Distributed social network - data security

The present day Internet provides a wide range of services users can benefit from. Some of the services require gathering, processing and presenting data that come from many users in order to deliver additional information. The suitable example can be social networking service. The more valuable data it stores and processes, the more profitable it can become. Users’ personal data can constitute significant value. One of the issues of social networking is storing and processing data by only one entity. Users cannot choose the most suitable security policy because there is only one provided for certain social network. Being part of it, means accepting the risk of unauthorized data distribution and data leakage because of application vulnerabilities. This paper presents new architecture of social network, which provides mechanisms for dividing data between more than one entity and combining independent data repositories in order to deliver one social network with clearly defined interfaces used to connect new data sources.