New Scientist Tech: Wireless worms will follow influenza’s example

It probably comes as a surprise to many people as to how closely real-life flu is related to its digital counterpart, or rather, the other way round. After all, wireless worms are just mere exploit codes running on devices capable of communicating with other devices. Devices are not humans, and these digital malicious codes are not real life bacteria/virus either. They are two different beasts. Intuition also tells us that minute differences in local conditions and factors could create a ripple of changes that reverberate throughout the bigger networks. How then, should we expect wireless worms to mirror influenza’s spreading pattern?

The answer to that mind boggling question does not lie very far away: right in your pocket. Many cellphones and blackberries have some form of communication capabilities: infrared, bluetooth, wifi, et cetera. Due to their wireless nature, they are not tied to a particular location like their wired counterparts do. Hence these communications protocols are “mobile”, so to speak. They can be moved around, seamlessly creating and destroying connections to other devices, shuttling data around you and through you in the form of electromagnetic waves. With increasing automation, these devices speak to whatever devices they find, communicating their names, serial numbers, and even perform an aptly named handshake protocol.

So how does this relate to our topic at hand? If you observe, our increasing reliance on such devices means we are carrying them along with us all day. They follow us wherever we go. Their pattern of movement mirrors exactly the very mobility of individual nodes moving around in a social network we all engage in. If we consider influenza (or any contagious bacteria/viruses for that matter) for a moment, they also rely on human-to-human contact. When two humans are in proximity, there is a significant chance of the viruses in one host hopping to the other. In the same way, these mobile devices, should some of them got infected, they would spread it around as they come in close proximity with other devices. Long range communication protocols only serve to exacerbate this problem, as infected devices can reach out farther to more devices.

There is a significance to this digital network’s mirroring of their physical counterparts. Firstly, it does not matter what form the network structure takes on. This implies networks need not have a physical basis for its functioning. A network can take on any form so long it encapsulates the notion of nodes and the connections between them. In other words, this is a validation of the tried and true definition of a network. Secondly, networks rely very heavily on proximity of nodes, or rather, links between nodes. Differences in connectivity, locality, temporality can effect changes to the network as a whole. What information or physical entities flowing through a link, dictates how it will propagate down the chains of links, and also how it will affect other nodes in the future. Thirdly, the principles that apply in a network may be readily transferred to the other. This implies networks, no matter of what form, (social network, phone network, outbreaks, solar systems, etc) all have a common modus operandi. Ultimately, we may discover a plethora of a certain kind of local effects that can effectively produce a common global effect on the network. This will serve as network scientists’ box of tools in shaping and manipulating a network, much as how we use hammers and nails in carpentry, or use integrals in differential equations. Network calculus, so to speak.