Analyzing and Securing Social Networks focuses on the two major technologies that have been developed for online social networks (OSNs): (i) data mining technologies for analyzing these networks and extracting useful information such as location, demographics, and sentiments of the participants of the network, and (ii) security and privacy technolo

Security and Privacy in Social Networks brings to the forefront innovative approaches for analyzing and enhancing the security and privacy dimensions in online social networks, and is the first comprehensive attempt dedicated entirely to this field. In order to facilitate the transition of such methods from theory to mechanisms designed and deployed in existing online social networking services, the book aspires to create a common language between the researchers and practitioners of this new area- spanning from the theory of computational social sciences to conventional security and network engineering.

Written by a stellar team of experts, Analyzing Social Networks is a practical book on how to collect, visualize, analyze and interpret social network data with a particular emphasis on the use of the software tools UCINET and Netdraw. The book includes a clear and detailed introduction to the fundamental concepts of network analyses, including centrality, subgroups, equivalence and network structure, as well as cross-cutting chapters that helpfully show how to apply network concepts to different kinds of networks. Written using simple language and notation with few equations, this book masterfully covers the research process, including: · The initial design stage · Data collection and manipulation · Measuring key variables · Exploration of structure · Hypothesis testing · Interpretation This is an essential resource for students, researchers and practitioners across the social sciences who want to use network analysis as part of their research. Available with Perusall—an eBook that makes it easier to prepare for class Perusall is an award-winning eBook platform featuring social annotation tools that allow students and instructors to collaboratively mark up and discuss their SAGE textbook. Backed by research and supported by technological innovations developed at Harvard University, this process of learning through collaborative annotation keeps your students engaged and makes teaching easier and more effective. Learn more.

We live in a world that is paradoxically both small and vast; each of us is embedded in local communities and yet we are only a few 'links' away from anyone else in the world. This engaging book represents these interdependencies' positive and negative consequences, their multiple effects and the ways in which a local occurrence in one part of the world can directly affect the rest. Then it demonstrates precisely how these interactions and relationships form. This is a book for the social network novice learning how to study, think about and analyse social networks; the intermediate user, not yet familiar with some of the newer developments in the field; and the teacher looking for a range of exercises, as well as an up-to-date historical account of the field. It is divided into three clear sections: 1. historical & Background Concepts 2. Levels of Analysis 3. Advances, Extensions and Conclusions The book provides a full overview of the field - historical origins, common theoretical perspectives and frameworks; traditional and current analytical procedures and fundamental mathematical equations needed to get a foothold in the field. Available with Perusall—an eBook that makes it easier to prepare for class Perusall is an award-winning eBook platform featuring social annotation tools that allow students and instructors to collaboratively mark up and discuss their SAGE textbook. Backed by research and supported by technological innovations developed at Harvard University, this process of learning through collaborative annotation keeps your students engaged and makes teaching easier and more effective. Learn more.

Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL offers backgrounds in information studies, computer science, and sociology. This book is divided into three parts: analyzing social media, NodeXL tutorial, and social-media network analysis case studies. Part I provides background in the history and concepts of social media and social networks. Also included here is social network analysis, which flows from measuring, to mapping, and modeling collections of connections. The next part focuses on the detailed operation of the free and open-source NodeXL extension of Microsoft Excel, which is used in all exercises throughout this book. In the final part, each chapter presents one form of social media, such as e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube. In addition, there are descriptions of each system, the nature of networks when people interact, and types of analysis for identifying people, documents, groups, and events. - Walks you through NodeXL, while explaining the theory and development behind each step, providing takeaways that can apply to any SNA - Demonstrates how visual analytics research can be applied to SNA tools for the mass market - Includes case studies from researchers who use NodeXL on popular networks like email, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis - Download companion materials and resources at https://nodexl.codeplex.com/documentation

The use of online social networks (OSNs) has grown exponentially in recent years, and these OSNs continue to have an ever-increasing impact on human lives. There are many concerns regarding the privacy of users in these environments, such as how trustworthy the social network operators (SNOs) are.This book presents a way to tackle the security and privacy issues in current OSNs through a new framework for online social networking, based on distributed cloud-based datacenters (CDCs) and using Shamir's secret sharing (SSS) as the method of encrypting user profile data. The framework aims to fulfill two contradictory goals: maintaining the utility of an OSN and preserving privacy of its users. The key feature of the framework lies in relinquishing control of a central authority over user's data (which is what usually happens in the current OSNs, e.g. Facebook keeps all our data) and distributing it to multiple CDCs in encrypted form. The use of SSS ensures perfect security, which means that the security of data does not rely on any unproven computational assumptions.In this unique book, SNOs are considered as an adversary instead of external adversary. This paves the way for researchers to think beyond the privacy setting mechanism within an OSN to protect users' data.

Analyzing the Social Web provides a framework for the analysis of public data currently available and being generated by social networks and social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Access and analysis of this public data about people and their connections to one another allows for new applications of traditional social network analysis techniques that let us identify things like who are the most important or influential people in a network, how things will spread through the network, and the nature of peoples' relationships. Analyzing the Social Web introduces you to these techniques, shows you their application to many different types of social media, and discusses how social media can be used as a tool for interacting with the online public. - Presents interactive social applications on the web, and the types of analysis that are currently conducted in the study of social media - Covers the basics of network structures for beginners, including measuring methods for describing nodes, edges, and parts of the network - Discusses the major categories of social media applications or phenomena and shows how the techniques presented can be applied to analyze and understand the underlying data - Provides an introduction to information visualization, particularly network visualization techniques, and methods for using them to identify interesting features in a network, generate hypotheses for analysis, and recognize patterns of behavior - Includes a supporting website with lecture slides, exercises, and downloadable social network data sets that can be used can be used to apply the techniques presented in the book