Self-Organized Criticality Sonification

Communication networks involve the transmission and reception of large volumes of data. Research indicates that network traffic volumes will continue to increase. These traffic volumes will be unprecedented and the behaviour of global information infrastructures when dealing with these data volumes is unknown. It has been shown that complex systems (including computer networks) exhibit self-organized criticality under certain conditions. Given the possibility in such systems of a sudden and spontaneous system reset the development of techniques to inform system administrators of this behaviour could be beneficial.

The SOCS system focuses on the combination of two dissimilar research concepts, namely sonification (a form of auditory display) and self-organized criticality (SOC). The SOCS system sonifies in real time a computer network’s self-organized criticality to alert the network administrators of both normal and abnormal network traffic and operation.

Source code for the Pure Data patch and example sonifications can be found in the project’s repository.

Publications related to this project

• Vickers, P., Laing, C., & Fairfax, T. (2017). Sonification of a Network’s Self-Organized Criticality for Real-time Situational Awareness. Displays, 47, 12–24.
  Bib Entry

  • @article{Vickers:2017a,
      author = {Vickers, Paul and Laing, Christopher and Fairfax, Tom},
      doi = {10.1016/j.displa.2016.05.002},
      journal = {Displays},
      month = apr,
      pages = {12--24},
      title = {Sonification of a Network's Self-Organized Criticality for Real-time Situational Awareness},
      volume = {47},
      year = {2017}
    }
    

  doi

  
  
  
• Vickers, P. (2016, April). nuson-SOCS: Self-Organized Criticality Sonification.
  Bib Entry

  • @misc{nuson-SOCS,
      author = {Vickers, Paul},
      doi = {10.5281/zenodo.49844},
      month = apr,
      title = {nuson-{SOCS}: Self-Organized Criticality Sonification},
      url = {https://github.com/paulvickers/nuson-SOCS},
      year = {2016}
    }
    

  github doi

  
  
  
• Laing, C., Vickers, P., Fairfax, T., Briggs, P., & Marsh, S. (2015). Context Informed Intelligent Information Infrastructures for Better Situational Awareness. In International Conference On Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics And Assessment (CyberSA 2015). London, UK.
  Bib Entry

  • @inproceedings{Laing:2015a,
      address = {London, UK},
      author = {Laing, Christopher and Vickers, Paul and Fairfax, Tom and Briggs, Pam and Marsh, Stephen},
      booktitle = {International Conference On Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics And Assessment ({CyberSA} 2015)},
      doi = {10.1109/CyberSA.2015.7166136},
      month = "8--9~" # jun,
      title = {Context Informed Intelligent Information Infrastructures for Better Situational Awareness},
      year = {2015}
    }
    

  doi

  
  
  
• Fairfax, T., Laing, C., & Vickers, P. (2014). Network Situational Awareness: Sonification & Visualization in the Cyber Battlespace. In M. M. Cruz-Cunha & I. M. Portela (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Digital Crime, Cyberspace Security, and Information Assurance (pp. 334–349). IGI Global.
  Bib Entry

  • @incollection{Fairfax:2014,
      author = {Fairfax, Tom and Laing, Christopher and Vickers, Paul},
      booktitle = {Handbook of Research on Digital Crime, Cyberspace Security, and Information Assurance},
      doi = {10.4018/978-1-4666-6324-4},
      editor = {Cruz-Cunha, Maria Manuela and Portela, Irene Maria},
      month = jul,
      pages = {334--349},
      publisher = {IGI Global},
      series = {Advances in Digital Crime, Forensics, and Cyber Terrorism},
      title = {Network Situational Awareness: Sonification \& Visualization in the Cyber Battlespace},
      year = {2014}
    }
    

  doi

  
  
  
• Vickers, P., Laing, C., Debashi, M., & Fairfax, T. (2014). Sonification Aesthetics and Listening for Network Situational Awareness. In SoniHED — Conference on Sonification of Health and Environmental Data. University of York.
  Bib Entry

  • @inproceedings{Vickers:2014a,
      author = {Vickers, Paul and Laing, Christopher and Debashi, Mohamed and Fairfax, Tom},
      booktitle = {SoniHED --- Conference on Sonification of Health and Environmental Data},
      month = "12~" # sep,
      organization = {University of York},
      title = {Sonification Aesthetics and Listening for Network Situational Awareness},
      url = {https://bit.ly/3dZa4Hh},
      year = {2014}
    }
    

  web