{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T12:54:31Z","timestamp":1763643271172,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"MIS Quarterly","issue":"2","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>User privacy protection is a vital issue of concern for online social networks (OSNs). Even though users often intentionally hide their private information in OSNs, since adversaries may conduct prediction attacks to predict hidden information using advanced machine learning techniques, private information that users intend to hide may still be at risk of being exposed. Taking the current city listed on Facebook profiles as a case, we propose a solution that estimates and manages the exposure risk of users\u2019 hidden information. First, we simulate an aggressive prediction attack using advanced state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms by proposing a new current city prediction framework that integrates location indications based on various types of information exposed by users, including demographic attributes, behaviors, and relationships. Second, we study prediction attack results to model patterns of prediction correctness (as correct predictions lead to information exposures) and construct an exposure risk estimator. The proposed exposure risk estimator has the ability not only to notify users of exposure risks related to their hidden current city but can also help users mitigate exposure risks by overhauling and selecting countermeasures. Moreover, our exposure risk estimator can improve the privacy management of OSNs by facilitating empirical studies on the exposure risks of OSN users as a group. Taking the current city as a case, this work offers insight on how to protect other types of private information against machine-learning prediction attacks and reveals several important implications for both practice management and future research.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.25300\/misq\/2021\/16266","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,20]],"date-time":"2021-08-20T16:05:02Z","timestamp":1629475502000},"page":"821-858","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13003\/0pyd3js","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Is Hidden Safe? Location Protection against Machine-Learning Prediction Attacks in Social Networks"],"prefix":"10.25300","volume":"45","author":[{"given":"Xiao","family":"Han","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Management and Engineering, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China"}]},{"given":"Leye","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Technology, Peking University, Beijing, China"},{"name":"Key Lab of High Confidence Software Technologies (Peking University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, China"}]},{"given":"Weiguo","family":"Fan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Business Analytics, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, U.S.A."},{"name":"Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, China"}]}],"member":"10933","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025082212234758400_b1-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"153","article-title":"Tweethood: Agglomerative Clustering on Fuzzy k-Closest Friends with Variable Depth for Location Mining","author":"Abrol","year":"2010"},{"issue":"6221","key":"2025082212234758400_b2-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"509","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aaa1465","article-title":"Privacy and Human Behavior in the Age of Information","volume":"347","author":"Acquisti","year":"2015","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b3-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"26","DOI":"10.1109\/MSP.2005.22","article-title":"Privacy and Rationality in Individual Decision Making","volume":"3","author":"Acquisti","year":"2005","journal-title":"IEEE Security & Privacy"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025082212234758400_b4-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"469","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.1100.0335","article-title":"The Digitization of Healthcare: Boundary Risks, Emotion, and Consumer Willingness to Disclose Personal Health Information","volume":"22","author":"Anderson","year":"2011","journal-title":"Information Systems Research"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b5-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"61","article-title":"Find Me if You Can: Improving Geographical Prediction with Social and Spatial Proximity","author":"Backstrom","year":"2010"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b6-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"406","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dss.2012.10.046","article-title":"A Decision Methodology for Managing Operational Efficiency and Information Disclosure Risk in Healthcare Processes","volume":"57","author":"Bai","year":"2014","journal-title":"Decision Support Systems"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025082212234758400_b7-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1017","DOI":"10.2307\/41409971","article-title":"Privacy in the Digital Age: A Review of Information Privacy Research in Information Systems","volume":"35","author":"B\u00e9langer","year":"2011","journal-title":"MIS Quarterly"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025082212234758400_b8-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"482","DOI":"10.1080\/07421222.2016.1205918","article-title":"Examining Hacker Participation Length in Cybercriminal Internet-Relay-Chat Communities","volume":"33","author":"Benjamin","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Management Information Systems"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025082212234758400_b9-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"167","DOI":"10.1109\/TPC.2009.2017985","article-title":"Internet and Online Information Privacy: An Exploratory Study of Preteens and Early Teens","volume":"52","author":"Chai","year":"2009","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b10-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"838","article-title":"Estimating Twitter User Location Using Social Interactions: A Content Based Approach","author":"Chandra","year":"2011"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b11-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"3188","article-title":"Current City Prediction for Coarse Location Based Applications on Facebook","author":"Chanthaweethip","year":"2013"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b12-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"759","article-title":"You Are Where You Tweet: A Content-Based Approach to Geo-locating Twitter Users","author":"Cheng","year":"2010"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025082212234758400_b13-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1287","DOI":"10.1162\/003355300555079","article-title":"Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940-1990","volume":"115","author":"Costa","year":"2000","journal-title":"The