Revealing Fake Profiles in Social Networks by Longitudinal Data Analysis

Aleksei Romanov, Alexander Semenov, Jari Veijalainen

2017

Abstract

The goal of the current research is to detect fake identities among newly registered users of vk.com. Ego networks in vk.com for about 200.000 most recently registered profiles were gathered and analyzed longitudinally. The reason is that a certain percentage of new user accounts are faked, and the faked accounts and normal accounts have different behavioural patterns. Thus, the former can be detected already in a few first days. Social graph metrics were calculated and analysis was performed that allowed to reveal outlying suspicious profiles, some of which turned out to be legitimate celebrities, but some were fake profiles involved in social media marketing and other malicious activities, as participation in friend farms.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Romanov A., Semenov A. and Veijalainen J. (2017). Revealing Fake Profiles in Social Networks by Longitudinal Data Analysis . In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST, ISBN 978-989-758-246-2, pages 51-58. DOI: 10.5220/0006243900510058

in Bibtex Style

@conference{webist17,
author={Aleksei Romanov and Alexander Semenov and Jari Veijalainen},
title={Revealing Fake Profiles in Social Networks by Longitudinal Data Analysis},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,},
year={2017},
pages={51-58},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006243900510058},
isbn={978-989-758-246-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: WEBIST,
TI - Revealing Fake Profiles in Social Networks by Longitudinal Data Analysis
SN - 978-989-758-246-2
AU - Romanov A.
AU - Semenov A.
AU - Veijalainen J.
PY - 2017
SP - 51
EP - 58
DO - 10.5220/0006243900510058