Secure Social Media Spaces for Communities of Vulnerable People

Pimenidis, Elias; Polatidis, Nikolas

Abstract

© 2019 IEEE. This paper presents a proposal for developing secure social media spaces for groups of people that could be vulnerable to external influences. These could be refuges from war torn or politically unstable countries that could be persecuted by political opponents, or young children that could be targeted online by paedophiles and other online criminals. The system utilizes Block-Chaining technologies to provide the secure environment and Recommender Systems to link members to sub-groups based on their preferable discussion topics and ideas. There are challenges in the proposal as the key issue of trust in the system must be guaranteed by a third party. This organization will need to verify the identity of every subscriber and then create secure user identities / profiles that guarantee the anonymity of members. Block-chaining technologies will also allow the monitoring of user behaviour to ensure the trustworthiness of the environment is maintained. The cost of the system and its operation will be another consideration. The reputation of Block-Chaining technologies due to its links with crypto-currencies should not be considered a negative factor as there are many successful implementations in everyday life.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Global Security, Safety and Sustainability, ICGS3 2019
• Start Date: Jan 16, 2019
• End Date: Jan 18, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Nov 9, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Apr 11, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 10, 2019
• Deposit Date: Nov 16, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 30, 2019
• Journal: 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Global Security, Safety and Sustainability (ICGS3)
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• ISBN: 9781538670019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICGS3.2019.8688027
• Keywords: social media, trust, secure spaces, Recommender Systems, Blockchain Technology
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/848937
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICGS3.2019.8688027
• Additional Information: Additional Information : (c) 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.; Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : 12th International Conference on Global Security, Safety & Sustainability
• Contract Date: Nov 16, 2018