Quarterly Journal of Economics"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b14-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"346","article-title":"Facebook Users Have Become Much More Private: A Large-Scale Study","author":"Dey","year":"2012"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b15-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"2836","article-title":"Estimating Age Privacy Leakage in Online Social Networks","author":"Dey","year":"2012"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025082212234758400_b16-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"35","article-title":"Location Privacy and Location-Aware Computing","author":"Duckham","year":"2006","journal-title":"Dynamic & Mobile GIS: Investigating Change in Space and Time"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b17-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"699","article-title":"Analysis of Publicly Disclosed Information in Facebook Profiles","author":"Farahbakhsh","year":"2013"},{"issue":"10","key":"2025082212234758400_b18-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3138","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.2015.2294","article-title":"A Reconsideration of Gender Differences in Risk Attitudes","volume":"62","author":"Filippin","year":"2016","journal-title":"Management Science"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b19-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","unstructured":"FTC\n          \u20082012. \u201cProtecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change,\u201d Federal Trade Commission. URL https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/reports"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b20-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"55","article-title":"Geo-Location Inference from Image Content and User Tags","author":"Gallagher","year":"2009"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b21-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.1070.0112","article-title":"Releasing Individually Identifiable Microdata with Privacy Protection Against Stochastic Threat: An Application yo Health Information","volume":"18","author":"Garfinkel","year":"2007","journal-title":"Information Systems Research"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b22-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"966","article-title":"Quantifying Web-Search Privacy","author":"Gervais","year":"2014"},{"issue":"1-2","key":"2025082212234758400_b23-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"125","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jeconom.2003.10.002","article-title":"The Effect of College Location on Migration of College-Educated Labor","volume":"121","author":"Groen","year":"2004","journal-title":"Journal of Econometrics"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b24-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"92","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dss.2014.11.008","article-title":"Alike People, Alike Interests? Inferring Interest Similarity in Online Social Networks","volume":"69","author":"Han","year":"2015","journal-title":"Decision Support Systems"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b25-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"154","article-title":"Inferring Privacy Information from Social Networks","author":"He","year":"2006"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025082212234758400_b26-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"154","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dss.2009.02.005","article-title":"Encouraging Information Security Behaviors in Organizations: Role of Penalties, Pressures and Perceived Effectiveness","volume":"47","author":"Herath","year":"2009","journal-title":"Decision Support Systems"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b27-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"1561","article-title":"AttriInfer: Inferring User Attributes in Online Social Networks Using Markov Random Fields","author":"Jia","year":"2017"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025082212234758400_b28-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"579","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.1120.0441","article-title":"Privacy Concerns and Privacy-Protective Behavior in Synchronous Online Social Interactions","volume":"24","author":"Jiang","year":"2013","journal-title":"Information Systems Research"},{"article-title":"That\u2019s What Friends Are For: Inferring Location in Online Social Media Platforms Based on Social Relationships","year":"2013","author":"Jurgens","key":"2025082212234758400_b29-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025082212234758400_b30-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"369","DOI":"10.1080\/07421222.2017.1334467","article-title":"Beyond the Personalization-Privacy Paradox: Privacy Valuation, Transparency Features, and Service Personalization","volume":"34","author":"Karwatzki","year":"2017","journal-title":"Journal of Management Information Systems"},{"issue":"15","key":"2025082212234758400_b31-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5802","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1218772110","article-title":"Private Traits and Attributes Are Predictable from Digital Records of Human Behavior","volume":"110","author":"Kosinski","year":"2013","journal-title":"PNAS"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b32-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"57","DOI":"10.2307\/352701","article-title":"Affection, Social Contact, and Geographic Distance between Adult Children and Their Parents","author":"Lawton","year":"1994","journal-title":"Journal of Marriage and the Family"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b33-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"819","article-title":"User Profiling in an Ego Network: Co-Profiling Attributes and Relationships","author":"Li","year":"2014"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b34-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"1603","article-title":"Multiple Location Profiling for Users and Relationships from Social Network and Content","author":"Li","year":"2012"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b35-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"1023","article-title":"Towards Social User Profiling: Unified and Discriminative Influence Model for Inferring Home Locations","author":"Li","year":"2012"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025082212234758400_b36-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"796","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.1120.1584","article-title":"Class-Restricted Clustering and Microperturbation for Data Privacy","volume":"59","author":"Li","year":"2013","journal-title":"Management Science"},{"article-title":"Understanding