Analysis of Peer-to- Peer Network Security using Gnutella

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks have emerged over the past several years as new and effective ways for distributed resources to communicate and cooperate. "Peer-to-peer computing is the sharing of computer resources and services by direct exchange between systems. These resources and services include the exchange of information, processing cycles, cache storage, and disk storage for files." P2P networking has the potential to greatly expand the usefulness of the network be it for sharing music and video, privately contracting for services or for coordinating the use of expensive scientific instruments and computers. Some of the networks, such as Napster and Gnutella are created in an ad hoc manner with little or no centralized control. Other P2P networks such as computational and data grids are being designed and implemented in a very structured manner. P2P networks are presenting new challenges to computer security and privacy in a number of ways. This project will explore the security issues raised by P2P networks by studying an example on an extreme point on the design spectrum: Gnutella [Gnu]. Our primary focus will be the Gnutella network, which is the de facto standard for large, loosely structured, P2P networks. The Grid is a very large-scale , heterogeneous, formally structured P2P network that spans many organizations to make “virtual systems” of resources. [OGSA] It is quickly becoming the standard for distributed resource allocation for high-end computer and instrumentation systems. This paper demonstrates that for P2P networks with ad hoc structure, significant security concerns persist. What are Peer-to-peer