Project Overview

From file-sharing to mobile ad-hoc networks, community networking to application layer overlays, the peer-to-peer networking paradigm promises to revolutionize the way we design, build and use the communications network of tomorrow, transform the structure of the communications industry, and challenge our understanding of markets and democracies in a digital age.

The fundamental premise of peer-to-peer systems is that individual peers voluntarily contribute resources to the system. However, the inherent tension between individual rationality and collective welfare produces a misalignment of incentives in the grassroots provisioning of p2p services. Our multi-disciplinary research team is working to develop a framework for understanding the technical and economic characteristics of p2p systems, and to design economic mechanisms for incentive compatible p2p applications.

People

• John Chuang (Faculty)
• Ion Stoica (Faculty)
• Moshe Babaioff
• Sonja Buchegger
• Jens Grossklags
• Paul Laskowski

• Nicolas Christin (CMU)
• Michal Feldman (Hebrew University)
• Pedro Ferreira (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidad Tecnica de Lisboa)
• Ahsan Habib (Siemens TTB)
• Kevin Lai (HP Labs)

• M. Feldman, J. Chuang, "Overcoming Free-Riding Behavior in Peer-to-Peer Systems," ACM Sigecom Exchanges Vol. 6.1, July 2005.[pdf].
• M. Feldman, J. Chuang, "The Evolution of Cooperation under Cheap Pseudonyms," 7th International IEEE Conference on E-Commerce Technology (CEC'05), July 2005.[pdf].
• P. Ferreira and M. Sirbu, "Inefficiency in provisioning interconnected communication networks," ACM E-Commerce Conference (EC'05), June 2005.
• M. Feldman, J. Chuang, I. Stoica, and S. Shenker, "Hidden-Action in Multi-Hop Routing," ACM E-Commerce Conference (EC'05), June 2005.[pdf].
• M. Feldman, K. Lai, and L. Zhang, "A Price-Anticipating Resource Allocation Mechanism for Distributed Shared Clusters," ACM E-Commerce Conference (EC'05), June 2005.[pdf].
• N. Christin, A. Weigend, and J. Chuang, "Content Availability, Pollution and Poisoning in Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Networks," ACM E-Commerce Conference (EC'05), June 2005. [pdf].
• N. Christin and J. Chuang, "A Cost-Based Analysis of Overlay Routing Geometries," IEEE INFOCOM'05, March 2005 [pdf].
• M. Feldman, C. Papadimitriou, J. Chuang, and I. Stoica, "Free-Riding and Whitewashing in Peer-to-Peer Systems," ACM SIGCOMM'04 Workshop on Practice and Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems (PINS), August 2004. [pdf] (Earlier version appeared in 3rd Annual Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS'04), May 2004. [pdf])
• N. Christin, J. Grossklags, and J. Chuang, "Near Rationality and Competitive Equilibria in Networked Systems," ACM SIGCOMM'04 Workshop on Practice and Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems (PINS), August 2004 [pdf]. (Also see a preliminary version known as Technical Report TR-2004-04-CGC, April 2004 [pdf])
• Y.-H. Chu, J. Chuang, and H. Zhang, "A Case for Taxation in Peer-to-Peer Streaming Broadcast," ACM SIGCOMM'04 Workshop on Practice and Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems (PINS), August 2004. [pdf]
• A. Habib and J. Chuang, "Incentive Mechanism for Peer-to-Peer Media Streaming," 12th IEEE International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQoS'04), June 2004. [pdf]
• M. Feldman and J. Chuang, "Hidden-Action in Multi-Hop Routing," 2nd Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2004.[pdf]
• M. Feldman, K. Lai, I. Stoica, and J. Chuang, "Robust Incentive Techniques for Peer-to-Peer Networks," ACM E-Commerce Conference (EC'04), May 2004. [pdf]
• N. Christin and J. Chuang, "On the Cost of Participating in a Peer-to-Peer Network," 3rd International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS'04), February 2004. [pdf] (Companion Technical Report TR-2003-12-CC, December 2003. [pdf])
• K. Lai, M. Feldman, I. Stoica, and J. Chuang, "Incentives for Cooperation in Peer-to-Peer Networks," 1st Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2003 [pdf]
• M. Feldman, K. Lai, J. Chuang, and I. Stoica, "Quantifying Disincentives in Peer-to-Peer Networks," 1st Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2003 [ps]

• In Search of Homo Swappus: Evolution of Cooperation in Peer-to-Peer Systems. Keynote presentation, IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing, September 1 2005. [pdf]
• A Cost-Based Analysis of Overlay Routing Geometries. IEEE INFOCOM'05, March 2005 [pdf].
• Near Rationality and Competitive Equilibria in Networked Systems. ACM SIGCOMM'04 Workshop on Practice and Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems (PINS), August 2004. [pdf]
• Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems. Academia Sinica 2004 Summer Institute on Peer-to-Peer Computing, August 2004. [pdf]
• On the Cost of Participating in a Peer-to-Peer Network. 3rd International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS'04), February 2004. [pdf]
• Incentives for Cooperation in Peer-to-Peer Networks, 1st Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2003 [pdf]
• Quantifying Disincentives in Peer-to-Peer Networks, 1st Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems, June 2003 [pdf]

• 1st Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-peer Systems, UC Berkeley, June 2003
• 2nd Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-peer Systems, Harvard University, June 2004
• SIGCOMM Workshop on Practice & Theory of Incentives in Networked Systems (PINS), Portland, OR, August 2004
• ACM Conference on E-Commerce (EC'05), Vancouver, British Columbia, June 2005
• 3rd Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-peer Systems, Philadelphia, PA, August 2005 (co-located with ACM SIGCOMM 2005)
• ACM Conference on E-Commerce (EC'06), Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 2006
• 1st Workshop on Economics of Networked Systems (NetEcon06), Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 2006
• 2nd Workshop on Incentive-Based Computing (IBC'06), Lisboa, Portugal, July 2006

• Harvard Economics and Computer Science Group
• Stanford Peers

This project is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation under grants ANI-0085879 and ANI-0331659.