I attended a very enjoyable colloquium yesterday in the physics department at UMass Amherst given by Professor Mark Newman of the University of Michigan and the Santa Fe Institute.
The title of his talk was: Epidemics, Erdos Numbers, and the Internet: The Structure and Function of Complex Networks
Abstract: There are networks in almost every part of our lives. Some of them are familiar and obvious: the Internet, the power grid, the road network. Others are less obvious but just as important. The patterns of friendships or acquaintances between people form a social network; the species in an ecosystem join together to form a food web; the workings of the body's cells are dictated by a metabolic network of chemical reactions. As large-scale data on these networks and others have become available in the last few years, a new science of networks has grown up, drawing on ideas from physics, math, engineering, biology, and other fields to shed light on systems ranging from bacteria to the whole of human society. This talk will examine some new discoveries regarding networks, how those discoveries were made, and what they can tell us about the way the world works.
I had hosted Professor Newman several Octobers ago, when Professor David Parkes and I organized an Exploratory Seminar on Dynamic Networks at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, so it was nice to see him back in Massachusetts.
Some of the network images that he used in his talk yesterday are available here.
His audience yesterday was comprised of physicists, engineers, and computer scientists and yours truly (plus some folks I could not name nor did I know their backgrounds).
His talk (with a wonderful delivery and enthusiasm) focused mostly on network structure, whereas my research focuses on a wide spectrum of networks where flows and user behavior matters, in addition to network structure, from supply chains to transportation networks and the Internet as well as economic and financial networks and electric power networks. He mentioned food webs which I could relate to since my work in network economics is being applied to fisheries. I told him afterwards that I would like to see more work in social networks that includes flows (as the work that I did with my former doctoral student, who is now a Professor, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, does).
Also, as I tell my students, we in operations research/management science and even in economics can trace the literature on the subject even back to the mid1800s! Networks in terms of model formulations, applications, and even methodologies and algorithms have been major topics of scientific research especially beginning with the 1950s and beyond. The fascination with networks and novel applications have made the subject seem "new" to some and especially to disciplines, who have more recently discovered networks and are applying tools from their disciplines to their study.
Showing posts with label the Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Internet. Show all posts
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Network Science, Operations Research, and the Internet
John Markoff writes in The New York Times about the changing shape of the Internet. In the article, he notes the work of Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (formerly from Indiana U. and now at Northeastern University) on scale-free networks, versus the work of John Doyle of CalTech and David Alderson of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey.
According to the work of Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, the more the Internet changes, the more it stays the same, in terms of its overall shape, strengths and vulnerabilities.
Alderson is identified as an operations researcher in The Times article, which was published today. According to Alderson, The scale-free theorists, are just not describing the real Internet. What they’re measuring is not the physical network, its some virtual abstraction that’s on top of it, he said. What does the virtual connectivity tell you about the underlying physical vulnerability? My argument would be that it doesn’t tell you anything.
Alderson wrote an article in the OR Forum in 2008 on Catching the Network Science "Bug." Mike Trick of Carnegie Mellon University, who edits the OR Forum, then invited several network researchers (including me) to comment on the article.
I had the pleasure of hosting Alderson, along with such operations researchers as Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, economists and computer scientists (Joan Feigenbaum of Yale), as well as applied mathematicians, including Mark Newman, and engineers, such as David Levinson of the University of Minnesota who works on transportation networks and Asu Ozdaglar of MIT, when I organized an Exploratory Seminar on Dynamic Networks, with David Parkes, a computer scientist at Harvard University. You may find the presentations from this exploratory seminar, which was funded by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, on this website.
We hosted Barabasi at the Isenberg School of Management in our Spring 2006 Speaker Series in Operations Research / Management Science. He is a very dynamic and entertaining speaker.
It's terrific to have more discussions and studies about the evolution of the Internet, a network of networks, or what I would call an example of a supernetwork. As for its fragility and vulnerability, some recent methodological tools for such analysis can be found in our Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World book.
