Drawing crowds and bit welfare

ABSTRACT

Tit-for-tat style file sharing systems such as BitTorrent have proven to be remarkably effective in dealing with highly popular content. By explicitly addressing free-riding behavior, a "greedy" tit-for-tat approach encourages sharing and succeeds in providing a higher quality of service. However, in situations where a file is not as popular, or the rate of demand is not high, it is frequently difficult to obtain the file in a timely manner. In this paper we demonstrate how additionally greedy behavior on the part of some peers can counterintuitively address this problem. In particular we discuss two possible techniques by which peers, with complete file copies, strategically reduce their effort while improving total network performance by various metrics.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS

  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services
          Subjects: Data sharing

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.4 System Management

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Experimentation, Management, Theory

Keywords:
design, experimentation, file distribution, free-riding, peer-to-peer