Patent Application
20140344206
The present invention relates generally to the field of social networking using a computer on a communication network, and more particularly to the screening of followers in social networks.
A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on facilitating the building of social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. A social network service consists of a representation of each user, i.e., a profile, the user's social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks. Additionally, many social networking sites allow users to “follow” one another. For example, if Instagram integrated Facebook “Follow”, then when a person followed someone new on Instagram, they would get their photos in their Facebook news feed. A news feed on Facebook is the center column of a user's home page. It is a constantly updating list of stories from people and pages that the user follows on Facebook. News feed stories include status updates, photos, videos, links, application activity, etc.
The “follow” action allows followers to receive an endless stream of updates. As long as the person being followed keeps doing things in the application where the “follower” subscribed, the “follower” will continue seeing their content in the news feed. For example, when user A follows user B, user A subscribes to user B's postings or news so that user B's postings or news will show up in user A's news feed.
However, there may be security risks involved in allowing users to “follow” one another since not all “followers” may be legitimate followers. A legitimate follower may be a follower the user would allow to follow them. For example, the legitimate follower may be a real person who may be interested in the content the user provides, share common interests or hobbies with the user they want to follow. However, a follower may not be a real person and may have malicious intent when requesting to follow a user. For example, “followers” may be a machine program or Internet bots (i.e. “ghost followers” or “zombie followers”). Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. As such, “ghost followers” may send harmful messages to the user's posting or they may use other malicious ways to cause trouble to both the user and the user's other “followers”. Furthermore, “ghost followers” may gain access to a list of other “followers” of the same user and as such, may potentially spam the other “followers”. Therefore, it may be advantageous, among other things, to provide a mechanism to distinguish legitimate followers from “ghost followers” or “spammers” in social networks.
According to at least one embodiment of the present invention, a method for verifying a legitimate follower in a social network account assigned to a user is provided. The method may include generating a set of user defined rules associated with verifying a follower request. The method may further include monitoring the social network account assigned to the user to identify the follower request and analyzing the identified follower request to determine the legitimate follower based on the set of user-defined rules.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings. The various features of the drawings are not to scale as the illustrations are for clarity in facilitating one skilled in the art in understanding the invention in conjunction with the detailed description. In the drawings:
Detailed embodiments of the claimed structures and methods are disclosed herein; however, it can be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely illustrative of the claimed structures and methods that may be embodied in various forms. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the exemplary embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these exemplary embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete and will fully convey the scope of this invention to those skilled in the art. In the description, details of well-known features and techniques may be omitted to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the presented embodiments.
The present invention relates generally to the “following” of one another on a social network and particularly to the screening of legitimate followers in social networks. The following described exemplary embodiments provide a system, method and program product to provide a mechanism to distinguish legitimate followers from “ghost followers” or “spammers” in social networks.
Many social networks allow members to “follow” one another across all their social network accounts, such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other major platforms. Social network account users may choose to “follow” someone based on a person's profile, shared interests or hobbies. For example, user A may wish to “follow” user B on Facebook because user A is interested in cooking and user B is a chef. As such, user A will be able to see user B's public updates in news feeds. As previously described, a news feed on Facebook is the center column of a user's home page. It is a constantly updating list of stories from people and pages that the user follows on Facebook. News feed stories include status updates, photos, videos, links, application activity, etc.
However, as described above, there may be security risks involved in allowing users to “follow” one another since not all “followers” may be legitimate users (i.e., a follower the user would allow to follow them). Having such a convenience feature established may result in illegitimate users, such as “ghost followers”, “zombie followers”, or “spammers” posing as a legitimate “follower”. A “ghost follower” or “zombie follower” may also be known as a bot. A bot is a computer that a remote attacker has accessed and set up to forward transmissions (including spam and viruses) to other computers on the Internet. The purpose is usually either financial gain or malice. Attackers typically exploit multiple computers to create a botnet, also known as a zombie army.
For example, if a “ghost follower” poses as a legitimate “follower”, the “ghost follower” could potentially gain access to a list of contact names from the attacked users (i.e., the people they follow). As such, the “ghost follower” may write scripts to spam this accessed list of contact names and therefore, the accessed names may receive unwanted spam messages. This may discourage users from “following” the attacked user if potential followers think they will be spammed on their own account by following the user. Furthermore, it may reduce the number of followers the attacked user has and potentially damage the attacked user's reputation if other followers see that the attacked user has received a large number of spam messages.
Currently, a user can block a follower from following them once the user determines that the follower is not a legitimate follower. This is a reactive, manual process taken by the user once the user investigates the follower and determines that the follower should be blocked. However, there are not any proactive measures available to investigate a follower when the follower requests to follow a user. As such, it may be advantageous to provide a preventative measure to distinguish legitimate followers from “ghost followers” or spammers prior to the user allowing the follower to follow them.
