With equal permissions and responsibilities for processing data, a group of computers is linked together in peer-to-peer networking. No devices in a P2P network are solely designated to serve or receive data, unlike traditional client-server networking. All the machines that are connected have the same rights as their "peers" and can be used for the same purposes.
Following the deployment of free-standing PCs in the early 1980s the P2P networks were initially used in business. The contemporary PCs had self-contained hard drives and built-in CPUs in contrast to the minimainframes of the day, such as the VS system from Wang Laboratories Inc.
Also, the smart boxes had onboard applications so they could be deployed to PCs and be productive without being connected to the mainframe.
By having dedicated PCs on their desktops many workers felt liberated. But soon a way to share files and printers as required. The answer then was to save files to a floppy disk and carry the disk to the receiver or send it by interoffice mail.
What is P2P Used For?
P2P Network File Sharing
If you have heard anything about P2P networking, chances are that you have heard about it in the sense of file sharing. For example, there was a time when the average home user's computer would mostly have P2P software like Kazaa and Napster. You could use this software to swap large files over the internet, typically music and movies. They used their worldwide user base's computers as both client and server for this purpose, rather than using the central servers, they effectively offloaded processing loads onto their users.
Although this software has gone out of the market the P2P file sharing is still alive. Since the majority of them support files in addition to chatting, even instant messages clients can serve this function.
There are different legitimate uses for P2P networking but the file-sharing aspect raises both cybersecurity and intellectual property concerns. Questions of intellectual property and copyright laws surface any time people are sharing music, movies, software or any other proprietary content. In fact, despite the valid and perfectly legal functions, P2P can serve, some internet service providers have attempted to ban torrents and other P2P applications.
P2P and Malware
It has to be mentioned that the P2P file-sharing could be used to distribute malware, share or publicize confidential data, and gather users' personally identifiable information. And since each device helps route traffic through the network, they are also highly vulnerable to denial of service attacks.
What are the Benefits of P2P Connections?
There are a number of benefits of the P2P connection. For instance, If the server in a traditional client-server model goes down, it can make the whole network with it. But in P2P, the others on the network can manage if a single device goes down. Also, since the traffic handling is distributed across many computers, they ensure that the network traffic doesn't get bottlenecked at one device.
