[Talk] mre: Security Implications of Homogeneity

[Russell Standish]

On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 10:53:20PM +1000, David Bullock wrote:
> Where is the research that indicates the degree of
> heterogeneity required to achieve levels of network
> robustness?
> 
> Are 2 alternatives enough, or does it take 10
> alternatives to really make a difference?
> 
> For example, Jim Waldo says at:
> 
> http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Interviews/waldo_qa.html
> 
>   "It is an interesting question as to what the actual
>    dimensionality of a network is, measured as the average
>    number of connections between points. Some research that
>    I've read shows that the dimensionality is some fractal
>    between 7 and 8. This means that as the network doubles
>    in size (the number of nodes, or points) the volume of
>    the network (a measure of the number of interconnections)
>    goes up by some power of between 7 and 8."
> 
> (He points out how this exponential growth of the network
> is faster than Moore's law).

Sorry to be a pedant, but scaling to the power of a, where 7<a<8,
could be stated as doubling the size of the network increases the
volume by 2^a.

I'm sorry, but this is a lot slower than exponential (doubling the
network squares the volume).

(Maybe what is actually meant is that because the number of nodes is
increasing exponentially, then the number of interconnections
increases exponentially with a rate 7-8 times faster. I'm guessing here...)

					Cheers

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