In one embodiment, legitimate followers are distinguished from “ghost followers” or spammers. The method uses preventative means to verify the follower's credentials or profile before allowing them to follow the user and establishes rules created by the user (i.e. a set of user-defined rues) which are used as criteria requirement when analyzing the follower. The method ensures the follower is a legitimate real user and not a computer program or “ghost follower” prior to allowing the follower to follow the user by performing an analysis of the follower's social network account and comparing the account to a set of pre-defined rules. The set of pre-defined rules consist of existing rules in a follower rule repository database combined with the set of user-defined rules. If the follower's profile fails the criteria requirement of the set of pre-defined rules (i.e., the follower rule repository and the user-defined rules), then the follower will not be allowed to follow the user.
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.
Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.
Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
Currently, many social networks allow members to “follow” one another across all their social network accounts. A user can block a follower from following them once the user has allowed the follower to follow them and the user determines based upon the follower's activity that the follower is not a legitimate follower. For example, if user A allows user B to follow them and then user B posts marketing messages about products they are selling, user A can then block user B from following them. This is a manual process that has to be performed for each illegitimate user on each social network account. The user would have to perform an investigation for each follower request before determining whether the user should be blocked.
The following described exemplary embodiments provide a system, method and computer program product to use a combination of an existing follower rule repository database along with a set of user-defined rules (i.e., the set of pre-defined rules) and existing technology to proactively prevent “ghost followers” or spammers from following a user. The present embodiment is different from the current state of the art since it provides an automatic and proactive means to validate if a follower is a real and legitimate follower. Additionally, it is a preventative means to prevent “ghost followers” or spammers from following a user as opposed the existing technologies that are reactive in nature.
Referring to
The client computer 102 may communicate with social network 112 running on server computer 114 via the communications network 110. The communications network 110 may include connections, such as wire, wireless communication links, or fiber optic cables. As will be discussed with reference to
As previously described, the client computer 102 may access social network 112, running on server computer 114 via the communications network 110. For example, a user using an application program 108 (e.g., Firefox®) running on a client computer 102 may connect via a communication network 110 to one of their social network accounts 112 which may be running on server computer 114.
Referring now to
A plugin is a computer program that interacts with a main application (a web browser or an email program, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function. The main application provides services which the plugins can use, including a way for plugins to register themselves with the main application and a protocol by which data is exchanged with plugins. Plugins are dependent on these services provided by the main application and do not usually work by themselves. Conversely, the main application is independent of the plugins, making it possible for plugins to be added and updated dynamically without changes to the main application. For example, follower policing engine plugin 202 may be a computer program that distinguishes legitimate followers from “ghost followers” or spammers in a social network 112, such as Twitter or Facebook (i.e. the main application).
Referring to
At 302, the user may be prompted with a graphical user interface to guide the user with establishing the set of user-defined rules which may be used to analyze the follower's profile and usage history. The set of user-defined rules are added to an existing follower rule repository database 204 (
Next, at 304 (
In addition to checking the user-defined rules and the follower rule repository to determine whether a follower is a “ghost follower”, potential spammer or “true follower”, existing technology may be used to examine the follower's existing profile and usage of the social networking account. The existing technology may also be used to analyze posted pictures, comments and context. For example, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) may be used to examine profile pictures and text posted by the follower. OCR can convert images with text into text documents using automated computer algorithms. Images can be processed individually (.jpg, .png, and .gif files) or in multi-page PDF documents. OCR is the mechanical or electronic conversion of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is used as a form of data entry from an original paper data source. The data source may be photographs, documents, or any type of printed records. It is a common method of digitizing printed texts so that they can be electronically searched, stored more compactly, displayed online, and used in machine processes such as machine translation, text-to-speech and text mining. For example, one embodiment of the present invention may engage the existing technology OCR to examine a profile photograph of the follower. OCR may be able to examine the pixels and content of the posted photograph and; therefore, determine if the photograph is of a person or a marketing product. If a marketing product is determined, then the method may notify the user that the follower appears to be soliciting the sales of products (i.e., a potential spammer) and may recommend that the user block the follower.
Additionally, the profile may be examined in terms of how long the follower has had an account and the date associated with their posted content. For example, a brand new account may appear to be more suspicious than an account that has been in use for a long time.
