Series in Distributed
Computing
edited
by Roger Wattenhofer
Vol.
6
Stefan Schmid,
Dynamics and Cooperation.
Algorithmic
Challenges in Peer-to-Peer Computing.
1st edition/1. Aufl. 2008, 150 pages/Seiten, € 64,00. ISBN
3-86628-205-2
Peer-to-peer (p2p)
computing is one of the most intriguing new networking paradigms. At the heart
of the paradigm lies the idea of leveraging the resources of the system’s
participants. Thus, potentially scalable and robust architectures can be built.
However, making use of the decentralized resources is challenging. The peers
are under the control of the individual users who may only connect to the
network for a short period of time. Consequently, there are frequent membership
changes and p2p systems are highly dynamic. Peer-to-peer solutions are also
faced with the fact that it is not always in the (anonymous) users’ interest to
contribute their resources. Rather, a user may seek to exploit the system
without reciprocating.
This volume
studies the challenges of the dynamics and cooperation in p2p computing.
Algorithms for p2p systems are described which maintain desirable network
properties in dynamic environments. A case study of BitTorrent – one of the
most traffic intensive applications on the Internet – is presented, and we show
that today’s peer-to-peer networks still fail to fend off uncooperative peers.
Our game-theoretic analysis of unstructured p2p networks reveals that both the
performance and the stability of a system can suffer severely in case of
selfish behavior. Finally, a new mathematical framework is introduced which
allows us to evaluate a system’s robustness to malicious attacks and which is
also useful for the analysis of social networks. The theoretic findings are
complemented by a case study which identifies vulnerabilities in the popular
Kad network.
About the author:
Stefan Schmid received his MSc degree in
computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich,
Switzerland in 2004. In the same year, he joined the Distributed Computing
Group of Professor Roger Wattenhofer at ETH Zurich as a PhD student and
research assistant. In 2008, he earned his PhD degree for his work on
algorithmic challenges in peer-to-peer computing.
Keywords: Algorithms, Churn, Distributed Systems, Locality, Game Theory,
Peer-to-Peer
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