Social-P2P: Social network-based P2P file sharing system

A peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing system provides a platform that enables users to share their files. Retrieving files efficiently and trustworthily in such a large and jumbled system is critically important. However, the issues of efficient searching and trustworthy searching have only been studied separately. Simply combining two separate strategies dealing with each issue doubles system overhead. In this paper, we first study trace data from Facebook and BitTorrent. Guided by the study observations, we propose a P2P system based on social networks for simultaneous efficient and trustworthy file sharing, namely Social-P2P. Social-P2P groups common-multi-interest nodes into a cluster and further connects socially close nodes within a cluster. The comparably stable nodes in each cluster form a DHT for inter-cluster file searching. A file query is forwarded to the cluster of the file by the DHT routing and then is forwarded along constructed connections within a cluster, which achieves high hit rate and reliable routing. Sharing files among socially close friends discourages nodes from providing faulty files since people are unlikely to risk their reputation in the real world. Experimental results show that by leveraging a social network, Social-P2P achieves highly efficient and trustworthy file sharing.