Peer-to-Peer Networks

In a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, every peer in the network is connected to the other peers in the network. There is no central server to which all peers must connect. A user’s computer is usually one peer in the network. All communications are done directly from one peer to another peer. Some popular P2P applications are Vuze Bittorrent and Bitcoin. These networks are used by various applications such as file sharing, video and audio conferencing, anonymity, and transferring electronic cash. P2P networks consist of millions of peers. Since a peer is a user’s computer and users usually turn their computer on and off, peers thus go off-line and online; at any one time there are millions of peers online. Vuze Bittorrent is reported to have ...