networks:

Trusty

Gulsum Akkuzu, Benjamin Aziz and Mo Adda

School of Computing, University of Portsmouth, PO1 3HE, Portsmouth, U.K.

Keywords:

Web 2.0 Application, Online Social Networks, Sharing Data.

Abstract:

The development of Web 2.0 has remarkably increased in today’s world. These development has also been

a reason for the increment of online social networks (OSNs). Web 2.0 is the roof of the online social net-

works since online social networks are built on Web 2.0. Users are given an environment in which they can

communicate with others without considering other users locations. The way of communication in OSNs is

done via sharing various contents of data, such as photos, texts, and videos. Sharing data sometimes cause

privacy problems in OSNs, especially in the case that the content involves different users information on itself.

Users are notiﬁed after the content is shared and they are allowed to remove tags. The content is still available

in OSNs platforms, users, therefore, ﬁnd a way to punish other users with being unfriend, or they quit from

OSNs. However, both cases are contradictory with the main of OSNs. By considering the above issues, we de-

velop a framework in which users’ opinions are taken on data sharing process and based on the ﬁnal decision,

which is taken by the user who posts the content, punishing or rewarding technique is used. We also evaluate

the proposed work with users interactions.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of Web 2.0 applications have become remark-

ably common in our era, Web 2.0 concepts have in-

creased the development of Web-based services, ap-

plications, and social networking sites (Harris and

Rea, 2019). Online social networks (OSNs) are

well-known Web 2.0 applications, since OSNs are

free social networking sites with the development of

the Internet (Mata and Quesada, 2014). OSNs are

one of the main communication channels for peo-

ple, because, OSNs provide an environment to peo-

ple connect to each other regardless of their locations

(Akkuzu et al., 2019c). The way of communication

in OSNs environments is done via sharing contents

of data, such as, photo, text, video, or event (Keijzer

et al., 2018). Sharing data sometimes causes privacy

issues in OSNs, this is because of the fact that people

like sharing data which involves others users’ infor-

mation on it (Xu et al., 2018). OSNs users choose

two ways to protect themselves for such privacy is-

sues, one way to be unfriend with user, who leaks

his/her privacy, the other way quit from OSNs plat-

forms (Akkuzu et al., 2019a).

In some of the current OSNs platforms such as

Facebook, users are let to remove their ids from the

shared contents (Au, 2019). However, the shared con-

tent is still available which shows that removing the

tag is not a solution in OSNs. Removing the tag is

only available when the data is shared because people

are allowed to see the content they are related when it

is shared. There is no chance for people to give their

opinions in data sharing process in current OSNs. In

OSNs, it is a need to have a data sharing process in

which users, who are related to data, are given chance

to give their opinion when data is being shared. With

respect to this need in OSNs, we propose a framework

in this work. In the developed framework, users rep-

utation values are used to reward or punish the user

who shares the data based on his behaviours in the

sharing process. In order to show the applicability

of the proposed work, we implemented the proposed

work with a Web 2.0 application.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows; In

Section 2, we give similar works done in the web ap-

plication area. We then introduce the proposed work

in Section 3. In Section 4, the implementation of the

proposed work with its details and the analysis on the

implemented Web application are given. Finally, we

conclude the paper in Section 5.

418

Akkuzu, G., Aziz, B. and Adda, M.

Towards Secure Data Sharing Processes in Online Social Networks: Trusty.

DOI: 10.5220/0009806304180425

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Software Technologies (ICSOFT 2020), pages 418-425

ISBN: 978-989-758-443-5

2 RELATED WORKS

Web 2.0 applications provide users an environment

where people can produce contents and disseminate

the produced content with others efﬁciently (Constan-

tinides and Fountain, 2008). Web 2.0 applications are

used for social networking and commercial purposes

(Mata and Quesada, 2014). Social networks applica-

tions and Web 2.0 terms are frequently considered to-

gether because the Web 2.0 is a baseline for social net-

works (Cooke and Buckley, 2008). In the last decade,

the usage of OSNs has become one of daily activi-

ties for people (Grabner-Kr

auter, 2009). People have

been using the OSNs platforms in order to continue

their interactions with others. These communication

or interaction is mostly done via sharing contents of

data (Krasnova et al., 2010). Sharing data sometimes

cause privacy issues in OSNs because the shared con-

tent might include other users information on itself

(Akkuzu et al., 2019b).

