Reliable and Unreliable Sources in Age-Based Gossiping

TL;DR

This paper models how a network of nodes prioritizes reliable versus fresh information from two sources, analyzing the impact on information reliability and age using stochastic hybrid systems and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic hybrid systems framework to analyze the effects of reliability versus freshness preferences on information dissemination.

Findings

Long-term fraction of reliable nodes is quantifiable.

Preference for reliability increases information trustworthiness.

Simulation results confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We consider a network consisting of $n$ nodes that aim to track a continually updating process or event. To disseminate updates about the event to the network, two sources are available, such that information obtained from one source is considered more reliable than the other source. The nodes wish to have access to information about the event that is not only latest but also more reliable, and prefer a reliable packet over an unreliable packet even when the former is a bit outdated with respect to the latter. We study how such preference affects the fraction of users with reliable information in the network and their version age of information. We derive the analytical equations to characterize the two quantities, long-term expected fraction of nodes with reliable packets and their long-term expected version age using stochastic hybrid systems (SHS) modelling and study their properties. We also compare these results with the case where nodes give more preference to freshness of information than its reliability. Finally we show simulation results to verify the theoretical results and shed further light on behavior of above quantities with respect to dependent variables.