
524 Analyzing and Securing Social Networks
Polyinstantiation is illustrated in Figure 38.6 Note that in this gure, we have multiple entries for
Mary and Paul. For Mary, we have four entries as her salary is different at different levels. For Paul,
we have two entries as the users cleared at the Secret level will read the Secret and the unclassied
value, and those cleared at the unclassied level will read only the unclassied value.
The question that has been asked often is, why do we need polyinstantiation? The answer is
to avoid signaling and covert channels. For example, if we are to have only one answer for John’s
and Jane’s salaries, a ...