According to the work of Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, the more the Internet changes, the more it stays the same, in terms of its overall shape, strengths and vulnerabilities.
Alderson is identified as an operations researcher in The Times article, which was published today. According to Alderson, The scale-free theorists, are just not describing the real Internet. What they’re measuring is not the physical network, its some virtual abstraction that’s on top of it, he said. What does the virtual connectivity tell you about the underlying physical vulnerability? My argument would be that it doesn’t tell you anything.
Alderson wrote an article in the OR Forum in 2008 on Catching the Network Science "Bug." Mike Trick of Carnegie Mellon University, who edits the OR Forum, then invited several network researchers (including me) to comment on the article.
I had the pleasure of hosting Alderson, along with such operations researchers as Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, economists and computer scientists (Joan Feigenbaum of Yale), as well as applied mathematicians, including Mark Newman, and engineers, such as David Levinson of the University of Minnesota who works on transportation networks and Asu Ozdaglar of MIT, when I organized an Exploratory Seminar on Dynamic Networks, with David Parkes, a computer scientist at Harvard University. You may find the presentations from this exploratory seminar, which was funded by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, on this website.
We hosted Barabasi at the Isenberg School of Management in our Spring 2006 Speaker Series in Operations Research / Management Science. He is a very dynamic and entertaining speaker.
It's terrific to have more discussions and studies about the evolution of the Internet, a network of networks, or what I would call an example of a supernetwork. As for its fragility and vulnerability, some recent methodological tools for such analysis can be found in our Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain World book.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems -- Last Lecture in the Fall 2009 Series in Operations Research
We are delighted that Dr. Brian Levine of the UMass Amherst Computer Science Department will be delivering his lecture, Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems, this coming Friday at the Isenberg School of Management. With this lecture we conclude our 2009 Fall Speaker Series in Operations Research / Management Science.
We have a terrific lineup for Spring 2010 and I hope that many of you will be able to join us. The announcement will be out soon.
Below is the announcement on Professor Levine's talk that was prepared by the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter that I serve as the Faculty Advisor of.
******************************************************************************
The last INFORMS Speaker Seminar of the Fall 2009 semester is scheduled for the next Friday, December 4, 2009. We are delighted to have Professor Brian Levine, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst, who will speak on "Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems."
Dr. Levine joined the UMass Computer Science faculty in Fall 1999 and is currently an associate professor. His research focuses on mobile networks, privacy and forensics, and the Internet, and he has published more than 60 papers on these topics. Much of his work is based experiments using a unique mobile network testbed, DieselNet, which is comprised of computer-equipped PVTA buses and a network of mesh APs in downtown Amherst. Brian's active funding
includes awards from the National Science Foundation NETS, GENI, Trustworthy Computing, and SFS programs, DARPA's Disruption Tolerant Networking program, and the National Institute of Justice's Electronic Crime program. He received a CAREER award in 2002 for work in peer-to-peer networking, one of NSF's most prestigious awards for new faculty. He was a UMass Lilly Teaching Fellow in 2003 and was awarded his college's Outstanding Teacher Award in 2007. In 2008, he received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Science & Technology from his undergraduate alma mater, the State University of New York at Albany. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking since 2005, and is the co-founder of the ACM Northeast Digital Forensics Exchange Workshop.
He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1999.
TITLE: Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems
Abstract: The strong impact of computing has revolutionized certain types of crime. Dissemination of data to peers is efficient because of the Internet, and criminals have de facto anonymity from exploiting open wireless access points. Mobile devices are extending the reach and character of the Internet and its relevance to crime. Fortunately, the use or even possession of computers by those that commit many crimes will typically result in digital evidence, and
investigations of murder, contraband trafficking, identity and intellectual property theft, fraud, and espionage have shown.
