Communications network utility as a function of node entropy.

Communications networks are valuable in proportion to the trustworthy information they carry. Network security policies are designed to classify nodes as trustworthy or not with some probability of error when the true status of each node is unknown. By making an analogy with the binary symmetric channel model, properties of networks with optimal security policies are derived. Additive and multiplicative utility models with and without aversion to misclassification risk are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]