Can P2P applications learn to play fair on networks?

Mon Oct 22 09:04:36 UTC 2007

> So which ISPs have contributed towards more intelligent p2p 
> content routing and distribution; stuff which'd play better 
> with their networks?
> Or are you all busy being purely reactive? 
> 
> Surely one ISP out there has to have investigated ways that 
> p2p could co-exist with their network..

I can imagine a middlebox that would interrupt multiple flows
of the same file, shut off all but one, and then masquerade
as the source of the other flows so that everyone still gets
their file.

If P2P protocols were more transparent, i.e. not port-hopping,
this kind of thing would be easier to implement.

This would make a good graduate research project, I would imagine.

--Michael Dillon