Semantically supported Authentication and Privacy in Social Networks

Service access in a ubiquitous computing and pervasive Internet environment has reached a new dimension. It is not longer a question of enabling services for customers, but to design a convenient and trusted service usage. While semantic services open for a description of user preferences, profiles and social groups, privacy handling is not addressed so far. Social communities based on friend of a friend (foaf) principles, Linkedln, or Facebook are open for all registered users, thus data about yourself are spread all-around. This paper presents an architecture to enable social networks to enable privacy, based on the identity of the user. Focus is on the semantic description of user´s role in social networks and on securing the access through appropriate authentication mechanisms. Depending on the security requirements of the user, Internet trust mechanisms or mobile-based key exchange mechanisms can be applied. The user-centric approach will enable the user to select an identity provider for the trusted management. A prototype using semantically defined social relationships demonstrates the capabilities of the suggested approach.