In this talk, I review our current research projects in digital forensics that seek to address investigation of these crimes or other violations. First, I will focus on the wired Internet and our work investigating peer-to-peer file sharing networks, which support trafficking in contraband and the exploitation of children. The problem faced in these investigations is not discovering those who commit such crimes. The tools we have developed for P2P investigations are in
everyday use by MA and PA State Police and has resulted in evidence of tens of thousands of users sharing such data. The challenge for investigators is instead deciding which of these myriad leads to follow up on next. P2P networks should be viewed as a massive data set representing the dynamic exchange of resources between users. And the most productive next investigation is the user that is selected based on an analysis past network activity. For example, who is often
source of new content on the network? Who is a trove of existing data? Ideally, these network characteristics can be linked to real criminological behaviors.
Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Time: 11:00AM - Noon
Place: Room ISOM 112
The Announcement for this talk can be found at:
http://supernet.som.umass.edu/informs/speakernew.html
INFORMS Student Chapter website:
http://student.som.umass.edu/informs/
UMASS Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS
We have a terrific lineup for Spring 2010 and I hope that many of you will be able to join us. The announcement will be out soon.
Below is the announcement on Professor Levine's talk that was prepared by the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter that I serve as the Faculty Advisor of.
******************************************************************************
The last INFORMS Speaker Seminar of the Fall 2009 semester is scheduled for the next Friday, December 4, 2009. We are delighted to have Professor Brian Levine, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst, who will speak on "Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems."
Dr. Levine joined the UMass Computer Science faculty in Fall 1999 and is currently an associate professor. His research focuses on mobile networks, privacy and forensics, and the Internet, and he has published more than 60 papers on these topics. Much of his work is based experiments using a unique mobile network testbed, DieselNet, which is comprised of computer-equipped PVTA buses and a network of mesh APs in downtown Amherst. Brian's active funding
includes awards from the National Science Foundation NETS, GENI, Trustworthy Computing, and SFS programs, DARPA's Disruption Tolerant Networking program, and the National Institute of Justice's Electronic Crime program. He received a CAREER award in 2002 for work in peer-to-peer networking, one of NSF's most prestigious awards for new faculty. He was a UMass Lilly Teaching Fellow in 2003 and was awarded his college's Outstanding Teacher Award in 2007. In 2008, he received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Science & Technology from his undergraduate alma mater, the State University of New York at Albany. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking since 2005, and is the co-founder of the ACM Northeast Digital Forensics Exchange Workshop.
He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1999.
TITLE: Forensic Investigation of the Internet and Mobile Systems
Abstract: The strong impact of computing has revolutionized certain types of crime. Dissemination of data to peers is efficient because of the Internet, and criminals have de facto anonymity from exploiting open wireless access points. Mobile devices are extending the reach and character of the Internet and its relevance to crime. Fortunately, the use or even possession of computers by those that commit many crimes will typically result in digital evidence, and
investigations of murder, contraband trafficking, identity and intellectual property theft, fraud, and espionage have shown.
In this talk, I review our current research projects in digital forensics that seek to address investigation of these crimes or other violations. First, I will focus on the wired Internet and our work investigating peer-to-peer file sharing networks, which support trafficking in contraband and the exploitation of children. The problem faced in these investigations is not discovering those who commit such crimes. The tools we have developed for P2P investigations are in
everyday use by MA and PA State Police and has resulted in evidence of tens of thousands of users sharing such data. The challenge for investigators is instead deciding which of these myriad leads to follow up on next. P2P networks should be viewed as a massive data set representing the dynamic exchange of resources between users. And the most productive next investigation is the user that is selected based on an analysis past network activity. For example, who is often
source of new content on the network? Who is a trove of existing data? Ideally, these network characteristics can be linked to real criminological behaviors.
Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Time: 11:00AM - Noon
Place: Room ISOM 112
The Announcement for this talk can be found at:
http://supernet.som.umass.edu/informs/speakernew.html
INFORMS Student Chapter website:
http://student.som.umass.edu/informs/
UMASS Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS
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