SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING CONTACTS OF A TARGET USER IN A SOCIAL NETWORK
When using Web intelligence (“Webint”) to collect information regarding a target social network user, one of the most valuable pieces of information is the target user's List-Of-Friends (LOF). In some cases, however, the LOF of the target user is not accessible in his profile. Herein are described methods and systems for identifying the LOF of a target user. An analysis system crawls the profiles of social network users, other than the target user, and reconstructs the LOF of the target user from the crawled profiles.
1 . A method for determining friends of a target user in a social network, the method comprising:
receiving an identity of the target user in the social network;
receiving a first list of friends of the target user, wherein the first list of friends comprises one or more friends of the target user in the social network;
for each friend in the first list of friends:
obtaining, from a profile associated with the friend in the social network, one or more friends of the friend in the social network; and
adding the one or more friends of the friend in the social network to a second list of friends;
selecting a friend from the second list of fiends using a heuristic;
determining, from a profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is a friend of the target user in the social network; and
in response to the determination, adding the selected friend to the first list of friends.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising repeating the selecting, determining, and adding using a new friend selected from the second list of friends.
3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising repeating until a termination condition is met.
4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the termination condition is a number of iterations.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the number of iterations is below a value that triggers the social network to utilize throttling and anti-scraping schemes.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining, from the profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is a friend of the target user in the social network comprises:
querying the profile associated with the selected friend for the target user and finding the target user.
7 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the heuristic comprises a similarity in attribute values between a profile associated with the target user and profiles associated with each friend in the second list of friends.
8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the heuristic comprises a number of other contacts of the target user that each friend in the second list of friends is connected to.
9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
updating a currently-known graph (CKG) describing the relationships of profiles in the social network using the first list of friends.
10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining, from the profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is not a friend of the target user in the social network; and
in response to the determination:
removing the selected friend from the second list of friends; and
selecting another friend from the second list of fiends using the heuristic.
11 . A system for determining friends of a target user in a social network, the system comprising:
an interface, communicating with a social network; and
a processor communicatively coupled to the interface and executing computer-readable instructions that cause the processor to:
receive an identity of the target user in the social network;
receive a first list of friends of the target user, wherein the first list of friends comprises one or more friends of the target user in the social network;
for each friend in the first list of friends:
obtain, from a profile associated with the friend in the social network, one or more friends of the friend in the social network; and
add the one or more friends of the friend in social network to a second list of friends;
select a friend from the second list of fiends using a heuristic;
determine, from a profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is a friend of the target user in the social network; and
in response to the determination, add the selected friend to the first list of friends.
12 . The system of claim 11 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that cause the processor to: repeat the selecting, determining, and adding using a new friend selected from the second list of friends.
13 . The system of claim 12 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that cause the processor to: repeat until a termination condition is met.
14 . The system of claim 12 , wherein the termination condition is a number of iterations.
15 . The system of claim 14 , wherein the number of iterations is below a value that triggers the social network to utilize throttling and anti-scraping schemes.
16 . The system of claim 11 , wherein determining, from the profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is a friend of the target user in the social network comprises:
querying the profile associated with the selected friend for the target user and finding the target user.
17 . The system of claim 11 , wherein the heuristic comprises a similarity in attribute values between a profile associated with the target user and profiles associated with each friend in the second list of friends.
18 . The system of claim 11 , wherein the heuristic comprises a number of other contacts of the target user that each friend in the second list of friends is connected to.
19 . The system of claim 11 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that cause the processor to:
update a currently-known graph (CKG) describing the relationships of profiles in the social network using the first list of friends.
20 . The system of claim 11 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that cause the processor to:
determine, from the profile associated with the selected friend, that the selected friend is not a friend of the target user in the social network; and
in response to the determination:
remove the selected friend from the second list of friends; and
select another friend from the second list of fiends using the heuristic.