A multilayer social overlay for new generation DOSNs

Abstract

Online Social Networking platforms (OSNs) have become part of the real life of people. This is the natural outcome of many centuries of "social media" development answering the deep-rooted need for communication among humans. Existing social media platforms give users the impression that they are in full control of their data. However, it is actually those companies providing those services that have sole authority over a person's information. The need of trusted environment and the privacy issues in OSNs have seen the rise of Decentralized Online Social Networks. However, all of these platforms are far from being useful in real life. Indeed, they fail to address the complexity of social structures, in which we change our roles fluently from one to another leading to different roles in several independent and interconnected contexts. The envision of a Next Generation Internet focused on people is the main topic of the new generation of Decentralized Online Social Networks, which takes into account the main characteristics of the previous generations. In this paper, we present a new idea to model a multilayer P2P Social Overlay which takes into account different actors and relationships to be included in smart environments. Moreover, it is organized in layers, where one layer represents a specific social context of the peer it models. We present a formal definition of the Heterogeneous Ego Network and we show how it works in a general scenario.

Fixing Social Media with the Blockchain

“…!e Over!eBlock observatory 2 thoroughly examined the role of Blockchain in Social Media in the context of HELIOS, an EUfunded project aimed at developing a next-generation contextual Social Media platform to empower meaningful relationships based on users' natural environment [15,16]. !is investigation was intended to map the Blockchain-enabled ecosystems and identify prominent market players and their strategic positioning, highlighting emerging business model archetypes.…”

Blockchain-based access control management for Decentralized Online Social Networks

“…Due to the uncertain privacy guarantees of today's OSNs, online users are seeking for alternative data sharing techniques that offer them the possibility to gain control of their own data (i.e., to enable them to manage their data on their own), and to limit the support of the large service providers in controlling their own personal information. To meet these requirements, Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs) have been proposed, ranging from Peer-to-Peer (P2P) decentralized solutions to hybrid solutions integrating private and external resources for storing users' data [1,2].…”

“…• the design of a model which takes into account context information, such as time and location of access to define fine-grained access control policies. In particular, time and location are important information used to define a context in new generation of DOSNs, as described in [2] • the evaluation of the proposed system on the Ethereum network in order to evaluate the model and the gas consumption.…”

The Contextual Ego Network P2P Overlay for the Next Generation Social Networks

“…IoP is an emerging paradigm where devices become the alter-ego of their owners, and can act on their behalf. IoP has three leading principles, as expressed in [20,25]: adopt a user centric approach, consider personal devices, and employ human behaviour models. In detail, users are put at the center and the service is built around them according to their needs, contrary to a traditional service centered approach.…”