Message Propagation in DTN Based on Virtual Contact of Behavior Model

Abstract

Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) is a kind of network structured to deliver message intermittently. Network connections are not persistent between nodes, instead they must rely on nodes making geographic location movements to incur contact with other nodes and establish intermittent communication sessions to allow messages delivery. We will refer to encounters via geographic location movements as “physical contact.” Many DTN researches mainly focus on message delivery via physical contact. However, this paper believes that in a realistic environment, encounters between nodes not only happen geographically in nature, but also occur virtually in cyberspace. When both nodes go online on the same social media platform, it is an encounter we refer as virtual contact. How messages deliver for virtual contact is store-post-and-forward, just like what happens in a DTN, but it is no longer restrained by geographical locations. This paper considers a scenario in which nodes make virtual contact in cyberspace and incur message delivery based on their own behavior patterns. The verifying experiment is conducted using both survey and simulation. First of all, we handed out questionnaires for students to fill out. The questionnaire inquired them to rank their most frequent activities performed on social media platforms. According to the responses, we conclude the top 3 frequent activities when the students use social media platforms and classify them into 3 groups according to a weighted behavior pattern scheme. The classification includes Social Group, Read-Only Group and Interest Group. It does not matter which group a student is assigned to. In the simulation, he or she will get to decide whether to deliver/receive messages or not based on a randomized selection on 3 behavior pattern. Finally, we analyze the simulation result to determine how messages propagated in different behavior pattern groups. It is derived from the simulation that to quicken message propagation, directing messages to one of the behavior groups yields the maximize benefits. This provides the basis for further researches on collecting data of desired scenarios to establish respective propagation models.