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NEW 14/05/01 8:22 PM Page 8

tutorPEER TO PEER

POWER
TO THE PEOPLE
Pe e r-t o-peer technology does away with traditional cl i e n t /server computing and
e m p ow e rs users to create their own networks. File swapping and shared computing
a re just initial examples of what P2P will offe r.

o matter which side of the music-

N sharing fence you’re leaning

against, you can’t argue with Nap-
ster’s popularity. The applica-
tion’s enduring legacy, however, may
involve more than just music. Under the
hood, Napster (www.napster.com) uses
peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, which devi-
ates significantly from the client-server
design that has governed the Internet from
the medium’s first days. P2P is not new, but
Napster’s popularity has fueled a great deal
of interest in the technology.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Your PC, when connected to the Internet,
is referred to as a client. The same term also
describes most programs you use to do
things on the Web: your browser, email
software, newsreader and so forth are all
clients. The salient feature of a client is
that it doesn’t operate independently; to be
functional, it must connect to a server – a
central source of data or instructions. Every
time you use client software to interact
with the Net, you’re sending a request to
the corresponding server software and wait-
Figure 1: Napster and the Gnutella-driven BearShare offer similar-looking search results, although Napster’s
ing for the server to respond. interface demonstrates a more developed nature.
P2P doesn’t work that way. Instead, two

