A collaborative access control framework for online social networks

Abstract

Most Online Social Networks allow users to set their privacy settings concerning posting information, but current implementations do not allow a fine grained enforcement in case the posted item concerns other users. In this paper we propose a new collaborative access control framework that takes into account the relation of multiple users for viewing as well as for sharing items, eventually solving conflicts in the privacy settings of the users involved. Our solution relies on two algorithms, one for viewing and another one for sharing items. We provide an evaluation of these algorithms where we demonstrate how varying some of the parameters directly influences the decision of viewing or sharing an item. Last but not least, we present a proof-of-concept implementation of our approach in an open source social network called Diaspora.