A Trust Framework for Social Networks in MANET Environment

Abstract

The improvement of online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram has been expanded the idea of using social networks wider. The utilization of mobile phones of general public that given access to social networks makes such platforms popular. Node to node communication in a network gives a discussion to their individuals to associate with different individuals in the systems and share hobbies, opinions, and educational involvements including daily experiences. A significant number of these online social networks are operated with the point of associating to connect many people. Hence, it is important to enhance trustworthiness in social networks. This research is focusing on implementing a trust factor in the device layer. Information within the social networks can be used to get additional trust value for the devices. Hence trust can be calculated at the upper layers to be used at the device level. Thereby, research has developed a social trust framework to allow MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc Network) environment to move cross layer to find trust-related information which can be used at the device level for decision making. The captured social network behavior will provide an indication of how trustworthy the same device by capturing upper layer information. The intent of this research project is to create a trust layer on top of a social environment, in order to achieve the advantages of trustworthy connections. A network structure has been developed in order to complete that achievement. Prior to that, information of Facebook personal friend networks has been extracted and analyzed. Analyzing the parameters which are related to security of the social network is done through a literature survey. While examining the information from social networks, appropriate security-related parameters were selected with their possible states and values. A social network is a group of people or organizations or other entities that connected by a social relationship including friendship, information exchange or corporative working. Social network analysis is the process of mapping and measuring relationships, interactions and flows between people, groups, organizations or other social entities. In general, social network trust can be defined as a measure of confidence that an entity or entities behaves in an expected manner. The research work is reviewing the definitions and measures of trust by focusing on social networks where it can be utilizing within further achievements such as improving security within any kind of network