Collapsing P2P Networks 226
Andrew writes "I'm a undergraduate at the University of Washington, and after seeing this article on Salon, I dusted off a paper I had written last year. I examined P2P networks under a model usually used in describing animal populations, and found that it may be possible to cause a collapse in the network based on the intrinsic nature of the technology. Just as in animal populations, P2P networks require a sizable "critical mass" of users, and overharvesting can cause a systemic collapse - what if this were done on purpose? Quite ominously, my second recommendation on disruption was carrying damaged or incorrectly named files. You can read theabstract and the actual paper"
Music industry strikes back? (Score:2, Insightful)
User moderate shared files (Score:3, Insightful)
Although a single network may collapse... (Score:3, Insightful)
Networks come and go, and encounter obstacles as the number of people using the network increases, but as one reaches "critical mass" another is born because the first became too unstable
There are a large number of p2p networks at the moment, some are more successful than others, but importantly they use very different technologies, some of which are less affected by increasing numbers of users
The fasttrack model appears quite comfortable with several million users, when the orignal gnutella protocol couldnt cope with that number (iirc)
I'm sure that a number of p2p protocol designers will attempt to use the ideas in the paper to avoid the various pitfalls
Ask a silly question... (Score:4, Insightful)
> This paper aims to address the following
> questions:
> 1. How must the depensation model be modified
> in order to account for conceptual
> differences between P2P networks and animal
> populations?
> 2. What are the conditions necessary to cause
> catastrophes in P2P networks?
> 3. What does the model imply about other ways
> to limit or stop P2P networks?
> 4. What is the most effective method to stop
> P2P networks?
I bet if you'd set out to answer a more interesting question, you'd have obtained a more interesting answer.
Natural populations are well known for their ability to adapt to their environment; to mutate or change their behaviour in response to stimuli (threats) in their surroundings. If you truly wish to study P2P networks as if they are ecosystems or populations, there are plenty of more productive entymological questions to be asked.
This paper reads like a biologist saying "given, say, fish - how can we go about killing them?"
Nice to see *some* scientific analysis of this subject, however misdirected.
Definition? (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, it was really a client server application which only on downloading a file did it actually make any connection with any other user.
True P2P has no server and needs no server. Napster had and needed such a thing to work.
Personally I wouldn't call it peer-to-peer at all, but if I was forced to, I'd far rather call it a hybrid P2P and Client/Server solution.
Re:Well, atleast we know who skipped maths lessons (Score:5, Insightful)
countermeasure: encryption + the bad press that randomly sueing upstanding citizens would bring.
2. Creating fake users that carry (incorrectly named or damaged files)
countermeasure: webs of trust & md5 hashes.
3. Broadcasting fake queries in order to degrade network performance
countermeasure: evolve to shun the DoS nodes (again, webs of trust & a 'witness system' needed).
4. Selectively targeting litigation against the small percentage of users that carry the majority of the files
countermeasure: This being the most effective [scare] tactic of the four, the best way to deflect it would be hiding your identity, or somehow spreading everything available very thin (freenet style) for plausible deniability, or serving from offshore, or rotating selections...
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Disrupting P2P networks - legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
But let's say that the music industry/whoever did this, would it be legal just because P2P networks are "possibly used" for distributing copyrighted material?
I don't see the difference between sinking someones Direct Connect hub and launching a DoS attack against a webserver.
Er, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is hardly news. I can't remember the last time that I shared a music file from gnutella that was correctly named, labelled, untruncated and not a radio edit (mea non culpla, the first thing that I do is to fix the damn things, before making them available for re-sharing).
For exe's, it's even worse. There seems to be a deliberate misnamimg of some files, e.g. GTA2 labelled as GTA3, or in some bizarre cases files named as "game Foo (actually game Bar)". What on earth is the point of that? If you're warning that there are misnamed versions out there with this filesize, then say that, otherwise just name it correctly and be done with it.
Porn is the worst of all. I've lost count of the number of god damn bangbus promos (or worse, trailers that spawn popups) that I've shared and ditched, and I'm now so sick of it that I won't download anything under 5MB (most of the trailers are smaller than that).
