Analyzing Classification and Security Issues of Peer to Peer Networks

Abstract

Peer-to-Peer systems have become, in a short period of time, one of the fastest growing and most popular applications. Peer-to-peer systems have emerged as a popular way to share huge volumes of data. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing is the hottest, fastest growing application on the Internet. The evident success of file sharing networks such as Napster, later followed by Gnutella and Bit-Torrent among others, triggered a new wave of research on this new computing discipline.

In this survey, we propose classification of P2P network based on architecture as well as based on their structure. Although a P2P network has a number of advantages over the traditional client-server model in terms of efficiency and fault-tolerance, additional security threats can be introduced. So this paper also discusses some important security threats and issues with peer to peer and some solutions to them.

So in this paper, the classification and security aspects are underlined, in order to survey p2p systems.

Key Words: P2P, Bit-Torrent, Gnutella, fault-tolerance, Threats, Napster