Title: Authenticating strangers in Online Social Networks

Authors: Xinxin Zhao; Lingjun Li; Guoliang Xue

Addresses: School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 878809, Tempe 85287-8809, AZ, USA. ' School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 878809, Tempe 85287-8809, AZ, USA. ' School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 878809, Tempe 85287-8809, AZ, USA

Abstract: In current Online Social Networks (OSNs), it is necessary for a user to determine whether a claimed public key belongs to a target user. In this paper, we design a system to complete this task. We first find a common friend between two users and let her help to prove the ownership of the public key. The common friend is proved to exist with high probability in fast mixing OSNs. We also propose a protocol to securely compute the intersection of friend sets. The effectiveness of the system is demonstrated by simulation.

Keywords: authentication; OSNs; online social networks; fast mixing; secure set intersection; zero-knowledge proof; network security; public keys; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSN.2011.045231

International Journal of Security and Networks, 2011 Vol.6 No.4, pp.237 - 248

Published online: 31 Jan 2012 *

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