TIME: 1:30-2:20 pm,  January 15, 2008

PLACE: CSE 503  

SPEAKER: Abraham D. Flaxman
         Microsoft Research

TITLE: Traceroute sampling, capture-recapture estimates, and 
       a model of the internet that's not wrong


ABSTRACT:
Traceroute sampling is a central technique in exploring the internet
router graph and the autonomous system graph.  Although it is one of
the primary techniques used in calculating statistics about the
internet, it can introduce bias that corrupts these estimates.  
I'll describe a technique to reduce the bias of traceroute sampling
when estimating the degree distribution by using capture-recapture
population estimation.

The results of this technique indicate that the skewed degree
distribution observed in nodes in the internet is real, but is not
well modeled by Preferential Attachment.  I'll present an alternative
approach for studying real-world graphs theoretically that is
falsifiable, but is not yet falsified.