Technologies for determining sensor placement and topology

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
• receiving messages from sensors deployed around a network, each of the messages reporting a respective flow captured by a reporting sensor from the sensors;
• identifying flows reported in the messages;
• for each of the flows, generating a respective list of sensors that reported that flow;
• and
• based on the respective list of sensors, inferring at least one of a respective placement of the sensors within the network and a topology of the sensors.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored therein instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, by a computing device, messages from sensors deployed around a network, each of the messages reporting a respective flow captured by a reporting sensor from the sensors;
• identifying flows reported in the messages;
• generating a plurality of respective lists of sensors for the flows, each of the plurality of respective lists of sensors identifying one or more respective sensors reporting a respective one of the flows;
• and
• based on the plurality of respective lists of sensors, inferring at least one of a respective placement of the sensors within the network and a topology of the sensors by:
• for each specific sensor in each respective list of sensors from the plurality of respective lists of sensors:
• identifying a respective set of other listed sensors comprising all sensors in the respective list of sensors excluding the specific sensor;
• generating a list of respective sets of other listed sensors, the list of respective sets comprising each respective set of other listed sensors identified for the specific sensor;
• determining a respective union of sensors in the list of respective sets;
• determining a respective intersection of sensors in the list of respective sets;
• computing a respective difference between the respective union and the respective intersection;
• identifying one or more front sensors corresponding to the respective intersection of sensors, the one or more front sensors comprising a first set of all sensors that can observe all flows from the specific sensor;
• and
• identifying one or more rear sensors corresponding to the respective difference, the one or more rear sensors comprising a second set of all sensors whose flows can also be observed by the specific sensor.