{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,19]],"date-time":"2026-01-19T07:07:20Z","timestamp":1768806440684,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2014,9,23]],"date-time":"2014-09-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1411430400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"funder":[{"name":"OSD-T&#38;E (Office of Secretary Defense-Test and Evaluation)"},{"name":"DefenseWide\/PE0601120D8Z National Defense Education Program (NDEP)\/BA-1"},{"name":"ARO (025071), ONR (N000141010091, N000141410095), and AFOSR (FA95500810132)"},{"name":"Basic Research; SMART Program Office, www.asee.org\/fellowships\/smart","award":["N00244-09-1-0081"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["N00244-09-1-0081"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["ACM Trans. Knowl. Discov. Data"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2014,11,17]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Privacy and security are major concerns for many users of social media. When users share information (e.g., data and photos) with friends, they can make their friends vulnerable to security and privacy breaches with dire consequences. With the continuous expansion of a user\u2019s social network, privacy settings alone are often inadequate to protect a user\u2019s profile. In this research, we aim to address some critical issues related to privacy protection: (1) How can we measure and assess individual users\u2019 vulnerability? (2) With the diversity of one\u2019s social network friends, how can one figure out an effective approach to maintaining balance between vulnerability and social utility? In this work, first we present a novel way to define vulnerable friends from an individual user\u2019s perspective. User vulnerability is dependent on whether or not the user\u2019s friends\u2019 privacy settings protect the friend and the individual\u2019s network of friends (which includes the user). We show that it is feasible to measure and assess user vulnerability and reduce one\u2019s vulnerability without changing the structure of a social networking site. The approach is to unfriend one\u2019s most vulnerable friends. However, when such a vulnerable friend is also socially important, unfriending him or her would significantly reduce one\u2019s own social status. We formulate this novel problem as vulnerability minimization with social utility constraints. We formally define the optimization problem and provide an approximation algorithm with a proven bound. Finally, we conduct a large-scale evaluation of a new framework using a Facebook dataset. We resort to experiments and observe how much vulnerability an individual user can be decreased by unfriending a vulnerable friend. We compare performance of different unfriending strategies and discuss the security risk of new friend requests. Additionally, by employing different forms of social utility, we confirm that the balance between user vulnerability and social utility can be practically achieved.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/2630421","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,10,1]],"date-time":"2014-10-01T13:34:59Z","timestamp":1412170499000},"page":"1-25","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["User Vulnerability and Its Reduction on a Social Networking Site"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Pritam","family":"Gundecha","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ"}]},{"given":"Geoffrey","family":"Barbier","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH"}]},{"given":"Jiliang","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ"}]},{"given":"Huan","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,9,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1341531.1341559"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1150402.1150412"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1594977.1592585"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"G. Becker. 1974. A Theory of Social Interactions.  G. Becker. 1974. A Theory of Social Interactions.","DOI":"10.3386\/w0042"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/1467-937X.00168"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"D. Easley and J. Kleinberg. 2010. Networks Crowds and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World. Cambridge University Press.   D. Easley and J. Kleinberg. 2010. Networks Crowds and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World. Cambridge University Press.","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511761942"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1772690.1772727"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","unstructured":"M. Garey and D. Johnson. 1979. Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness. WH Freeman & Co.   M. Garey and D. Johnson. 1979. Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness. WH Freeman & Co."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1518701.1518736"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM\u201912)","author":"Goel S.","unstructured":"S. Goel , J. M. Hofman , and M. I. Sirer . 2012. Who does what on the web: A large-scale study of browsing behavior . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM\u201912) . S. Goel, J. M. Hofman, and M. I. Sirer. 2012. Who does what on the web: A large-scale study of browsing behavior. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM\u201912)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1979742.1979614"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1858948.1858955"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1102199.1102214"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2020408.2020489"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","first-page":"4","article-title":"Mining social media: A brief introduction","volume":"1","author":"Gundecha P.","year":"2012","unstructured":"P. Gundecha and H. Liu . 2012 . Mining social media: A brief introduction . Tutorials in Operations Research 1 , 4 . P. Gundecha and H. Liu. 2012. Mining social media: A brief introduction. Tutorials in Operations Research 1, 4.","journal-title":"Tutorials in Operations Research"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2487575.2487713"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1242572.1242594"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1218772110"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1672308.1672328"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1232722.1232727"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_22_1","volume-title":"Interestmap: Harvesting social network profiles for recommendations. Beyond Personalization-IUI2005, January 9","author":"Liu H.","year":"2005","unstructured":"H. Liu and P. Maes . 2005 . Interestmap: Harvesting social network profiles for recommendations. Beyond Personalization-IUI2005, January 9 , San Diego, CA, USA . H. Liu and P. Maes. 2005. Interestmap: Harvesting social network profiles for recommendations. Beyond Personalization-IUI2005, January 9, San Diego, CA, USA."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_23_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.57.3.426"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_24_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.90.6.1014"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_25_1","unstructured":"E. Morozov. 