Module Five - Case Study: Peer to Peer

Decoding the P2P ‘ecology’

P2P as software / technical network

P2p seems to be a complex and often understated issue regarding the technology of direct file transfer between computers. This technology has become available due to the increasing amount of computers worldwide, affordability and from the people or companies that developed the software that made it possible. The pioneers of P2p such as Napstar have opened up the way for a very complex issues which involve p2p.

Information transfer

The primary idea of p2p is for file sharing between peers, in the majority known for music downloads. The idea however has and will continue to spread itself worldwide across the Internet to just about anything their is a demand for. Music is an obvious one, books, academic knowledge, programs etc are all things that are now being "shared" by p2p software.

Community

p2p creates the idea of community by bringing people with like interests together in the way of file sharing. The communities that have and may spring up in the future where like minded people are being brought together has no bounds for development in the future.

Security and privacy

Security and privacy may be the greatest issue p2p has today. With ever increasing amounts of virus's and spyware out on the Internet p2p users must increasingly be aware of them and ensure that their computers are protected. This could see and increase in trade for anti virus companies however the paradox of this is that more and more people will simply share their files amongst each other via p2p.

Socio-political considerations

The world is changing place and as more information comes to hand more people are opening to new ideas about information and resources and how to get them. The Internet has opened an entirely new way of looking at information and p2p has accentuated this. p2p may well forcibly bring companies to look at different ways to make profit and investigate how people interact.