The threats of social networking: old wine in new bottles?

Despite the many potential benefits to its users, social networking appears to provide a rich setting for criminal activities and other misdeeds. In this paper we consider whether the risks of social networking are unique and novel to this context. Having considered the nature and range of applications to which social networks may be applied, we conclude that there are no exploits or fundamental threats inherent to the social networking setting. Rather, the risks and associated threats treat this communicative and social context as an enabler for existing, long established and well-recognised exploits and activities.