Survey of the state of P2P file sharing applications

Recent improvements in Internet access have been accompanied by a dramatic spread of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications. P2P file sharing is affecting telecommunications carriers, copyright holders, and other are as of society. Since P2P applications do not employ servers to transfer files, it is difficult to gather traffic information on a large scale. This article presents i) techniques for measuring P2P file sharing application traffic by collecting packets using a modified application and ii) measurement results for a Gnutella network. It also examines the current scope of P2P file sharing and type of file that are shared.