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A contribution-based service differentiation scheme for peer-to-peer systems

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Abstract

Trust is required in a file sharing peer-to-peer system to achieve better cooperation among peers. In reputation-based peer-to-peer systems, reputation is used to build trust among peers. In these systems, highly reputable peers will usually be selected to upload requested files, decreasing significantly malicious uploads in the system. However, these peers need to be motivated by increasing the benefits that they receive from the system. In addition, it is necessary to motivate free riders to contribute to the system by sharing files. Malicious peers should be also motivated to contribute positively by uploading authentic files instead of malicious ones. Service differentiation is required to motivate peers to get involved by sharing and uploading the requested files. To provide the right incentives for peers to contribute to the system, the new concept of Contribution Behavior is introduced for partially decentralized peer-to-peer systems. In this paper, the Contribution Behavior of the peer is used as a guideline for service differentiation instead of peer’s reputation. Both Availability and Involvement of the peer are used to assess its Contribution Behavior. Performance evaluations confirm the ability of the proposed scheme to effectively identify both free riders and malicious peers and reduce the level of service provided to them. On the other hand, good peers receive better service. Simulation results also confirm that based on a Rational Behavior, peers are motivated to increase their contribution to receive services. Moreover, using our scheme, peers must continuously participate, reducing significantly the milking phenomenon.

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Notes

  1. Free riders are peers that take advantage of the system without contributing to it or with a very small contribution.

  2. We do not consider uploading malicious content as a contribution. Only authentic uploads are taken into consideration.

  3. To prevent peers from repeatedly sending the same request to the supernode over and over until the request is handled, a minimum time period can be enforced between consecutive requests. This will motivate peers to contribute if they want their requests to be processed by the system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Loubna Mekouar & Raouf Boutaba

  2. Department of Computer Science, Dhofar University, P.O. Box 2509, 211, Salalah, Oman

    Youssef Iraqi

Authors
  1. Loubna Mekouar
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  2. Youssef Iraqi
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  3. Raouf Boutaba
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Loubna Mekouar.

Additional information

Preliminary versions were published in the Fourth International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing (AP2PC), 2005, and in the IEEE International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing (CollaborateCom), 2005.

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Mekouar, L., Iraqi, Y. & Boutaba, R. A contribution-based service differentiation scheme for peer-to-peer systems. Peer-to-Peer Netw. Appl. 2, 146–163 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-008-0026-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-008-0026-2

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