PeerMint: Decentralized and Secure Accounting for Peer-to-Peer Applications

P2P-based applications like file-sharing or distributed storage benefit from the scalability and performance of completely decentralized P2P infrastructures. However, existing P2P infrastructures like Chord or Pastry are vulnerable against selfish and malicious behavior and provide currently little support for commercial applications. There is a need for reliable mechanisms that enable the commercial use of P2P technology, while maintaining favorable scalability properties. PeerMint is a completely decentralized and secure accounting scheme which facilitates market-based management of P2P applications. The scheme applies a structured P2P overlay network to keep accounting information in an efficient and reliable way. Session mediation peers are used to minimize the impact of collusion among peers. A prototype has been implemented as part of a modular Accounting and Charging system to show PeerMint’s practical applicability. Experiments were performed to provide evidence of the scheme’s scalability and reliability.