Most of the current OSNs platforms provide the

tagging feature. Tagging is speciﬁcally classiﬁed in

to the multimedia content threats in (Rathore et al.,

2017). Users are allowed to tag other users on OSNs’

contents such as videos, and texts. This tagging fea-

ture unfortunately may cause privacy issues for other

users (Rathore et al., 2017). In OSNs platforms, Al-

though there are users who do not want to like be-

ing tagged on any contents, which is nor uploaded by

themselves, some of their friends can tag them and vi-

sualise not only their photos but also display their pro-

ﬁles (Squicciarini et al., 2010). Another issue is that

tagging may link someone who is not member of the

concerned OSN platform and does not want his infor-

mation being appeared in OSNs platforms (Gonz

alez-

Manzano et al., 2014). There is also another possible

scenario in which a spammer or malicious user can

tag large number of users in a single post, such as a

picture or video, in order to spread the malicious con-

tent to a large audience with little effort (Ahmed and

Abulaish, 2013).

Recently, Facebook, which is one of the most

common OSNs give users ﬂexibility of removing the

tag on the shared content. It might be considered as

a solution for removing users’ names on the context,

however, the content is still available on other users’

personal pages. Above problems and solutions are

provided by research papers do not focus on having

users opinions on the co-owned content data sharing

process. Also they do not taken having the reputa-

tion systems into the consideration if users leak each

others’ privacy on co-owned data sharing processes in

OSNs platforms. In order to ﬁll this gap in the litera-

ture, this work proposes a framework which is applied

on Web 2.0.

3 PROPOSED WORK

In current OSNs, each content of data has an owner

who produces, uploads, or creates the content. The

owner speciﬁes the targeted group tags people and

takes the decision for sharing the data. If the tagged

users do not want their ids being seen on the content,

then they ﬁnd ways to punish the user. The punish-

ment is either remove the tag, be unfriend with the

user, or quit from OSNs platforms. The current OSNs

do not have such systems which can award or punish

a user when the users behaves in a certain ways. Also

in the current OSNs, tagged users do not have chance

to express their opinions when data is being shared.

Users do not know which content of data is being

shared until it is appeared in OSNs. Many OSNs

users have serious problems in their lives because of

the privacy leakage which is originated from tagging

or sharing co-owned data (Yu et al., 2018). Quitting

from OSNs is a contradictory action to OSNs plat-

forms main aim, because OSNs are created to bring

people together, connect to each other (i.e. friend-

ship), and make to share contents of data (Heidemann

et al., 2012). Therefore, it is important to have OSNs

environments in which users should be able to express

their opinions in data sharing processes when they

are related to data (this type of data called co-owned

data) and also the OSNs platforms should use a pun-

ishment and awarding system when a user behaves in

a certain way in the co-owned data sharing processes.

With regards to those needs in OSNs platforms, we

have developed a framework which uses group deci-

sion making and users reputation values. The group

decision making technique is used to allow users to

express their opinions on data, which includes their

ids on data (in current OSNs it is tagging). The repu-

tation values are used to punish or award a user when

the user takes a decision on co-owned data.

Figure 1 represents the difference between the

proposed work structure and the current OSNs struc-

ture in a content of co-owned data sharing process.

As it is seen in the ﬁgure, the proposed framework

structure uses tagged users opinions before data is

being shared while the current OSNs do not allow

tagged users to give their opinions in the sharing pro-

cess. The proposed framework does not allow the

owner to share the content until tagged users give their

opinions, it is shown in the ﬁgure with dashed lines.

There are new actions which are assigned to the OSNs

platforms with the proposed work, one is “Notify the

owner with the taken decision” which refers that the

Towards Secure Data Sharing Processes in Online Social Networks: Trusty

419

system is responsible to notify the owner. The other

one is “Punish OR Award” which refers that the sys-

tem should take the responsibility for punishing or

rewarding the owner based on his ﬁnal decision on

co-owned data. The proposed framework does not re-

move any of the current actions in OSNs platforms

but adds new actions for the OSNs platforms in or-

der to decrease “Removing tags, Quitting, and Being

Unfriend”.

Figure 1: Current Online Social Network Structure vice

versa the Proposed Social Network Structure.

In order to show the applicability of the proposed

work, we have developed an online social network

named with Trusty. In the following section, we give

the details of the Trusty.

