TriNetre - Archive for June 24, 2005

(no longer updated)

RIAA is considering the use of a technology called Peer Impact to commercialize P2P music distribution. One of the ways in which the technology works is using what they term "Passive Distribution", which is, once you have downloaded a song from their online catalog,

you leave your computer on and Peer Impact running so that the files you have purchased on Peer Impact remain available to the network. In this scenario, if you happen to have a file that another member wants to purchase, Peer Impact may choose you as a source based on a series of criterion.

This idea is in some way similar to the idea we propose in our paper "Enabling DRM-preserving Digital Content Redistribution" that will be presented at IEEE Conference on E-Commerce Technology 2005. While I can't share the paper until it is published (at least in open), the central idea is to let users become distributors. While Peer Impact looks only at logical P2P networks, we concentrate on physical P2P networks - for example an iPod like device with wireless capability.

The paper discusses the requirements of such a device to maintain the integrity of the system as well as goes into details of the cryptographic protocol needed.

Another set of students are working on a formal crypto analysis of the proposed protocols to see if really is as good as we think it is.