System and method for anonymous addressing of content on network peers and for prvate peer-to-peer file sharing

Abstract

A system and method for efficient and private peer-to-peer file sharing consists of ascribing a uniquely identified and anonymous link (an “edgelink”) to any file or set of files on a peer computer. The link is registered with a publishing server along with continuously updated connectivity information about the peer without registering any identifying information about the file. A peer recipient is able to access the link, receive connectivity information about the publishing peer from the server, and then receive the file from the publishing peer without file content passing through the server, mediating any intermediary NAT devices without requiring any manual or automatic device reconfiguration.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention pertains to the field of electrical computers and digital processing systems and in particular file sharing systems and specifically a system and a method for anonymous addressing of content stored on computers at the edge of the network. This is coupled with a system and method for the private peer-to-peer exchange of anonymously addressed content.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONNetwork ArchitectureClient-Server[0002]Client-server is a computing architecture which separates a client from a server, and is almost always implemented over a computer network. Each client or server connected to a network can also be referred to as a node. The most basic type of client-server architecture employs only two types of nodes: clients and servers. This type of architecture is sometimes referred to as two-tier. It allows devices to share files and resources.[0003]Each instance of the client software can send data requests to one or more connected servers. In...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a system and method for efficient and private peer-to-peer file sharing. The system allows a unique link to be assigned to any file or set of files on a peer computer, which is then registered with a publishing server. The peer recipient can access the link, receive the server's connectivity information, and then receive the file from the publisher without passing through the server or reconfiguring any devices. Additionally, the invention includes an obfuscation scheme to enhance content security and privacy.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, the Gnutella model of all nodes being equal quickly died from bottlenecks as the network grew from incoming Napster refugees.

This is not without drawbacks; perhaps most significantly, DHTs do not directly support keyword searching (as opposed to exact-match searching).

This makes it harder for someone to identify who is downloading or who is offering files.

Third-generation networks have not reached mass usage for file sharing because most current implementations incur too much overhead in their anonymity features, making them slow or hard to use.

However, this protection comes at a cost: downloads can take time to rise to full speed because it may take time for enough peer connections to be established, and it takes time for a node to receive sufficient data to become an effective uploader.

UDP does not guarantee reliability or ordering in the way that TCP does.

Datagrarns may arrive out of order, appear duplicated, or go missing without notice.

This leaves the internal network ill-suited to act as a server, as the NAT device has no way of determining the internal host for which incoming packets are destined.

On the Internet, this problem has not generally been relevant to home users behind NAT devices, as they either do not need to act as servers or can use static NAT mappings to correlate incoming requests to internal hosts.

However, applications such as P2P file sharing (such as BitTorrent or Gnutella clients) or VoIP networks (such as Skype) require clients to act like servers, thereby posing a problem for users behind NAT devices, as incoming requests cannot be correlated to the proper internal host.

In either case, the high level protocol must be designed with NAT traversal in mind, and it does not work reliably across symmetric NATs or other poorly-behaved legacy NATs.

If no DHCP server is available, that is, the network is unmanaged; the device must assign itself an address.

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