HOSN – Hybrid Online Social Network

Description

The concept of Hybrid Online Social Network (HOSN) is based on a combination of a commercial online social network (COSN) and a privacy-preserving online social network (PPOSN). That combination enables to utilize both the market penetration of COSNs and the anonymity of PPOSNs. The COSN serves as base network and provides the user base as well as the connectivity between these users. The PPOSN is established above, providing the users with means of communication beyond the knowledge of the provider of the COSN. Simply put, the objective of HOSN is providing the users of COSNs with additional means of privacy control by establishing a PPOSN on top of the COSN.

License and usage

HOSN app is open source under the MIT License. If you make use of it please make sure to properly cite the paper “Tweet beyond the Cage: A Hybrid Solution for the Privacy Dilemma in Online Social Networks”, GlobeCOM’19.

The code of the application can be found here.