Privacy in file sharing networks

Peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) systems like Gnutella, KaZaA, and eDonkey/eMule, have become extremely popular in recent years, with the estimated user population in the millions. An academic research paper analyzed Gnutella and eMule protocols and found weaknesses in the protocol; many of the issues found in these networks are fundamental and probably common on other P2P networks.^[1] Users of file sharing networks, such as eMule and Gnutella, are subject to monitoring of their activity. Clients may be tracked by IP address, DNS name, software version they use, files they share, queries they initiate, and queries they answer to.^[1] Clients may also share their private files to the network without notice due to inappropriate settings.^[2]

Much is known about the network structure, routing schemes, performance load and fault tolerance of P2P systems in general.^[3] It might be surprising, but the eMule protocol does not provide much privacy to the users, although it is a P2P protocol which is supposed to be decentralized.^[4]

^ ^a ^b Bickson, Danny; Malkhi, Dahlia (2004). "A Study of Privacy in File Sharing Networks". Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ Liu, Bingshuang; Liu, Zhaoyang; Zhang, Jianyu; Wei, Tao; Zou, Wei (2012-10-15). "How many eyes are spying on your shared folders?". Proceedings of the 2012 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society. WPES '12. Raleigh, North Carolina, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 109–116. doi:10.1145/2381966.2381982. ISBN 978-1-4503-1663-7. S2CID 13840840.
^ Eng Keong Lua Jon Crowcroft. "A Survey and Comparison of Peer-to-Peer Overlay Network Schemes". IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. 7 (2): 72–93.
^ Silva, Pedro Moreira da (19 June 2017). "Mistrustful P2P: Deterministic privacy-preserving P2P file sharing model to hide user content interests in untrusted peer-to-peer networks". Computer Networks. 120: 87–104. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2017.04.005.

[:0-1] Bickson, Danny; Malkhi, Dahlia (2004). "A Study of Privacy in File Sharing Networks". Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

[2] Liu, Bingshuang; Liu, Zhaoyang; Zhang, Jianyu; Wei, Tao; Zou, Wei (2012-10-15). "How many eyes are spying on your shared folders?". Proceedings of the 2012 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society. WPES '12. Raleigh, North Carolina, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 109–116. doi:10.1145/2381966.2381982. ISBN 978-1-4503-1663-7. S2CID 13840840.

[3] Eng Keong Lua Jon Crowcroft. "A Survey and Comparison of Peer-to-Peer Overlay Network Schemes". IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. 7 (2): 72–93.

[4] Silva, Pedro Moreira da (19 June 2017). "Mistrustful P2P: Deterministic privacy-preserving P2P file sharing model to hide user content interests in untrusted peer-to-peer networks". Computer Networks. 120: 87–104. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2017.04.005.

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