Random intersection graphs have received much attention for nearly two decades, and currently have a wide range of applications ranging from key predistribution in wireless sensor networks to modeling social networks. In this paper, we investigate the strengths of connectivity and robustness in a general random intersection graph model. Specifically, we establish sharp asymptotic zero-one laws for k-connectivity and k-robustness, as well as the asymptotically exact probability of k-connectivity, for any positive integer k. The k-connectivity property quantifies how resilient is the connectivity of a graph against node or edge failures. On the other hand, k-robustness measures the effectiveness of local diffusion strategies (that do not use global graph topology information) in spreading information over the graph in the presence of misbehaving nodes. In addition to presenting the results under the general random intersection graph model, we consider two special cases of the general model, a binomial random intersection graph and a uniform random intersection graph, which both have numerous applications as well. For these two specialized graphs, our results on asymptotically exact probabilities of k-connectivity and asymptotic zero-one laws for k-robustness are also novel in the literature.
We study a graph-theoretic property known as robustness, which plays a key role in the behavior of certain classes of dynamics on networks (such as resilient consensus and contagion). This property is much stronger than other graph properties such as connectivity and minimum degree, in that one can construct graphs with high connectivity and minimum degree but low robustness. In this paper, we investigate the robustness of common random graph models for complex networks (Erdős-Renyi, geometric random, and preferential attachment graphs). We show that the notions of connectivity and robustness coincide on these random graph models: the properties share the same threshold function in the Erdős-Renyi model, cannot be very different in the geometric random graph model, and are equivalent in the preferential attachment model. This indicates that a variety of purely local diffusion dynamics will be effective at spreading information in such networks.