P2P-NetPay

Abstract

Micro-payment systems are becoming an important part of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The main reason for this is to address the “free-rider” problem in most existing content sharing systems. The authors of this chapter have developed a new micro-payment system for content sharing in P2P networks called P2P-Netpay. This is an offline, debit based protocol that provides a secure, flexible, usable, and reliable credit service in peer-to-peer networks ensuring equitable participation by all parties. The authors have carried out an assessment of micro-payment against non-micro-payment credit systems for file sharing applications. The chapter reports on the design of our experiment and results of an end user evaluation. The chapter then discusses the performance of the credit model, comparing it to a non-micro-payment credit model. Through evaluation of the proposed system and comparison with other existing systems, the authors find that the new approach eliminates the “free-rider” problem. The chapter analyses a heuristic evaluation performed by a set of evaluators and presents directions for research aiming to improve the overall satisfaction and efficiency of this model for peers.