Reputation System Fights P2P Junk

yeejiun writes "Many of the files that are shared on p2p networks tend to be junk. Organizations such as the RIAA and music labels regularly pollute these networks with nonsense files masquerading as real music/video files. These junk files make it difficult for users to find what they want on such p2p networks. Some researchers at Cornell University have developed a reputation system called Credence, that works on the Gnutella network, allowing users to tell the good files from the bad ones."

Comments

Taking advantage of the hoarder mentality

[hellfire]

Many hardcore file shares and hosters, dare I say most that would call themselves hardcore, are not in it for getting free content on demand when they want it. They are into collecting absolutely anything and everything they can get their hands on. In some collections, people wouldn't possibly, in their lifetimes,be able to listen to all the music or watch all those movies. But just the thought of having it makes many hoarders happy. And it's not even necessarily reputation amongst others. It could be in many cases, but not always. They just have to have it.

What's my point? Well, this is the greatest strength and weakness of peer to peer. Hoarders ensure a healthy flow of files, but they rarely actually check what they have. They don't check to see the software works, or if the music is a complete copy, or that the movie was cut down to a quarter of the original screen size.

This is what companies take advantage of, both those who want to hurt swapping, and those who just want to seed files for the purpose of installing some evil spyware. It's nice to have a bunch of people trying to seed the masses but cmon the point of file sharing is to pool our independent resources. For someone who doesn't have all day to search for files and test quality and whatnot, it is sometimes less painful to just go buy the CD than it is to actually try to download it amongst the mess of files that are out there.

Litigation index

[xixax]

Can this also be used as a metric for the RIAA and MPAA to decide which people to take legal action against? Go for the most trusted, most highly rated individuals and take out the most influential (central? critical?) nodes. In the same way that cliques of poisoners would stand out.

Xix.

Why is that AC post modded "Troll"?

[Travoltus]

I disagree that these scientists are breaking any *legitimate* law, but if you accept as a premise that they are, then they are in fact breaking the law using taxpayer dollars.

Instead of modding that down it should be modded up so more people can discuss the ramifications.

Do we allow taxpayer dollars to be spent on civil disobedience? On that issue, I am very unsure.

Re:eDonkey

[daikokatana]

Indeed - but there is a big problem with that system. eMule recognizes the file hashes and reports them as fakse, but it stops after that.

For the past few weeks, I have been rewriting part of the eMule source to have the following changes:

1. I offer a valid file with a valid hash (no fake) 2. People try to download the file from me and move up fast in my queue 3. Once they download a chunk from me, the data I send them is invalid (generated random) 4. Since this part is invalid, they need to redownload it 5. Since they move up faster in my queue than others, they redownload the part from me. 6. etcetera...

To be honest - I want to sell this tactic, that's why I do it. And so far it works! I get loads and loads of requests and rerequests for files, so this is a perfect tactic to kill the download of valid files - reputation system or no reputation system.

Remember, the file is valid, but they'll get it much much slower and spend x times the bandwidth to get it. I have unlimited bandwidth (up/down) so I always win in the end.

If whatever organisation I sell it to employs this on a large scale, the network will be flooded.