The method may also examine hashtags to obtain the context of a user's profile. A hashtag is a word or a phrase prefixed with the symbol # a form of metadata tag. Short messages on microblogging social networking services such as Twitter or Instagram may be tagged by including one or more # with multiple words concatenated, e.g.: #Summer Sweepstakes. Hashtags provide a means of grouping such messages and can aid in searching since a user may search for the hashtag and receive the set of messages that contain that hashtag. With respect to the example above, a user could search on #Summer Sweepstakes and receive all the messages that contain the hashtag #Summer Sweepstakes. The present embodiment may examine hashtags to determine whether a follower should be blocked. For example, a user may define a rule that does not allow hunters or any followers whose profiles contain context pertaining to hunting to follow them. Therefore, the existing method may search the hashtags of a follower to determine if the follower is a hunter or if any references to hunting have been made on the follower's account. Additionally, the present embodiment may search hashtags to determine if inappropriate messages have been posted.
Another implementation may be for the method to incorporate the use of a point system. Each rule may be worth a certain number of points. The method may analyze the follower's social network account and compare it to the rule repository. The method may assign points based the answers to the follower rule repository questions. For example, if the follower posts pictures, then 10 points may be assigned. If the total amount of points is equal to or exceeds a predefined threshold, then the follower may be deemed a “true follower” and may be allowed to follow the user. If the total amount of points is close to the threshold (i.e., within 20 points), then the follower may be deemed a potential spammer (i.e., “suspect follower”) and the user may ultimately decide whether to allow the follower follow them. If the total number of points is below the threshold (i.e., more than 20 points below), then the follower may be determined to be a “ghost follower” and may be blocked from following the user. For example, the threshold may be set to 50 points. If it is determined that the total number of points assigned to the follower is equal to or greater than 50, then the follower may be determined to be a “true follower” and may be allowed to follow the user. If it is determined that the total number of points assigned to the follower is between 30 and 49, then the follower may be determined to be a potential spammer (i.e., “suspect follower”) and the user may be prompted to decide as to whether the follower may be allowed to follow the user. If it is determined that the total number of points assigned to the follower is less than 30 then the follower may be determined to be a “ghost follower” and may be blocked from following the user.
As such, if at 308, follower policing engine plugin 202 (
If, at 308, follower policing engine plugin 202 (
As such, if at 312, follower policing engine plugin 202 (
If at 316, follower policing engine plugin 202 (
Data processing system 800, 900 is representative of any electronic device capable of executing machine-readable program instructions. Data processing system 800, 900 may be representative of a smart phone, a computer system, PDA, or other electronic devices. Examples of computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may represented by data processing system 800, 900 include, but are not limited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thin clients, thick clients, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, network PCs, minicomputer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices.
User client computer 102, and network server computer 114 include respective sets of internal components 800a, b and external components 900a, b illustrated in
Each set of internal components 800a, b, also includes a R/W drive or interface 832 to read from and write to one or more portable computer-readable tangible storage devices 936 such as a CD-ROM, DVD, memory stick, magnetic tape, magnetic disk, optical disk or semiconductor storage device. The follower policing engine plugin 202 can be stored on one or more of the respective portable computer-readable tangible storage devices 936, read via the respective R/W drive or interface 832 and loaded into the respective hard drive 830.
Each set of internal components 800a, b also includes network adapters or interfaces 836 such as a TCP/IP adapter cards, wireless wi-fi interface cards, or 3G or 4G wireless interface cards or other wired or wireless communication links. The program 108 in client computer 102 and social network program 112 in network server 114 can be downloaded to client computer 102 from an external computer via a network (for example, the Internet, a local area network or other, wide area network) and respective network adapters or interfaces 836. From the network adapters or interfaces 836, the program 108 in client computer 102 and the social network program 112 in network server computer 114 are loaded into the respective hard drive 830. The network may comprise copper wires, optical fibers, wireless transmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/or edge servers.
Each of the sets of external components 900a, b can include a computer display monitor 920, a keyboard 930, and a computer mouse 934. External components 900a, b can also include touch screens, virtual keyboards, touch pads, pointing devices, and other human interface devices. Each of the sets of internal components 800a, b also includes device drivers 840 to interface to computer display monitor 920, keyboard 930 and computer mouse 934. The device drivers 840, R/W drive or interface 832 and network adapter or interface 836 comprise hardware and software (stored in storage device 830 and/or ROM 824).
Aspects of the present invention have been described with respect to block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus (system), and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer instructions. These computer instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The aforementioned programs can be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including low-level, high-level, object-oriented or non object-oriented languages, such as Java, Smalltalk, C, and C++. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer, or entirely on a remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet service provider). Alternatively, the functions of the aforementioned programs can be implemented in whole or in part by computer circuits and other hardware (not shown).
The foregoing description of various embodiments of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to imit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to a person skilled in the art of the invention are intended to be included within the scope of the invention as defined by the accompanying claims.
