P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Network
by. Group 4
電機一 B93901007 許恭銓 電機一 B93901061 盧泓諭 電機一 B93901122 林奕辰
Since we’re interested in the P2P (peer-to-peer) system, this report is mainly on introducing
the system itself and our thoughts about it.
One might notice that recently there are various kinds of softwares like BT (BitTorrent),
eMule, ezPeer, Kuro, eDonkey……etc, they are all softwares based on the concept of P2P
networking system.
So what is this P2P system anyways?
Unlike the downloading and uploading on the website or FTP, which there are clients and
servers apart, what you have to do is just connect to the server as a client and do the
up-downloading job. The P2P systems, on the other hand, have a basic vital element: the
“peer-nodes”. These peer-nodes act like both “clients” and “servers” to the other nodes. Now
you can think of as everyone of the user holds a peer-node, and the whole network is based on
those nodes, with connections between pairs. Hence, as a client, you may connect to many
servers at one time, and as a server, many clients may connect to you at the exact time.
The very advantage of this system, as you can see, is that the capacity or the speed of doing
the downloading grows with the number of nodes you have connected, comparing to the
And as you know, the HTTP is the world’s most known IDS (Internet Directory Service),
the P2P systems, similarly, is a new and very broad IDS. The data and information in the P2P
network are from all the users, and let’s just imagine how many PCs in the world are
connected to the network nowadays!
The copyright issue has been a very big problem for the P2P network since if a file is sent
in the network by somebody, all other users can get it for free, but then it’ll be illegal. It has
turned out to be that many softwares or files with copyrights that are forbidden for public use
are spreading out through the P2P network to the world. So the concern of copyrights plays an
enormous role on the network and the problem of piracy needs to be solved immediately.
Here we have come up with some ideas which may help to deal with the issue.
We could use such technics as inserting a thing in those files that only allows people to
upload it once; and after, the files won’t be able to be uploaded anymore. But this requires a
very delicate code that’s thoughtfully invented, or else one might just decode the file and
break the one-time-uploading restriction.
Secondly, we might use a special format for those files with copyrights that the system can
detect them immediately if they are being transferred in the network.
Our third proposal is to bring in the idea of “stamps”. If you’re to upload a file, you need to
spend some money according to the size of the files, unlike the system now which the
We also recommend that there should be some kind of official bureau running this network.
People using the P2P network must assign a private account, and you need to go through an
official procedure to do this. So if you are doing something illegal in the network, the officials
could track you down through your identification in the mean time. So other P2P networks
not in the control of the bureau must be forbidden. This would need a great effort but I think
it’s just the best way : let the government do the job.
Another big problem is the danger and threats of the virus. Since in the network you are
simply connecting to others PC, so if, whether they intend to do so or not, having viruses in
their uploading files, the downloading one would get the viruses too. So there should be a
network scanning system that run through all the uploading files. Well, this’ll surely costs a
lot, but it would cut down the damage of the spreading of viruses to the lowest point!
One last thing, many people might stop uploading once they’ve complete downloading the
files, and so the others won’t be able to get this file or the downloading becomes so slow due
to the decreasing number of the nodes. So I guess we should lock the last part of every
downloading file, until you’ve complete uploading a certain amount of this file to others.