[LINK] Six degrees of separation a possibility: researchers

[Rick Welykochy]

Brendan Scott wrote:

>> Six degrees of separation a possibility: researchers 
>> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/03/2322619.htm?section=justin
>>
>>
>> The company analysed the senders and recipients of 30 billion instant
>> messages over a month.
>>
>> They established that any two strangers could be linked by an average
>> string of 6.6 relationships.
> 
> How could this be done without invading the privacy of the senders and recipients?

It all depends on the nature of the log data used; presuming it is culled
from logs of the IM communications.

The right thing to do in this case would be to hand over an anonymised
version of the logs to the researchers so that no personal information
about the connections could be gleaned from the data.

So, [RICK] <--> [LINK] at 17:45 becomes [1091239123] <--> [99019212] at 17:45.

Whether this was done properly or not remains to be seen.


cheers
rickw



-- 
________________________________________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services || Internet Driving Instructor

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
      -- Thomas Jefferson