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Tutor.JUNE.NEW 14/05/01 8:22 PM Page 9
TWO PEER-TO-PEER MODELS
(or more) computers are linked for the pur-
pose of sharing data, each taking an equal
role in the data transfer process without the
intervention of a central data or instruc-
tion source. Your home network is prob-
ably a peer-to-peer system; no server is
ne ede d to sha re i nfo r ma tio n a mon g
machines.
Not all P2P systems call the individual
computers peers. The Gnutella file-shar-
ing service, for example, refers to each
host as a servent. This term itself is telling.
An amalgam of server and client, the ser-
vent designation implies that P2P doesn’t
so much do away with the server as incor-
porate the server functions into the client.
The idea of a remote server that mediates
the flow of data disappears. Instead, each
user’s com puter handles the serving,
although those functions are more or less
hidden from the user.
When you install a program such as Nap-
ster, you’re simultaneously turning your
machine into a server that other users can
access over the Internet, and enabling your
machine to access other computers run-
ning Napster that are connected to the Net.
To function, Napster does require a cen-
tral system (run by Napster, the site), but
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p2p technology | power to the people
that system’s functions are to determine
current user IP addresses and offer an index
of files available, not to intervene in the actu-
al PC-to-PC communication.
As noted earlier, sending data over the
I n t e rnet from one computer directly to
another isn’t new by any means. Windows
users have long had access to freeware or
shareware software that enabled them to
set up their own machines for access by oth-
ers. To exchange files directly with a friend,
for example, both of you could run FTP (File
Transfer Protocol) server software, set up
a username and password for the other
person, and give that information along
with your current IP a d d resses to each
other. (To find your IP address on a Win-
dows 9x system, you’d select Start | Run,
then enter winipcfg.exe and click O K ;
under Windows NT or 2000, you’d enter
ipconfig.exe.) Each of you could then log
on to the other’s system and get files. As
you probab ly s uspect, however, thi s
approach is clumsy, inefficient, and almost
totally useless if you want to share files
with more than a few people.
P2P, on the other hand, lets computers
connected to the Internet communicate
with each other directly. Napster lets you
search for music files on the computers of
Napster users everywhere on the Net and,
at the same time, makes the music files on
your computer available to the rest of the
Napster community. Some P 2 P a p p l i c a-
tions let you share not only files but other
resources as well.
What’s wrong with centralised servers?
First, they cost a lot of money. Servers
require reliability and durability beyond
what most workstations need and, as a
result, must incorporate relatively expen-
sive technologies such as SCSI, disk mir-
roring and sophisticated operating systems.
Moving applications off servers and into a
P2P environment can make a lot of sense
financially. Servers are not needed for all
applications. They’re essential for hosting
a popular Web site, certainly, because they
can dedicate hard disk space, network
bandwidth and administrative resources to
this multifunction and re s o u rc e - h u n g r y
task. But simpler tasks such as limited file
sharing don’t require servers.
FINDING ONE ANOTHER
Avoiding the use of central servers means
that P2P applications have to establish dif-
ferent ways of working with IP addresses.
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tutorPEER TO PEER
Figure 2: Groove lets you establish a range of P2P-based collaborative activities.
Every computer on the Internet must have
a numeric IP address; in fact, having an IP
number is one of the definitions of being
on the Internet. For ease of use, this IP
number is typically referenced through its
corresponding domain name (pcmag.com,
for example), and keeping track of the cor-
relation between IP numbers and domain
names is the responsibility of dns (Domain
Name System) servers. P2P avoids dealing
with DNS servers either by having P Cs
address one another using IP numbers only
or by using a proprietary means of obtain-
ing current ip numbers.
This avoidance is necessary for two rea-
sons. First, DNS servers rely on fixed IP
addresses – IP numbers that are assigned
to individual computers and never change.
Such is not the case with the majority of
surfers who access the Net via a dial-up
line. At the moment of connection, these
machines are assigned an IP number from
a block of available numbers the ISP may
use (this is called a dynamic IP address).
Second, all computers on the Internet have
IP addresses, but not all have domain names,
and in those cases DNS servers are of no
use.
Because of their ability to work outside
the DNS system and outside the system of
centralised servers, P2P applications are
said to operate at the “edges” of the Inter-
120 June 2001
net. They use the essence of the Internet
– network connectivity, the TCP/IP proto-
col, and the requisite IP addressing system
– but skirt the rest.
WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH P2P?
By far the most widespread application of
P2P has been file sharing, with Napster as
the leader, of course. The RIAA (Record
Industry Association of America) suit last
year seemed, for a time, destined to deep-
six the enterprise, leaving only the mem-
ory of a brief period of Internet anarchy.
But the company survived and has formed
an alliance with media firm Bertelsmann AG
to develop a pay service (latest reports sug-
gest a fee of about $5 per month) that would
give subscribers unlimited access to music
released by Bertelsmann Music Gro u p .
Since forming this alliance, Napster has
seen lawsuits dropped by Germany’s EDEL
music and US independent label T V T
Records. As of this writing, both companies
are cooperating with Napster on setting up
the fee-based service, although the upstart’s
future is still uncertain.
Despite Napster’ s success, Gnutella
(http://gnutella.wego.com) – a search pro-
tocol, in essence – is a more interesting
P 2 P p roject. Designed to be completely
free of central authority, Gnutella can be
incorporated into any file-sharing appli-
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cation. There is no official client and the
name doesn’t refer to a company or even
a program, creating a very elusive lawsuit
t a rget. Gnutella was touted as the tech-
nology that could supplant Napster’s dom-
inance in music file exchanges, but the real
advantage is the ability to find and down-
load any type of file. The Gnutella proto-
col does not actually handle file transfers,
employing HTTP for this function instead.
Each servent becomes an HTTP client and
server together, allowing two-way trans-
fers.
Gnutella-based servents are growing in
number and ease of use. A look at one
download site, www.gnutelliums.com,
showed servents available for Windows,
Linux, Java and the Mac. Three of the most
popular Windows variants are BearShare
( w w w . b e a r s h a r e .c o m) , L i m eW i r e
( w w w . l i m e w i re .com ) a nd To a d N o d e
(www.toadnode.com). Another servent,
Newtella (www .newtella.com), focuses in
a Napster-like way on music files. Recent
improvements in the protocol have con-
tr ib ute d t o n ew ent husi asm , ser vent
upgrades, and even interest from the record-
ing industry and other commercial sectors.
The record industry’s attention to Nap-
ster and Gnutella clearly indicates a reali-
sation that file-swapping isn’t about to dis-
appear, and that there are ways to profit.
A similar fee-based file-sharing service
appears to be in the works at CenterSpan
Communications (www.centerspan.com),
which acquired the assets of the P2P file-
sh a r in g s er v i ce k no w n as S c o u r
(www.scour.com). Scour enthusiasts pri-
marily swapped movie files, and the motion
picture industry wasn’t amused. Lawsuits
resulted in Scour shutting down the ser-
vice, but CenterSpan plans to relaunch the
service as a legal distributor of movie and
music files. IBM has entered the fray as
well, proposing a technology that would
allow participants to share files but would
limit the number of times those files could
be played or shown (www.zdnet.com/
intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2676785,
00.html). In fact, several big computing
firms are getting involved in P2P, includ-
ing Intel, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.
Other file-sharing systems are making
their mark. For example, Aimster (www.aim-
ster. com) works in conjunction with AOL’s
instant messaging service to allow partic-
ipants to send files to one another. Freenet
(http://freenetproject.org) provides a means
for individual users to share any type of file.
MojoNation (www.mojonation.net) offers
file sharing and tries to solve the load-bal-
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p2p technology | power to the people

