Location-based services (LBSs) enables people to obtain various kinds of services based on their current locations. Particularly, geosocial networking services, which utilize mobile users' location information to facilitate social interactions, lead to numerous fascinating applications such as content information sharing, social networking, and crowdsourcing. However, extensive uses of mobile users' spatial and temporal information pose serious threats to users’ privacy. This talk will discuss general privacy issues in cyberspace, offer insights on the reality of privacy threats in LBSs, and then focus on possible solutions to privacy protection over geosocial networks. 

Yuguang "Michael" Fang (F'08) received a BS/MS degree from Qufu Normal University, Shandong, China in 1987, a Ph.D degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1994 and a Ph.D. degree from Boston University in 1997. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Florida in 2000 and has been a full professor since 2005. He holds a University of Florida Research Foundation (UFRF) Professorship from 2006 to 2009, a Changjiang Scholar Chair Professorship with Xidian University, China, from 2008 to 2011, and a Guest Chair Professorship with Tsinghua University, China, from 2009 to 2012. 

Dr. Fang received the US National Science Foundation Career Award in 2001 and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2002, and is the recipient of the Best Paper Award from IEEE ICNP (2006). He has also received a 2010-2011 UF Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award, 2011 Florida Blue Key/UF Homecoming Distinguished Faculty Award and the 2009 UF College of Engineering Faculty Mentoring Award. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, was the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Wireless Communications (2009-2012), and serves/served on several editorial boards of journals including IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (2003-2008, 2011-present), IEEE Transactions on Communications (2000-2011), and IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2002-2009). He has been actively participating in conference organizations such as serving as the Technical Program Co-Chair for IEEE INOFOCOM’2014 and the Technical Program Vice-Chair for IEEE INFOCOM'2005. He is a fellow of the IEEE.