1st International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing

Research Article

Free riders under control through service differentiation in peer-to-peer systems

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/COLCOM.2005.1651213,
        author={Loubna Mekouar and Youssef Iraqi and Raouf Boutaba},
        title={Free riders under control through service differentiation in peer-to-peer systems},
        proceedings={1st International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={COLLABORATECOM},
        year={2006},
        month={7},
        keywords={Capacity planning  Computer science  Computerized monitoring  Control systems  Displays  Guidelines  History  Peer to peer computing  Risk management  Sociology},
        doi={10.1109/COLCOM.2005.1651213}
    }
    
  • Loubna Mekouar
    Youssef Iraqi
    Raouf Boutaba
    Year: 2006
    Free riders under control through service differentiation in peer-to-peer systems
    COLLABORATECOM
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/COLCOM.2005.1651213
Loubna Mekouar1,*, Youssef Iraqi2,*, Raouf Boutaba1,*
  • 1: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
  • 2: Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman
*Contact email: lmekouar@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca, y_iraqi@du.edu.om, rboutaba@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca

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 to upload files 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 must be forced to contribute positively by uploading authentic files instead of malicious ones. In this paper, the contribution behavior of the peer is used as a guideline for service differentiation. The new concept of availability is introduced for partially-decentralized peer-to-peer systems. Both availability and involvement of the peer are used to assess its contribution behavior. Simulation results 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. Simulation results also confirm that based on rational behavior, peers are motivated to increase their contribution to receive services. Moreover, using our scheme, peers must continuously participate, reducing significantly the so-called milking phenomenon.