The term "peer-to-peer" has come to be applied to networks that expect end users to contribute their own files, computing time, or other resources to some shared project. Even more interesting than the systems' technical underpinnings are their socially disruptive potential: in various ways they return content, choice, and control to ordinary users. While this book is mostly about the technical promise of peer-to-peer, it also talks about its exciting social promise. Communities have been forming on the Internet for a long time, but they have been limited by the flat interactive qualities of email and Network newsgroups. People can exchange recommendations and ideas over these media, but have great difficulty commenting on each other's postings, structuring information, performing searches, or creating summaries. If tools provided ways to organize information intelligently, and if each person could serve up his or her own data and retrieve others' data, the possibilities for collaboration would take off. Peer-to-peer technologies along with metadata could enhance almost any group of people who share an interest - technical, cultural, political, medical, you name it. This book presents the goals that drive the developers of the best-known peer-to-peer systems, the problems they've faced, and the technical solutions they've found.

About the Author
David P. Anderson is the director of the SETI@home project. He cofounded Tunes.com and is currently CTO of United Devices. From 1985 to 1991 he was on the faculty of the U.C. Berkeley computer science department. Nimisha Asthagiri, at Groove Networks, is a senior security architect and the security czar (a title they give for someone who is ultimately responsible for continuity and execution within certain specific technical areas that span across the product). She has been with Groove since September 1998 (employee

Reviews
'Provides an interesting insight in to the world of P2P;, the projects currently tearing up the ;net and the future of the technology. Initial repetition aside, this is a well thought out and useful book which is definitely worth reading.- Linux Format, October 2001 'All in all a typical well-presented O'Reilly package - nice paper, good hardback binding and excellent content.' - Lindsay Marshall, news@UK, June 2001 'Essential reading for budding computer scientists and leaders of oppressive regimes' Computer Shopper, June 2001 'I have used this much space on this particular book because it is currently the best text I have seen that gives a wide introduction to P2P technologies and trends, and there is absolutely no question that infosec practitioners will have to understand this subject.' Information Security Bulletin, May 2001 (2 page review)



Book Information
ISBN 9780596001100
Page Count 431
Imprint O'Reilly Media
Publisher O'Reilly Media