June 27, 2012

Ben-Gurion University students Aviad Elishar and Dima Kagan could become your next best friends. The two are part of a security study group specializing in social networks research and are hoping their latest application will keep your Facebook contact list safe.

Kagan and Elishar – together with Michael Fire, a PHD student at Information System Engineering Department of Ben Gurion University and Prof. Yuval Elovici, Director of Telekom Innovation Laboratories at the university – developed the Facebook app called Social Privacy Protector (SPP) to protect users’ private information on the social networking site.

The app was created in the framework for a final project for Kagan and Elishar’s bachelor’s degree.

The security app can keep phony friends, pedophiles and other criminals at bay.

“The amount of personal information each user exposes on social networks such as Facebook is staggering,” Fire told The Times of Israel. “Recent research in the area of social networking evaluated that many Facebook users exposed personal information. Due to the many security concerns regarding online personal exposure, we developed SPP, a software which aims to improve the security and privacy of Facebook users.”

A recent study showed that 80 percent of Facebook users would accept friendship from an unknown person if that person shared 11 friends with them. That, say the SPP developers, is a recipe for a threat on one’s privacy.

The SPP application is comprised of three security levels that not only keep children safer but also protect personal details from leaking.

Facebook is currently evaluating the app. The SPP software can be downloaded for all browsers on the university research site.