Epcast: Controlled Dissemination in Human-Based Wireless Networks Using Epidemic Spreading Models

Epidemics-inspired techniques have received huge attention in recent years from the distributed systems and networking communities. These algorithms and protocols rely on probabilistic message replication and redundancy to ensure reliable communication. Moreover, they have been successfully exploited to support group communication in distributed systems, broadcasting, multicasting and information dissemination in fixed and mobile networks. However, in most of the existing work, the probability of infection is determined heuristically, without relying on any analytical model. This often leads to unnecessarily high transmission overheads. In this paper we show that models of epidemic spreading in complex networks can be applied to the problem of tuning and controlling the dissemination of information in wireless ad hoc networks composed of devices carried by individuals, i.e., human-based networks. The novelty of our idea resides in the evaluation and exploitation of the structure of th...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: BIOWIRE
• Authors: Salvatore Scellato, Cecilia Mascolo, Mirco Musolesi, Vito Latora
• Keywords: BIOWIRE 2007, Communications, Distributed Systems, Probabilistic Message Replication, Wireless Ad Hoc Networks