A fully decentralized network typically made up of millions of dynamic nodes involved in the process of sharing and collaboration without relying in central authorities.
Published in Chapter:
Secure Content Distribution in Pure P2P
Esther Palomar (Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain), Juan M.E. Tapiador (Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain), Julio C. Hernandez-Castro (Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain), and Arturo Ribagorda (Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-262-6.ch020
Abstract
Perhaps the most popular feature offered by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks is the possibility of having several replicas of the same content distributed among multiple nodes. Among the advantages of P2P networks, we emphasize the property of robust fault tolerance. Nevertheless, there are also some disadvantages (e.g. those derived from their decentralized and self-organized nature) such as the complexity of network management and the existence of new security vulnerabilities. In fact, a significant challenge for P2P file sharing systems is maintaining the correctness and consistency of their global data structures and shared contents, as peers independently and unpredictably join and leave the system. Similarly, access control to the shared resources is a noteworthy problem for users of such systems. Most of the difficulties found to apply classic security solutions (e.g. authentication and authorization services) are just related to the impossibility of deploying a public key infrastructure (PKI) in these env ronments, and new proposals have to deal with avoiding such a centralization by exploring alternative paradigms, which often require cooperation among peers. In this chapter, we describe the background and framework of content distribution in pure P2P networks and present the most representative schemes for providing a secure content replication.