4 Trusty SOCIAL NETWORK

Trusty is an online social network which has cur-

rently more than forty thousand users on it (visit

http://www.trusty.gen.tr/). The Trusty aims to make

a balance between data sharing and privacy protec-

tion in co-woned data sharing processes. It uses the

proposed framework which is given in the previous

section. The biggest difference between Trusty and

the current OSNs is that Trusty assigns a reputation

value to a user when a users become a member. We

now give a co-owned data sharing process in Trusty

step by step, the accounts which are used to show

the steps are test accounts. That shows that there is

no anonymity issue on the used accounts. The taken

steps are follows;

• Create an account

• Make friends/ Search friends

• Share a co-owned content

Creating an Account: Figure 2 represent the Trusty

main page, in order to create an account a user needs

to provide his/her ﬁrst name, surname, email address

and password. Once the required information are pro-

vided by a users, log-in option is activated.

Figure 2: Trusty online social network main page.

Searching Friends: Figure 3 shows the search

engine in the Trusty. It is important to highlight that

all accounts which are used in this work are test ac-

counts.

Share a Co-woned Content: Figure 4 and Figure

5 show the process of sharing a co-owned data con-

tent. Taken steps are enumerated, ﬁrst of all the owner

needs to create/upload the content of data see the step

1. Then decide who are related to the content, tag re-

lated users (co-owners) step 2. The number 3 shows

the tagged users ids. The user should also decide the

targeted group for the data. Until now, all steps are

very similar to the current OSNs. The step 5 is the

ﬁrst difference in Trusty social network. In the current

OSNs, after taking the previous steps users share the

content of data while Trusty does not allow users to

share the content without notifying its co-owners. In

the current OSNs, there some techniques can be used

ICSOFT 2020 - 15th International Conference on Software Technologies

420

Figure 3: Trusty online social network search engine.

for this feature, for instance face recolonisation tech-

niques can be used. The highlighted point in Figure 5

meets the dashed line part in Figure 1.

Figure 4: Trusty online social network co-owned data shar-

ing steps.

After notifying the tagged users, the system is re-

sponsible to notify the co-owners. Figure 6 presents

how the notiﬁcation is shown on the co-owner page.

Figure 7 represents the page on the owners’ sides in

order to take co-owners’ opinions on co-owned data

sharing process.

Figure 8 shows the page which gives the notiﬁ-

cation on the owner’s page in order to show that co-

owners take the decision. Figure 9 presents the co-

owners’ decision to the owner.

As it is aforementioned, every user has a reputa-

tion value on users’ proﬁles. The reputation value

is visible by any user in Trusty network. Figure 10

shows the user’s proﬁle with user’s reputation value.

The reputation value is increased by the system if the

Figure 5: Trusty online social network waiting for co-

owners opinion.

Figure 6: Trusty online social network notiﬁcation on co-

owners page.

Figure 7: Trusty online social network asking for co-owners

opinions.

Towards Secure Data Sharing Processes in Online Social Networks: Trusty

421

Figure 8: Trusty online social network notiﬁcation on the

owner page.

Figure 9: Trusty online social network notiﬁcation which

shows co-owners opinions.

user respects the co-owners’ decision. It is decreased

otherwise.

4.1 Analysis on the Trusty

In order to analyse the usability and the interoper-

ability of the Trusty online social network, we con-

ducted two questionnaires one for the users, who take

the owner role in a co-owned data sharing process,

the other one for the users, who take the co-owners

role in a co-owned data sharing process. The analy-

sis of each questionnaires are as follows; The results

obtained from owner respondents are given on Figure

11, Figure 12, Figure 13, Figure 14, and Figure 15.

Detailed explanations on each ﬁgure result are given

below.

Figure 11 provides the results obtained from the

analysis of the ﬁrst question on the questionnaire

Figure 10: Trusty online social network user proﬁle with

reputation.

which was completed by owners. From the results

in the ﬁgure, it is apparent that knowing co-owners’

group decision was found very useful by the majority

of owners in their co-owned data sharing process.

Figure 11: Evaluation on knowing group decision in co-

owned data sharing process.

Owners were asked to rate how useful did they ﬁnd

knowing data sensitivity value in data sharing pro-

cess, Figure 12 indicates the results of respondents on

the question. There was a signiﬁcant number of own-

ers found knowing the sensitivity value useful. How-

ever, it is important to mention that there was people

who did not ﬁnd to know the data sensitivity value in

the sharing process.

