Investigating the Cost of Anonymity on Dynamic Networks

Abstract: In this paper we study the difficulty of counting nodes in a synchronous dynamic network where nodes share the same identifier, they communicate by using a broadcast with unlimited bandwidth and, at each synchronous round, network topology may change. To count in such setting, it has been shown that the presence of a leader is necessary. We focus on a particularly interesting subset of dynamic networks, namely \textit{Persistent Distance} - ${\cal G}($PD$){h}$, in which each node has a fixed distance from the leader across rounds and such distance is at most $h$. In these networks the dynamic diameter $D$ is at most $2h$. We prove the number of rounds for counting in ${\cal G}($PD$){2}$ is at least logarithmic with respect to the network size $|V|$. Thanks to this result, we show that counting on any dynamic anonymous network with $D$ constant w.r.t. $|V|$ takes at least $D+ \Omega(\text{log}\, |V| )$ rounds where $\Omega(\text{log}\, |V|)$ represents the additional cost to be payed for handling anonymity. At the best of our knowledge this is the fist non trivial, i.e. different from $\Omega(D)$, lower bounds on counting in anonymous interval connected networks with broadcast and unlimited bandwith.