What I can't understand in all this is that I'm sharing these from other gnutella users. Sure, they are injected through malice (or avarice), but what is wrong in the heads of users that they don't understand that this is our network, and our responsibility to clean up the file naming? Nobody is going to step in and do it for us. It's only going to get worse over time, and I'd rather download three different but accurately named versions of the same file than one misnamed version that turns out to be another badly encoded asian lipstick lesbian popup spawning commercial.
Repeat the mantra: our network, our responsibility.
Re:User moderate shared files (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, these things tend to get solved by smart people who have way to much spare time. I am truly amazed of the amount of work dedicated to cracking and warez..
/J
Re:User moderate shared files (Score:3, Insightful)
what's needed, then, is a /distributed/ modeeration system
And how do you intend to stop them from 'spamming' this distributed system with fake moderations?
Re:Aiding the enemy, huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
So we have to go through the points of the author and refute them.
1. Incorrectly named files. Been Done. Been done on purpose. People keep on d/ling. For some reason this example comes to mind: Busy Child from Chemical Brothers sounds exactly the same a Busy CHild from Crystal Method. And I have the Crystal Method cd. BTW, before the Napster fiasco ended, it was possible to crypt filenames.
Also if you name a file incorrectly, the search engines on p2p clients will probably never hit them anyway. And if the filename is misleading other sources can be checked and if nothing else, the filesize/dates of modification can be compared.
2. Broken files. It happens very often. But there are multiple sources on a p2p network so even assuming that clients get baited they will delete the useless/damaged file and re-d/l it from another source. Comparing filesizes before downloading is also a good strategy.
3. As for overharvesting, its just a way to block some traffic and I doubt that this would be legal. If an organisation put resources to this end, many surfers will get a slower service than what they expect and cause backlash. If I get a group of people and we block an street intersection the cops would surely interfere. Essentially what he is saying is lets spam the p2p network to hell until its abandoned. Too bad we all know what we think about spam.
Die llama spammers.
A Note On Using Damaged/Incomplete/Promo Files (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Aiding the enemy, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if you believe in security through obscurity.
If these weaknesses exist, then sooner or later the RIAA & MPAA will find them. The RIAA will probably hire some "experts" and pay them big wads of cash for "consulting" to find such weaknesses. I wouldn't expect them to monitor Slashdot for research relevent to the P2P battles -- they are far too arrogant for that. Consider their CSS encryption scheme and misguided attempts to use watermarking, which were derided as buffoonery here. This is a battle that will be won by the side that has the better scientific analysis, and I believe that open discussion is a better scientific analysis paradigm.
I think that ultimately, the weaknesses this author discusses must be addressed through some kind of peer review/rating system. A desireable attribute of a P2P system would be robustness to "attack". The internet has posed tremendously interesting problems in "signal-to-noise" improvement, and making networked systems filter noise better is a very desirable feature with important societal implications. Analysis like this can only spur the drive for solutions. If that drive is stronger on the P2P side than the publisher's side, then P2P will perpetually be ahead.
An open forum might be able to achieve a state of "innovation dominance" over a "proprietary" opponent if a critical mass is achieved such that the opponent's practical capability is maximized only if they spend all of their time trying to "keep up" with innovations available in the open forum. Knowledge is power, so the more knowledge that enters the fray via an open forum, the closer that forum is to innovation dominance.
Difference between Animals and P2P (Score:2, Insightful)
Given a threat to its existance, a P2P network can adapt in a matter of hours at best, weeks or months at worst. To change the behavior, defenses, etc... of a biological animal would take thousands of years at best. The flip side is that new threats are developed almost as fast. But the bottom line is, eventually the signal:noise ratio on a P2P system can be tuned enough to allow a signal to get through, no matter what problems might plague it.
Worst case scenario is that you have a voting system that allows *very* different users to vote on certain file share hosts, the ones with the most votes are generally going to be a valid source of the files... while this will present a higher profile target for the major corporations, if you have 10,000 of these high vote people, it's going to be financially problematic.
Even if you have one or two, (or 50) cases of ballot box stuffing when it comes to high vote hosts, an authorized admin of some sort could flag that particular host as being bogus.
There are many, many spin offs of this concept that would make it next to impossible for any single entity to compromise the P2P network into non-existance. It may be cumbersom, but it would work.