Characteristics of file sharing and peer to peer networking

Abstract

A peer-to-peer (p2p) network allows computer hardware and software to function without the need for special server devices. While file sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multi-media (audio, video) resources, documents, or electronic books.A peer-to-peer (p2p) network provides a scalable and fault-tolerant mechanism to locate nodes anywhere on a network without maintaining large amount of routing state. This allows for a variety of applications beyond simple file sharing, including in multicast systems, anonymous communications systems, and web caches. This work surveyed security issues that occur in the underlying p2p systems, as well as legal and trust issues that occur in file sharing and p2p networking. It also, analyzes different p2p software and their features. This work has established that file sharing and peer-to-peer networking generates a lot of traffic on the network and is associated with malicious software.

Keywords: Peer-to-peer, network, internet protocol, file sharing, web caches

International Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, 7(1): 81 - 87, 2011