Peer to Peer Case Study

P2P as software / technical network

See ‘How the old Napster worked’

An Introduction to Peer-to-Peer Computing - David Barkai (Intel)

In my last subject titled “Managing the Digital Organisation”, I learned a little bit about P2P architecture and P2P payment systems. PayPal which is used by eBay as a form of cash transfer if the customer does not have a credit card.

My husband works for the Brisbane City Council and uses a P2P software package, where files are shared and accessed without having to go through a server, this makes his job easier and faster as he works from home but is part of a LAN (Local area network).

File sharing can be beneficial purse if a community of students studying the same subject wish to share research material. However one must ask whether file sharing is ethical or illegal.

Privacy is Good

The utube version -part one - the links on the page will lead to all other parts

Recently a sneak peak of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games was leaked to the public. A uproar followed as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says that the Olympic Games is free to all forms of media including the Internet. But the uproar was unwarranted as everyone still turned up in person to see it live. I personally think that the real thing is better than a copy especially when it comes to movies or books.

About 5 years ago a copy of one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks was emailed to me, I had a brief look at it online, but chose not to print it out and wait to purchase the real thing. There is nothing like reading a book for the first time, the smell of the paper and the feeling of accomplishment when you finally turn the last page.

Unfortunately in this day and age and the technological advancements that occur regularly, piracy will always be an issue, but if one uses there common sense and does not participate in any unethical or illegal activities, they are at least not taking money out of the pockets of the people who write or create such books or movies.

Information transfer & Community

P2P Networking: An Information-Sharing Alternative Parameswaran, Susarla & Whinston

Peer-to-Peer for Academia – Andy Oram

‘Henry Jenkins, Playing Our Song? - Henry Jenkins on the ‘community’ aspects of Napster.

This goes hand in hand as users feel part of a community when they transfer information. However they must be aware of any copyright issues pertaining to the information they want to share with other users.

Napster was proven to be very popular as it generated 60 million visitors per month (I was not one of them), but was shut down due to copyright breaches. They now have a new site which is a pay-for music site.

Legal issues: copyright

"Copying is Theft ..." And other legal myths in the looming battle over peer-to-peer. Mark Rasch

Rip, Mix, Burn: The Politics of Peer to Peer and Copyright Law by Kathy Bowrey and Matthew Rimmer -

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Since Napster

Even though there is decrypting software available to decrypt DVD’s and CD’s of movies and music so that you may copy them. One has to ask themselves whether the risk of doing so is worth it.

Copyright laws are very clear and users who wish to download or share files do so at there own risk. You can pay the small fee and download a song you like knowing that you have not breached any copyright laws and that the law will not be chasing you for breach of copyright.

Security and privacy

Pcstats Beginners Guides: Spyware Protection and Removal

Gene and Katie Hamilton, Is Your Computer Talking To Strangers?

Protect Your Privacy With Antitracking Software, Smart Computing, January 2002 • Vol.13 Issue 1, pp. 48-51.

spychecker have lists of known spyware, and downloads of various anti-spyware tools

With file sharing you leave yourself wide open to viruses, worms and phishing emails. So protecting your computer with the latest antivirus software and using common sense with emails is essential.

Protecting your privacy should always be paramount as you do not know who is on the other end of the communication. Be vigilant and you should survive any attempted attack.

Socio-political considerations

http://p2pnet.net

http://www.janisian.com/article- internet_debacle.html

P2P file sharing will always be apart of the cyber society. Marketers need it so that entices you into purchasing their products by giving you something for free, then hitting you up to cough up the cash to purchase the entire product.

Since the way of the future is going more and more online, P2P will be more than just a place to download music etc. Big business might see the advantages and introduce it into their global intranet, if they have not done so already.

Ecologies

How might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?

Ecology – the study of the interactive relationship between living things and their ENVIRONMENT (Collins internet-linked dictionary of Sociology).

After reading ‘Information Ecologies’ by Felix Stadler and ‘Towards an Information Ecology’ by Rafael Capurro, here is what I interrupt the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ when I use the Internet. Firstly an Internet ecology is the relationship and interactions between people and the online environment, in particular the Web.

I mostly use the Internet to do research, interact with fellow students and retrieve my university workload. So I think in information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology.

An ecology responds to local environmental changes and local interventions. An ecology is a place that is scaled to individuals. In an ecology, we are not cogs in sweeping sociological processes. Instead, we are individuals with real relationships to other individuals. The scale of an ecology allows us to find individual points of leverage, ways into the system, and avenues of intervention.

What I will take away from NET11 is that, firstly the Internet is an ever evolving system and that changes can occur all the time. My research skills have increased due to the way that I interrupt the results I get from the type of keywords that I use. Therefore I am more aware of how my interaction with the Internet will determine what reaction I will get from it.

How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?

An information ecology is a complex system of parts and relationships. It exhibits diversity and experiences continual evolution. Different parts of an ecology coevolve, changing together according to the relationships in the system. Several keystone species necessary to the survival of the ecology are present. Information ecologies have a sense of locality.

An information ecology is marked by strong interrelationships and dependencies among its different parts. The parts of an information ecology may be as different from each other as the sand, sunlight, saltwater, and starfish of a marine ecology, but they are as closely bound together. Change in an ecology is systemic. When one element is changed, effects can be felt throughout the whole system. To get a mental image, imagine dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripple effect spread towards the edges of the pond.

Communication within a ecology depends on the type of information received. If a sender does not communicate that they would like a response, then they are unlikely to get a response. We as humans need to communicate; this is taught to us from birth, that if we want something we need to communicate it with verbal words otherwise we get nothing. The same is said for when we interact with technology, we must communicate what we want in order to get it.

Without communication there would be no information.

Why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

As my last sentence in the previous question states “Without communication there would be no information”. Therefore communication falls under the banner of information as I see it anyway.

Different communication ecologies are constructed to achieve different goals. For example, when finding health information is the goal, a different set of communication preferences will be generated than when the goal is to figure out where to get the best buys or how to stay on top of the local community.

On the Internet these days, users have various forms in which they may communicate such as, email, chat, and forums to name a few. But with all types of communication on the Internet users must abide by netiquette rules. Online communication is fast and precise, but it has it pitfalls as well, like systems crashing, loss of data, and miscommunication due to the lack of visual body language.