Figure 13 provides the results obtained from anal-

ysis of results on question ”How useful did you ﬁnd

knowing knowing the trust loss and trust gain values

in each co-owner in the sharing process?”. In the ﬁg-

ure, the correlation between the number of choices on

Good and the number of choices on Low is interesting

ICSOFT 2020 - 15th International Conference on Software Technologies

422

Figure 12: Evaluation on knowing co-owned data sensitiv-

ity value in sharing process.

because the difference between two choices is twenty

respondents.

Figure 13: Evaluation on knowing trust loss and trust gain

values in each co-owner.

From the result in Figure 14, it is apparent that

having reputation values in online social network was

found advantageous by respondents. The number of

respondents, who chose Low option, from this ﬁg-

ure were compared with the number of respondents in

Figure 13 which shows the result for Low option, the

comparison analysis showed that people who chose

Low for both question were same. It can therefore be

assumed that those respondents do not want to know

they are punished for sharing the data.

The implementation of the developed models have

been done with Trusty online social network, there-

fore, it is important to have a question which can

be used to evaluate the network. Respondents were

asked to evaluate Trusty with question ”How use-

ful did you ﬁnd the Trusty?”, of the 316 respondents

Figure 14: Evaluation on having reputation values in online

social networks.

who completed the questionnaire, just thirty percent

of them rated the Trusty with Good option.

Figure 15: Overall evaluation on Trusty social network.

As it is aforementioned, two questionnaires were

conducted, one was ﬁlled by data owners and the

other one was ﬁlled by data co-owners. Figure 16,

Figure 17, Figure 18, and Figure 19 represent the re-

sults obtained from data co-owners’ answers on the

questionnaire given in Appendices.

Figure 16 presents the results on the question

”How useful did you ﬁnd giving your opinion on the

sharing process”, this question was developed to un-

derstand the applicability of group decision making in

online social networks. Of the data co-owners giving

their opinions in the sharing process, 50% rated either

good or very good.

Co-owners have been given chance to give their

concerns on co-owned data security features in order

to decide the data sensitivity value of a co-owned data.

Figure 17 presents the results on the question related

Towards Secure Data Sharing Processes in Online Social Networks: Trusty

423

Figure 16: Evaluation of taking co-owners opinions on the

sharing process.

Figure 17: Evaluation on data security features.

to data security features, we can see that the majority

of co-owners chose the option Good.

The next question was related to having reputation

values in online social network platforms. This ques-

tion and the next question were same on data own-

ers’ questionnaire. From Figure 18, it is apparent that

having reputation values in online social networks,

speciﬁcally on Trusty, was considerably good.

The last question on the questionnaire was about

rating Trusty network. From the chart, it can be seen

that by far the greatest choice is for Good.

The implementation and analysis of the proposed

work have shown that it is a crucial need to use fuzzy

decision systems and users reputation values in co-

owned data sharing processes in OSNs. Users eval-

uation in the implemented work has shown that the

proposed work users have positive views on the im-

plemented models.

Figure 18: Evaluation of having reputation values in Trusty.

Figure 19: Overall evaluation on Trusty social network.

5 CONCLUSION

Web 2.0 applications have become remarkably com-

mon in today’s world. The Web 2.0 applications

and social networks terms are considered together be-

cause the Web 2.0 is a baseline for the social net-

works. The use of online social networks has been

one of the daily activities for people. People use the

online social networks for interacting others, the in-

teraction or communication is done via sharing data

in OSNs. Shared contents sometimes include more

than one user id on, this type of data sharing might

cause privacy problems in OSNs. In order to protect

users privacy, current OSNs provide precautions such

as removing tag on the shared content. However, re-

moving tag sometimes is not enough for users. The

problem here is that users are able to see the content,

which includes their ids, after it is shared not in the

process of sharing. In such cases, users choose ei-

ther being unfriend with the user, who leaks their pri-

ICSOFT 2020 - 15th International Conference on Software Technologies

424

vacy, or quit from OSNs platforms. Both actions are

contradicting with the main of OSNs because OSNs

main purpose is to bring people into OSNs ans sup-

port them to be friend with others. By considering

the above issues, we propose a framework which uses

a punishment and rewarding system in order to en-

courage users to consider other users’ opinions in a

data sharing process. We implemented our proposed

framework with a Web 2.0 application, named Trusty

social network. We then analysed the implemented

work with users evaluations. The result has shown

that users want to give their opinions when the con-

tent is being shared not after it is shared. The result

has also shown that using punishment and rewarding

system give users satisfaction on data sharing process.

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