SONETOR: A social network traffic generator

The Online Social Networks (OSN) have become an important trend in current networks. Due to the susceptible nature of the private data available in OSN, the acquisition of data sets is not an easy task. In this paper and based on the state of the art of measurement studies, we present SONETOR, a synthetic social network traffic generator, characterized by ease of use and flexibility. SONETOR represents current social network behavior such as user publishing and consuming content, users sharing and commenting on information with their friends. We also proceed to study the impact of OSN in the network traffic with SONETOR. In particular, our social network traffic generator allows capturing the effect of the flash-crowd phenomenon. SONETOR is an open-source and multi-platform tool freely available. The generated traces can be widely distributed without restrictions and they are still privacy compliant.