Simulating an attack

We already did an end-to-end workflow of converting a rough network edge list into a network, cleaning the network, and then persisting the cleaned network’s edge list, so for the remainder of this chapter, let’s do a simulation.

In most networks, some nodes serve as key hubs. These nodes reveal themselves if you look for the number of degrees (edges) that a node has, or by checking PageRank or various centrality metrics for nodes. We will use these approaches in a later chapter to identify important notes. For now, we have domain knowledge that we can use. Those of us who know this story can likely name by heart several of the important protagonists of the story: Alice, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, and so on. And those of us who are familiar with the story are also likely very aware of the Queen of Hearts repeatedly shouting “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”

In a network, if you remove the most connected and important nodes, what often happens...