2011. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Public Affairs.   E. Morozov. 2011. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Public Affairs."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_26_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SP.2008.33"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_27_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SP.2009.22"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_28_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01588971"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_29_1","first-page":"429","article-title":"Social interaction","volume":"7","author":"Parsons T.","year":"1968","unstructured":"T. Parsons . 1968 . Social interaction . International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 7 , 429 -- 441 . T. Parsons. 1968. Social interaction. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 7, 429--441.","journal-title":"International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_30_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT) and 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Social Computing SocialCom). 180--185","author":"Quercia D.","unstructured":"D. Quercia , M. Kosinski , D. Stillwell , and J. Crowcroft . 2011. Our Twitter profiles, our selves: Predicting personality with Twitter . In Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT) and 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Social Computing SocialCom). 180--185 . D. Quercia, M. Kosinski, D. Stillwell, and J. Crowcroft. 2011. Our Twitter profiles, our selves: Predicting personality with Twitter. In Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT) and 2011 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Social Computing SocialCom). 180--185."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_31_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.84.6.1236"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MSP.2007.75"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_33_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/HICSS.2011.467"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_34_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1526709.1526780"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_35_1","volume-title":"Social Media Metrics. The New Rules of Social Media","author":"Sterne J.","unstructured":"J. Sterne . 2010. Social Media Metrics. The New Rules of Social Media . John Wiley & Sons Inc . J. Sterne. 2010. Social Media Metrics. The New Rules of Social Media. John Wiley & Sons Inc."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_36_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/953460.953514"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_37_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0167-6377(03)00062-2"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_38_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2641190.2641195"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_39_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1557019.1557109"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_40_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1401890.1401972"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_41_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2396761.2396795"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_42_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICDM.2010.54"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_43_1","volume-title":"Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion","author":"Vaynerchuk G.","unstructured":"G. Vaynerchuk . 2009. Crush It&excl; : Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion ( 1 st ed.). HarperCollins . G. Vaynerchuk. 2009. Crush It&excl;: Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion (1st ed.). HarperCollins.","edition":"1"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_44_1","volume-title":"Approximation Algorithms","author":"Vazirani V.","unstructured":"V. Vazirani . 2001. Approximation Algorithms . Springer . V. Vazirani. 2001. Approximation Algorithms. Springer."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_45_1","unstructured":"T. Veblen and M. Banta. 2007. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford University Press.  T. Veblen and M. Banta. 2007. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford University Press."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_46_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"D. Watts and S. Strogatz. 1998. Collective dynamics of small-world networks. Nature 393 6684 440--442.  D. Watts and S. Strogatz. 1998. Collective dynamics of small-world networks. Nature 393 6684 440--442.","DOI":"10.1038\/30918"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_47_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SP.2010.21"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_48_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining.","author":"Ying X.","unstructured":"X. Ying and X. Wu . 2008. Randomizing social networks: A spectrum preserving approach . In Proceedings of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining. X. Ying and X. Wu. 2008. Randomizing social networks: A spectrum preserving approach. In Proceedings of the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_49_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"R. Zafarani M. A. Abbasi and H. Liu. 2014. Social Media Mining: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.   R. Zafarani M. A. Abbasi and H. Liu. 2014. Social Media Mining: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9781139088510"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_50_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 3rd ICWSM.","author":"Zafarani R.","unstructured":"R. Zafarani and H. Liu . 2009. Connecting corresponding identities across communities . In Proceedings of the 3rd ICWSM. R. Zafarani and H. Liu. 2009. Connecting corresponding identities across communities. In Proceedings of the 3rd ICWSM."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_51_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2487575.2487648"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_52_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1526709.1526781"}],"container-title":["ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/2630421","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/2630421","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,18]],"date-time":"2025-06-18T07:19:36Z","timestamp":1750231176000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/2630421"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2014,9,23]]},"references-count":52,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2014,11,17]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/2630421"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/2630421","relation":{},"ISSN":["1556-4681","1556-472X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1556-4681","type":"print"},{"value":"1556-472X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2014,9,23]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2012-08-01","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2014-05-01","order":1,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2014-09-23","order":2,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}