savramesh 37 Report post Posted May 23, 2009 Livemint Friday, May 22, 2009 8:04 PM This is not to create a panic (we are just emerging from the swine flu scare -- sorry to use this name even though not politically correct, as I wrote earlier -- but it's about a different kind of viral epidemic - virus of the mobile phone. New research in today's Science explains why so far, despite having hundreds of millions of mobile phone users worldwide, we've not seen viral epidemics of the kind frequently faced by the computer world. A team headed by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, US, says "a highly fragmented market share has effectively hindered outbreaks thus far." But it appears we might not be immune to the bugs for too long. The research predicts that viruses will pose a serious threat once a single mobile operating system's market share grows sufficiently big. And the fact that the use of smart phones is growing by over 150% every year, researchers say such an epidemic may not be too distant. "Once a single operating system becomes common, we could potentially see outbreaks of epidemic proportion because a mobile phone virus can spread by two mechanisms: a Bluetooth virus can infect all Bluetooth-activated phones in a 10-30 meter radius, while Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) virus, like many computer viruses, spreads using the address book of the device. Not surprisingly, hybrid viruses, which can infect via both routes, pose the most significant danger," said Marta Gonzalez, one of the authors. The researchers used calling and mobility data from over six million anonymous mobile phone users to create a comprehensive picture of the threat mobile phone viruses pose to users. This study builds upon earlier fascinating research by the same group, which used mobile phone data to create a predictive model of human mobility patterns. Mint had reported it and you can read that story here . Experts say studies like this-finding patterns in nature also categorized as computational social science, are necessary to understand group behavior and organization and assess potential threats. This image shows the different mechanisms of virus transmission between mobile phones. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