ancing problem of more users taking than

contributing files.
Commerce is one use predicted for P2P.
There’s no real reason for not routing trans-
actions between individuals directly rather
than via intermediaries. Collaboration is
another possible application for P2P. A
g o od e xa mp le is Gro o ve N et wo rk s ’
(www.groove.net) Groove collaboration
application (Figure 2).
A rguably, the sharing of data among
Internet users shouldn’t require servers at
all. P2P prophets predict that direct user-
to-user email will join direct file transfer
and another significant P2P method, instant
messaging (such as ICQ). To get an idea
of the huge variety of projects that can be
placed under the P2P umbrella, see the
O’Reilly P 2 PD i rectory at www.oreillynet.
com/pub/q/p2p_category. You’ll find pro-
jects ranging from file sharing to collabo-
ration, messaging, resource distribution
and more.
SECURITY ISSUES
P 2 P communication is fraught with the
potential for security disasters – far more
so than systems employing central servers.
Because P2P applications allow one user
to access another’s computer directly, shar-
ing files and other resources is convenient,
but hacking is convenient as well. For this
reason alone, expect large organisations to
forbid the use of popular P2P programs,
and expect hordes of users to stay away
until application providers can give assur-
ances about security. If you’re wary of
shopping on the Web, you should be dou-
bly wary of allowing strangers to access
your hard disk. Such concerns, though,
haven’t stopped many thousands of users
from opening their machines to Napster
access, and P2P security warnings haven’t
followed the Napster hype. We’re not pick-
ing on Napster here; security concerns are
endemic to any kind of P2P access. Com-
panies including Intel are beginning to
address these concerns.
FINDING ALIENS AND
WIPING OUT CANCER
s compelling as P2P’s cur-
A rent applications might
be, some observers find
its close cousin, distrib-
uted computing, even more promis-
ing. This technology involves remote-
ly linked machines sharing their com-
putation resources over the Internet.
One simple fact about personal com-
puters is that their CPUs spend a very
significant percentage of their time
doing little or nothing. This is obvi-
ously true if we leave our computers
powered on when we’re away, but
even while working at the computer
we rarely use its full power. Surely all
this processing power could be put
to better use. Why not use the net-
work to join the idle processing cycles
from many idle computers into a kind
of super-computer that can work
away at some joint task or another?
In fact, we’re already there. The
seti@home project (http://setiath-
ome.ssl.berkeley.edu) uses idle com-
puters that are connected to the
Internet to analyse data captured by
a radio telescope in Puerto Rico, part
of Project SERENDIP, which sifts deep-
space radio waves for signs of
ex t rat e r re strial int elligence. A
seti@home screensaver accepts a
3 0 0K do w n lo a d f ro m P ro j e c t
serendip, crunches the data, and
c o m bine s th is d ata w it h da t a
analysed by other idle computers,
sending the results to the SERENDIP
team. To date, the 1.5 million people
who installed the screensaver have
contributed a total of 165,000 years
of computing time.
True, this is an unusual project,
but it’s not the only one of its kind.
Popular Power (www.popularpow-
er.com) plans not only to use idle
cycles from Internet-connected PCs,
but also to pay for these cy cl e s .
Pa ra b o n C o m pu t at io n ( ww w.
p a rabon.com) wa n ts to use idle
cycles to help computers engaged
in projects such as cancer research.
Entropia (www.entropia.com) simi-
larly plans to make wasted cycles
available for projects of nonprofit
organisations such as charities. These
are but a few of the projects cur-
rently in place or in development.
With little effort, one can imagine
how corporations might use the idle
resources of the huge number of
w o r k st ations on their L A Ns and
WANs.

PERSON TO PERSON
Whether P2P will live up to the hype is still
anyone’s guess. A number of technologies
(push, for example) have shone briefly,
only to fizzle. Still, a lot of work on new
P 2 P applications is underway. And the
technology has something else going for
it: the interest and support of thousands
of individuals who like the idea of com-
The SETI@home interface lets you see how your computer is being used by the
municating directly with other users. P2P program.
may put the personal back in personal
computers.

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