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Exploring the robustness of BitTorrent peer‐to‐peer content distribution systems
Author(s) -
Liogkas Nikitas,
Nelson Robert,
Kohler Eddie,
Zhang Lixia
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
concurrency and computation: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.309
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1532-0634
pISSN - 1532-0626
DOI - 10.1002/cpe.1187
Subject(s) - bittorrent , exploit , download , computer science , robustness (evolution) , computer network , peer to peer , content distribution , quality of service , internet privacy , distributed computing , computer security , world wide web , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
This paper assesses BitTorrent's robustness against selfish peers who try to download content faster than their fair share by abusing existing protocol mechanisms. We present three exploits that can deliver potential benefits to a selfish peer and evaluate their impact on both public and private download sessions. Our results show that BitTorrent is quite robust against these exploits. Although selfish peers can sometimes attain high download throughput and compliant peers' download rates suffer slightly in consequence, we observe no significant degradation of the overall system's quality of service. We identify scenarios where a selfish peer could attain significant benefits at the expense of compliant peers, and discuss the protocol characteristics that render these scenarios unlikely and hence lead to the system's robustness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.