text: We provide a systematic study of the problem of finding the source of a rumor in a network. We model rumor spreading in a network with a variant of the popular SIR model and then construct an estimator for the rumor source. This estimator is based upon a novel topological quantity which we term . We establish that this is an ML estimator for a class of graphs. We find the following surprising threshold phenomenon: on trees which grow faster than a line, the estimator always has non-trivial detection probability, whereas on trees that grow like a line, the detection probability will go to 0 as the network grows. Simulations performed on synthetic networks such as the popular small-world and scale-free networks, and on real networks such as an internet AS network and the U.S. electric power grid network, show that the estimator either finds the source exactly or within a few hops of the true source across different network topologies. We compare rumor centrality to another common network centrality notion known as distance centrality. We prove that on trees, the rumor center and distance center are equivalent, but on general networks, they may differ. Indeed, simulations show that rumor centrality outperforms distance centrality in finding rumor sources in networks which are not tree-like.
  @cite_26: The study of social networks, and in particular the spread of disease on networks, has attracted considerable recent attention in the physics community. In this paper, we show that a large class of standard epidemiological models, the so-called susceptible infective removed (SIR) models can be solved exactly on a wide variety of networks. In addition to the standard but unrealistic case of fixed infectiveness time and fixed and uncorrelated probability of transmission between all pairs of individuals, we solve cases in which times and probabilities are nonuniform and correlated. We also consider one simple case of an epidemic in a structured population, that of a sexually transmitted disease in a population divided into men and women. We confirm the correctness of our exact solutions with numerical simulations of SIR epidemics on networks.
  @cite_4: Abstract Recent Bayesian methods for the analysis of infectious disease outbreak data using stochastic epidemic models are reviewed. These methods rely on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Both temporal and non-temporal data are considered. The methods are illustrated with a number of examples featuring different models and datasets.
  @cite_22: The paper is concerned with new methodology for statistical inference for final outcome infectious disease data using certain structured population stochastic epidemic models. A major obstacle to inference for such models is that the likelihood is both analytically and numerically intractable. The approach that is taken here is to impute missing information in the form of a random graph that describes the potential infectious contacts between individuals. This level of imputation overcomes various constraints of existing methodologies and yields more detailed information about the spread of disease. The methods are illustrated with both real and test data. Copyright 2005 Royal Statistical Society.
  @cite_10: 
  @cite_0: We study some simple models of disease transmission on small-world networks, in which either the probability of infection by a disease or the probability of its transmission is varied, or both. The resulting models display epidemic behavior when the infection or transmission probability rises above the threshold for site or bond percolation on the network, and we give exact solutions for the position of this threshold in a variety of cases. We confirm our analytic results by numerical simulation.
  @cite_19: Many network phenomena are well modeled as spreads of epidemics through a network. Prominent examples include the spread of worms and email viruses, and, more generally, faults. Many types of information dissemination can also be modeled as spreads of epidemics. In this paper we address the question of what makes an epidemic either weak or potent. More precisely, we identify topological properties of the graph that determine the persistence of epidemics. In particular, we show that if the ratio of cure to infection rates is larger than the spectral radius of the graph, then the mean epidemic lifetime is of order log n, where n is the number of nodes. Conversely, if this ratio is smaller than a generalization of the isoperimetric constant of the graph, then the mean epidemic lifetime is of order e sup na , for a positive constant a. We apply these results to several network topologies including the hypercube, which is a representative connectivity graph for a distributed hash table, the complete graph, which is an important connectivity graph for BGP, and the power law graph, of which the AS-level Internet graph is a prime example. We also study the star topology and the Erdos-Renyi graph as their epidemic spreading behaviors determine the spreading behavior of power law graphs.
  @cite_5: This paper presents statistical inference of computer virus propagation using non-homogeneous Poisson processes (NHPPs). Under some mathematical assumptions, the number of infected hosts can be modeled by an NHPP In particular, this paper applies a framework of mixed-type NHPPs to the statistical inference of periodic virus propagation. The mixed-type NHPP is defined by a superposition of NHPPs. In numerical experiments, we examine a goodness-of-fit criterion of NHPPs on fitting to real virus infection data, and discuss the effectiveness of the model-based prediction approach for computer virus propagation.
  @cite_16: Methodology for Bayesian inference is considered for a stochastic epidemic model which permits mixing on both local and global scales. Interest focuses on estimation of the within- and between-group transmission rates given data on the final outcome. The model is sufficiently complex that the likelihood of the data is numerically intractable. To overcome this difficulty, an appropriate latent variable is introduced, about which asymptotic information is known as the population size tends to infinity. This yields a method for approximate inference for the true model. The methods are applied to real data, tested with simulated data, and also applied to a simple epidemic model for which exact results are available for comparison. Copyright 2005 Board of the Foundation of the Scandinavian Journal of Statistics..
  @cite_13: 
  @cite_25: The Internet has a very complex connectivity recently modeled by the class of scale-free networks. This feature, which appears to be very efficient for a communications network, favors at the same time the spreading of computer viruses. We analyze real data from computer virus infections and find the average lifetime and persistence of viral strains on the Internet. We define a dynamical model for the spreading of infections on scale-free networks, finding the absence of an epidemic threshold and its associated critical behavior. This new epidemiological framework rationalizes data of computer viruses and could help in the understanding of other spreading phenomena on communication and social networks.
summary: Prior work on rumor spreading has primarily focused on viral epidemics in populations. The natural (and somewhat standard) model for viral epidemics is known as the or SIR model @cite_13 . In this model, there are three types of nodes: (i) susceptible nodes, capable of being infected; (ii) infected nodes that can spread the virus further; and (iii) recovered nodes that are cured and can no longer become infected. Research in the SIR model has focused on understanding how the structure of the network and rates of infection cure lead to large epidemics @cite_0 , @cite_25 , @cite_26 , @cite_19 . This motivated various researchers to propose network inference techniques for learning the relevant network parameters @cite_16 , @cite_10 , @cite_4 , @cite_22 , @cite_5 . However, there has been little (or no) work done on inferring the source of an epidemic.