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What Does The Internet Look Like?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-what-does-it-taste-like dept.

scubacuda writes "What does the Internet have to do with the network of sexual partners? More than you think, according to this Economist article on Albert-Laslo Barabasi's attempt to 'present a general framework for improving the accuracy of Internet models' by treating the net 'as though it were a natural phenomenom.' Dr. Barabasi's findings that the Internet is 'scale free' has a lot of interesting implications: resistance to human failures, as well as vulnerability to malicious attacks. Dr. Barabasi's goal is to create models that are 'statistically indistinguishable from the real Internet. When and if that is achieved, the models should have predictive, as well as descriptive, power.' (BBC and News Factor had stories on his work earlier)"

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Networks and models by pieterh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This research is very interesting because it applies to much more than the Internet. Many natural systems have the same type of topology, i.e. self-similar scale-free organisation. There is a whole science of self-organising critical systems (try googling for ZIPF'S LAW).


    What interests me is how such models apply to human networks. The article mentions sexual relationships, and implies that effort in combating AIDS should be targetted at key individuals, not randomly throughout the population. This draws a parallel with the Internet, which is (the article says) resistant to random failure but vulnerable to targetted attacks.


    Consider the implications for other kinds of human networks if this theory is true. E.g. to fight crime, it does not pay to incarcerate minor felons. One has to take out the most important 'hubs', being the bosses.


    This may seem obvious, but I find it ironic that we are using knowledge taken from modeling one of our creations (the Internet) to understand ourselves.

    --
    My blog
  2. Fallacy by tr0tsky · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If he's serious, it's a pretty major logical blunder. Properties shared by two things (e.g., that the internet and some metaphor/model for the internet) do *NOT* imply the identity of those things, and certainly shouldn't be used as a justification for taking some particular action toward one thing or the other.

    This is the same logic employed by tyrants and dictators (and bad scientists).