PSNController

Abstract

Pervasive social networking (PSN) supports online and instant social activities and communications in a universal and pervasive manner on the basis of heterogeneous networks. However, at the same time, when mobile users expect useful and valuable contents via PSN, they may also receive unwanted, unexpected, or even malicious contents. These contents may intrude user devices, occupy device memories, and irritate mobile users. Unwanted content control in PSN has become a crucial issue that impacts the success of PSN usage. Nowadays, the literature still lacks a robust and generic unwanted content control system that can be practically applied. In this article, we present the design and implementation of PSNController, an unwanted content control system in PSN based on trust management. We evaluate the system performance under a variety of intrusions and attacks. The result shows the system is effective with regard to accuracy, efficiency, and robustness. It can control unwanted contents in PSN according to trust evaluation. We further study user acceptance on PSNController prototype system based on a small-scale user study. We receive sound user feedback on PSNController with regard to perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, interface design, playfulness, and acceptance attitude.