Mindless Rambling

Let’s face it.  The world is addicted to Facebook.  That’s right, the days of MySpace are gone by the wayside.  MySpace has been kicked aside like the whore that it really is.  That’s right, I called MySpace a whore.  Facebook on the other hand… now there’s a website I could really get attached to.  It’s so… modern… and well designed… and… well it introduced me to new things.

And by things I mean people.  Facebook has a feature where it suggests “friends” to you.  Initially it seemed to be based simply on common sets of friends.  It stands to reason, and reasonably so, that if you are person A and have x number of friends, and a second person B has a subset of x friends which approaches x, than it is likely that you person A and this person B are also acquainted or perhaps even friends yourselves.  Simply stated, two individuals with a significant intersection of friends are more than probable to be friends themselves.  The greater the intersection, the higher the likelihood.

Let me digress from what will soon the the main point of this post.  There is a flaw to Facebook’s thinking here.  You see, in a race for individuals to have as many friends as possible thus booting their so called social status many people have friended anyone and everyone that they have ever met at any point in their lives.  Doesn’t seem to matter if they actually are or ever were friends at all.  Particularly people who went to high school together.  Now granted in the years since high school, I feel I have matured past the insignificant high school bull that accompanies people in high school.  And if I were to encounter these former classmates in a social situation, despite having rarely ever talked to these people in high school I would be at least friendly and say hi, maybe even strike up a conversation.  But that doesn’t mean I was or am currently friends with them, nor should I be presenting them as such on an online social forum for the world to see.  Hence the flaw – these people that Facebook believes are my friends are not.  I guess that’s really my fault rather than Facebook’s.  Note to self – de-friend that ass hole who called you a band geek in high school, but first post a comment on his wall about how he’s working at taco bell and I’m a highly successful technology professional and I’ve blogged about him on my  highly acclaimed internet site, Mindless Rambling.  Take that jerk face.

So anyways – back to my main point.  What was my main point?  Oh, I guess I haven’t even said so yet, and I’m already at word number 455 in my social commentary.

Lately it seems that Facebook has been suggesting friends for which I have no social intersection.  I found this to be very strange.  How could they possibly think that I know these individuals when I have no “friends” in common.  Maybe I went to high school with them?  Unlikely, I went to a small high school with merely 150 in my graduating class.  Maybe college?  More likely, I went to a big college so maybe I’m “acquainted” with them from there. But still. Work? Maybe.

And then I saw something interesting.  It suggested to me someone who I have no friends in common with, nor did we go to the same school, nor do we even work for the same company.  However, this particular person – I DO KNOW.  I met this person when working on a project together.  We met only briefly and we were working much different parts of the project, but never the less – Facebook found someone that I have no direct connection to but yet I do know.  How could it possibly have known?

I have a theory.  In the text of my job description, I mention some key words that could identify the project that this person and I both worked.  Though the privacy settings don’t allow me to see this person’s job description, I suspect they may also have some key words which could identify the project as well.

Ok.  That makes sense.  That explains it.  Cool.  I’ve figured out Facebook’s strategy of key word association to suggest friend contacts.  Likely they use some data mining technologies for this.  A standard technique in data analysis to identify trends and associations.

But wait a second – FACEBOOK IS DOING DATA MINING ON MY PERSONAL INFORMATION.

If you’ve ever watched movies or shows like 24, you’ve heard Jack Bauer say something like “Cloe, get me a list of all associates and cross reference with their last known location and get me that list NOW.”  THIS IS HOW THEY DO THAT!!!!!!  It’s the same exact thing.  Except here facebook is using it for social networking.

On the one hand, this shows that this type of technology does work.  Though it seems to produce many false positives.  Many of those are likely a result of “over-socializing” on these social networks.  On the other hand, it shows that there is enough information out there about me to associate me, with some degree of correctness, to people whom I am acquainted with.

This could be used for good.  Let’s say an dead beat dad goes and creates his own social network on Facebook.  The courts want to find him to make him pay up on child support.  Bam – find him through his known or potential associates.  Good is triumphant over evil.

This could also be misused.  Let’s say the individual you were “potentially associated with” turned out to be defrauding the company you both happened to work for.  You were a socialite and friended many people at your company, plus you were proud of your professional accomplishments and happened to mention one of them in your profile.  This other individual happened to be the janitor for the hallway with a sign on it naming your project – and he was proud of walking past that sign so he mentioned it in his profile.  BAM – you’re a potential suspect in the fraud scheme that this janitor has been master minding against your company.  Your association with many other people at the company could by simple probability make you more likely to be associated with someone else who could potentially be involved with the scheme.

Honestly, that’s probably a worst case scenario.  You’ll probably stay safe from false accusations of fraud schemes master minded by janitors.  In data mining such as this, there are levels of probability attributed to any potential associations.  Facebook doesn’t show you this probability.  So many of those “Suggested Friends” could just be shots in the dark.  Actually, Facebook is using your actions of “friending” or “not-friending” as a way to fine tune their data mining calculations.

You should probably still take some measures to protect your online privacy.  The more information you post about yourself the more likely it is people will find you.  Even people that you don’t want to find you.

I’d also suggest utilizing Google to check out your own privacy.  Go search your own name.  See where you show up in the list.  The higher you are, the more findable you are.  Then try adding your home town with your name.  Or your job.  Or other little tid bits of information that people could easily figure out about you from casual conversation.  You’d be surprised what you can find about yourself online.  And what others can find online too…………….  (DA DUM DAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!)