Securely distributing centralized multimedia content utilizing peer-to-peer cooperation

Abstract

The ability of peer-to-peer networks to distribute multimedia content efficiently has been demonstrated many times by services such as Napster, Gnutella, and KaZaa. However, such services still suffer from two major disadvantages, viz., providing easy search facilities with little network overhead and providing secure services with the ability to audit the system. The latter feature is increasingly becoming critical as evidenced by the numerous law suites that have been brought against services such as Napster in recent months. In this work, we propose a new system that combines a centralized storage and distribution system with peer cooperation to help distribute multimedia content efficiently. Our system adds security, source verification, and an auditing ability to content distribution while reducing centralized bandwidth usage. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.