The good and the bad of peer-to-peer networks

P2P networks are known for their ability to bring digital content to the millions of users without involving any central management job to deliver data. The role of the central server is limited to the search and indexing operations and connecting a member looking for a particular file or document with the community of donors that have that file and are willing to share. The actual transfer of data occurs only between the end users and can take much faster if several users upload the same content because it is then distributed in proportional chunks.

However, with this freedom and availability of almost any type of content, come huge risks which can be summed up as follows:

• By sharing mp3 files or divx movies you may be in violation of intellectual property rights if you smuggle copyrighted materials
• By hosting P2P software, you may fall victim to its security vulnerabilities which are quite common with this kind of advanced, heavily reliant upon new network protocols software
• You may unwittingly open access to some contents on your hard disk you didn’t plan to share
• You run a risk of infecting your machine with malicious software is the files you swap turn to be infested

Peer to peer is a novel way to collaborate and share, however, you should be alert to its dangers.