Gemstone: Decentralizing Social Networks

Details

Supervisor:	David Koll
Duration:	3-6 months
Type:	Bachelor Thesis or Master Thesis or Student Project
Status:	open

Project Description

Social networking platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and many others have seen an enormous increase in user population and user provided information. However, users are increasingly concerned about identity and data privacy since information is aggregated at single companies. To address this issue researchers have been investigating alternative solutions, where the users' data such as profile information, comments and messages is stored at user-controlled nodes.

In this project we work on Gemstone, a social network platform that decentralizes social networks to return the data control back to the users. If you would like to join this work, please get in contact with us and depending on your experience and educational level, we will check out how you can participate!

Ongoing Projects

• Security in GEMSTONE (M)

Completed Projects

• Transitioning Social Graphs Between Different Online Social Networks (B)
• GEMSTONE Goes Mobile: Enabling Decentralized Online Social Networking on Mobile Devices (B)
• Development of a Mobile Social Networking Platform supporting Decentralized Data Storage optimized by Social Trust (P&M)

Required Skills

• Good programming skills in JAVA
• Basic understanding of computer networks (e.g., passed course Computer Networks)