Related papers: Sockpuppet Detection: a Telegram case study
Online social networks provide a platform for sharing information and free expression. However, these networks are also used for malicious purposes, such as distributing misinformation and hate speech, selling illegal drugs, and…
Compromised accounts on social networks are regular user accounts that have been taken over by an entity with malicious intent. Since the adversary exploits the already established trust of a compromised account, it is crucial to detect…
The serious privacy and security problems related to online social networks (OSNs) are what fueled two complementary studies as part of this thesis. In the first study, we developed a general algorithm for the mining of data of targeted…
In the last decade we have witnessed the explosive growth of online social networking services (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter, RenRen and LinkedIn. While SNSs provide diverse benefits for example, forstering interpersonal relationships,…
Compromising legitimate accounts is a way of disseminating malicious content to a large user base in Online Social Networks (OSNs). Since the accounts cause lots of damages to the user and consequently to other users on OSNs, early…
This research investigated how online criminal activities can be better understood and connected using data-driven machine learning methods. Many illegal activities, such as human trafficking and illicit trade, have moved to online…
Cyberbullying has emerged as an important and growing social problem, wherein people use online social networks and mobile phones to bully victims with offensive text, images, audio and video on a 247 basis. This paper studies negative user…
Online socio-technical systems can be studied as proxy of the real world to investigate human behavior and social interactions at scale. Here we focus on Instagram, a media-sharing online platform whose popularity has been rising up to…
The viral propagation of fake posts on online social networks (OSNs) has become an alarming concern. The paper aims to design control mechanisms for fake post detection while negligibly affecting the propagation of real posts. Towards this,…
Social media serves as a primary source of information in the current digital era. Many people consume a vast range of information in a very short span, yet, amidst the stream of genuine information, fake news and rumors continue to spread.…
Online extremists in social networks pose a new form of threat to the general public. These extremists range from cyberbullies who harass innocent users to terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that use…
An online user joins multiple social networks in order to enjoy different services. On each joined social network, she creates an identity and constitutes its three major dimensions namely profile, content and connection network. She…
Almost all of us have multiple cyberspace identities, and these {\em cyber}alter egos are networked together to form a vast cyberspace social network. This network is distinct from the world-wide-web (WWW), which is being queried and mined…
The detection of clandestine efforts to influence users in online communities is a challenging problem with significant active development. We demonstrate that features derived from the text of user comments are useful for identifying…
A number of organizations ranging from terrorist groups such as ISIS to politicians and nation states reportedly conduct explicit campaigns to influence opinion on social media, posing a risk to democratic processes. There is thus a growing…
Automated social media accounts, known as bots, are increasingly recognized as key tools for manipulative online activities. These activities can stem from coordination among several accounts and these automated campaigns can manipulate…
This article revisits the widely studied problem of disinformation and related phenomena in online social networks (OSNs) by reframing it as a broader problem of misrepresentation. While disinformation is commonly understood as the…
The internet, Online Social Networks (OSNs) and smart phones enable users to create tremendous amount of information. Users who search for general or specific knowledge may not have these days problems of information scarce but…
The emergence of online social networks and the growing popularity of digital communication has resulted in an increasingly amount of information about individuals available on the Internet. Social network users are given the freedom to…
Escalating proliferation of inorganic accounts, commonly known as bots, within the digital ecosystem represents an ongoing and multifaceted challenge to online security, trustworthiness, and user experience. These bots, often employed for…