System and method for identifying contacts of a target user in a social network

Abstract

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.