Privacy Settings in Facebook with an Audience View","year":"2008","author":"Lipford","key":"2025082212234758400_b37-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan"},{"issue":"6","key":"2025082212234758400_b38-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"80","DOI":"10.1080\/10611932.2014.994934","article-title":"Stay or Migrate? An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Place of Work, Place of Study and Birthplace","volume":"47","author":"Liping","year":"2014","journal-title":"Chinese Education & Society"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b39-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6:1","DOI":"10.1145\/1870096.1870102","article-title":"A Framework for Computing the Privacy Scores of Users in Online Social Networks","volume":"5","author":"Liu","year":"2010","journal-title":"ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b40-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"61","article-title":"Analyzing Facebook Privacy Settings: User Expectations vs. Reality","author":"Liu","year":"2011"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b42-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"285","DOI":"10.1007\/s13524-012-0142-8","article-title":"Your Place or Mine? On the Residence Choice of Young Couples in Norway","volume":"50","author":"L\u00f8ken","year":"2013","journal-title":"Demography"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025082212234758400_b43-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"431","DOI":"10.2307\/25750685","article-title":"Moving toward Black Hat Research in Information Systems Security: An Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue","volume":"34","author":"Mahmood","year":"2010","journal-title":"MIS Quarterly"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b44-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"251","article-title":"You Are Who You Know: Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks","author":"Mislove","year":"2010"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b45-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"898","article-title":"We Know Where You Live: Privacy Characterization of Foursquare Behavior","author":"Pontes","year":"2012"},{"issue":"2","key":"2025082212234758400_b46-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"243","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.2015.0576","article-title":"Finding Similar Mobile Consumers with a Privacy-Friendly Geosocial Design","volume":"26","author":"Provost","year":"2015","journal-title":"Information Systems Research"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b47-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"573","article-title":"A Multi-Indicator Approach for Geolocalization of Tweets","author":"Schulz","year":"2013"},{"issue":"4","key":"2025082212234758400_b48-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"989","DOI":"10.2307\/41409970","article-title":"Information Privacy Research: An Interdisciplinary Review","volume":"35","author":"Smith","year":"2011","journal-title":"MIS Quarterly"},{"issue":"10","key":"2025082212234758400_b49-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2339","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.2014.1981","article-title":"Gender Differences in the Willingness to Compete Emerge Early in Life and Persist","volume":"61","author":"Sutter","year":"2015","journal-title":"Management Science"},{"issue":"6","key":"2025082212234758400_b50-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"234","DOI":"10.2307\/143141","article-title":"A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region","volume":"4","author":"Tobler","year":"1970","journal-title":"Economic Geography"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b51-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"75","DOI":"10.2307\/25148625","article-title":"Design Science in Information Systems Research","volume":"28","author":"Von Alan","year":"2004","journal-title":"MIS Quarterly"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b52-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"42","DOI":"10.1016\/j.dss.2010.11.017","article-title":"The Personalization Privacy Paradox: An Exploratory Study of Decision Making Process for Location-Aware Marketing","volume":"51","author":"Xu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Decision Support Systems"},{"issue":"3","key":"2025082212234758400_b53-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"135","DOI":"10.2753\/MIS0742-1222260305","article-title":"The Role of Push-Pull Technology in Privacy Calculus: The Case of Location-Based Services","volume":"26","author":"Xu","year":"2009","journal-title":"Journal of Management Information Systems"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b54-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1342","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.1120.0416","article-title":"Research Note: Effects of Individual Self-Protection, Industry Self-Regulation, and Government Regulation on Privacy Concerns: A Study of Location-Based Services","volume":"23","author":"Xu","year":"2012","journal-title":"Information Systems Research"},{"issue":"1","key":"2025082212234758400_b55-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1145\/2556609","article-title":"Uncovering Social Network Sybils in the Wild","volume":"8","author":"Yang","year":"2014","journal-title":"ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data"},{"key":"2025082212234758400_b56-10_16266_ra_hanwangfan","first-page":"531","article-title":"To Join or Not to Join: The Illusion of Privacy in Social Networks with Mixed Public and Private User Profiles","author":"Zheleva","year":"2009"}],"container-title":["MIS Quarterly"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/misq.umn.edu\/misq\/article-pdf\/45\/2\/821\/6905\/10_16266_ra_hanwangfan.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"syndication"},{"URL":"https:\/\/misq.umn.edu\/misq\/article-pdf\/45\/2\/821\/6905\/10_16266_ra_hanwangfan.pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,22]],"date-time":"2025-08-22T16:24:39Z","timestamp":1755879879000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/misq.umn.edu\/misq\/article\/45\/2\/821\/1858\/Is-Hidden-Safe-Location-Protection-against-Machine"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]},"references-count":55,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.25300\/misq\/2021\/16266","relation":{},"ISSN":["0276-7783","2162-9730"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0276-7783"},{"type":"electronic","value":"2162-9730"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,6,1]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2019-5-21","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2020-4-10","order":1,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"order":0,"name":"review_process","label":"Review Process","explanation":{"URL":"Double-blind"},"group":{"name":"peer_review","label":"Peer review"}}]}}