Abstract
Online Social Networks (OSNs) have an infamous history of privacy and security issues. One approach to avoid the massive collection of sensitive data of all users at a central point is a decentralized architecture.
An event invitation feature – allowing a user to create an event and invite other users who then can confirm their attendance – is part of the standard functionality of OSNs. We formalize security and privacy properties of such a feature like allowing different types of information related to the event (e.g., how many people are invited/attending, who is invited/attending) to be shared with different groups of users (e.g., only invited/attending users).
Implementing this feature in a Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Online Decentralized Online is non-trivial because there is no fully trusted broker to guarantee fairness to all parties involved. We propose a secure decentralized protocol for implementing this feature, using tools such as storage location indirection, ciphertext inferences and a disclose-secret-if-committed mechanism, derived from standard cryptographic primitives.
The results can be applied in the context of Privacy-Preserving DOSNs, but might also be useful in other domains that need mechanisms for cooperation and coordination, e.g., Collaborative Working Environment and the corresponding collaborative-specific tools, i.e., groupware, or Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning.
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Acknowledgments
This research has been funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research grant SSF FFL09-0086 and the Swedish Research Council grant VR 2009-3793.
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Rodríguez-Cano, G., Greschbach, B., Buchegger, S. (2015). Event Invitations in Privacy-Preserving DOSNs. In: Camenisch, J., Fischer-Hübner, S., Hansen, M. (eds) Privacy and Identity Management for the Future Internet in the Age of Globalisation. Privacy and Identity 2014. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 457. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18621-4_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18621-4_13
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