Free-riding in BitTorrent Networks with the Large View Exploit.
Michael Sirivianos, Jong Han Park, Rex Chen, Xiaowei Yang · 2007
Abstract — This paper presents an experimental study on the behavior of BitTorrent networks when selfish peers attempt to maintain high download rates without uploading. We modified a BitTorrent client so that it acquires a larger than normal view of a BitTorrent swarm and connects to all peers in its view. At the same time, the modified client does not upload any data to its peers. Our experimental results show that: a) our modified free-rider client can achieve better download rates than a protocol compliant client in most common-case public torrents; and b) in ∼300-leecher PlanetLab-residing torrents that consist of 10 % free-riders, free-riders on average outperform compliant clients, while they perform slightly worse than clients in a swarm with compliant clients only. Our results suggest that the large view exploit is effective and has the potential for wide adoption. I.