Clay Shirky – ‘ What Is P2P…And What Isn’t’ ?

Question-  Why is a site like Napster P2P, and why is Email not P2P?

Answer- A site like Napster and Kazaa is P2P, because when downloading a song the information transmits from one computer to the other. People who don’t have each others email addresses or even know each other share information and music files on these sites.

The addresses of Napster nodes bypass the DNS system.

Email addresses aren’t P2P, because the email address isn’t machine independent.

 Emilie Rutherford – ‘ The P2P report’

Question-  What is meant by collaborative computing, instant messaging and affinity communities?

These three terms are the basic divisions in the P2P construction.

- Collaborative computing pool the processing of many computers. This is used mainly with science, biotech and financial services firms that need intense processing. Many enterprises don’t have collaborative computing because they are very difficult to manage and require much coordination.

- Instant messaging is very popular nowadays, By instant messaging users can swap messages online synchronously. People can ‘ talk to each other by writing short messages, and get immediate answer if the other person is online.

- Affinity Communities are direct file sharing groups, like Napster and Kazaa. Users can download each others files and search each others computers. They are in shared spaces with no boundaries and interact directly with each other.

J. Boase and B. Wellman – ‘ A plague of viruses: Biological, Computer and Marketing’

Question- What are the two structural archetypes in viruses as social networks?

Answer- Firstly, there is the densely knit groups- most members know each other, and have close contact with each other. There is little contact outside this tight group.

A virus can move quickly in this group because of the close connection from user to user. Users in a close community will be more prone to a virus because the most likely have the same interests and similar behaviour. Emails that are interesting or funny to one member will probably be found funny or interesting to the other as well, the email will be sent on to other users and if this email contains a virus it will spread very quickly.

- Secondly there are ramified networks, where few members are in contact with one another, and there is a lot of contact with outsiders. Viruses will not spread as quickly as densely knit groups.