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On 24 May 2006, at 13:42, Barry Wellman wrote:

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>
> Story in GCN today estimates that AT&Ts database supplied to NSA was
> 312 terrabytes plus, when managed by ATT's Daytona software that
> managements its call detail record dbase.
>
> Story recounts different opinions as to whether this is analyzable  
> in any
> useful size. Supposedly SGI has computers with 13 terabytes worth of
> activity memory.
>
> Interested? Read the story at:
> http://www.gcn.com/print/25_13/40827-1.html
>
> I am waiting for the first paper that does clustering and  
> centrality on
> the American telephone system.

I don't know if you were serious or not, but I don't expect to see  
this soon, for a few reasons:

(1) even the permanent storage (almost an exabyte, including data  
from all 3 carriers) for
this data would be hard to manage, never mind getting it into memory  
for analysis.

(2) more importantly, this data hasn't--as far as I know--been  
released to anyone that would be likely to publish analyses in an  
open (i.e., unclassified) journal.  Nor do I expect that it will soon  
be released for such a purpose.

As a final point, since the network changes over time (people move  
and acquire new phone numbers, old phone numbers are recycled, people  
acquire new "phone relationships" and discard old ones, etc.), the  
definition of "the network" for purposes of clustering/centrality  
analyses would be open to interpretation.  (Looking at extremely  
small time slices of the network would be one way of dealing with the  
storage and memory problem, though.)

Joshua O'Madadhain

jmadden@ics.uci.edu...Obscurium Per Obscurius...www.ics.uci.edu/~jmadden
Joshua O'Madadhain: Information Scientist, Musician, and Philosopher- 
At-Tall
   It's that moment of dawning comprehension that I live for--Bill  
Watterson
   My opinions are too rational and insightful to be those of any  
organization.

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