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P2P History and Security February 6, 2006

P2P technology is nothing new, but the medium is. The Internet has extended P2P networks further out than we ever thought possible in the P2P heydays when LANtastic and Windows for Workgroups were the best things around.

The ICQ messaging program got the current P2P train rolling in 1996. Programs such as Kazaa, Gnutella, FreeNet, the myriad of instant messaging applications, and even the SETI@home screen saver and Google Compute Web browser utilities are all considered P2P applications. Groove Networks products are all about P2P. Web services, including Microsoft’s .NET framework, have a strong foundation in P2P as well. In a nutshell, these P2P applications specialize in distributed computing including file sharing, messaging and processor sharing. With this technology, the Internet (and quite possibly your network) has effectively become one big computer for storage and processing.

Peer-to- peer (P2P) applications are alive and kicking – on all the network that is. But there are plenty of them available, which makes it really hard to identify a good P2P system. P2P applications introduce more vulnerabilities and open up more entry points to your network than many security managers ever thought possible.

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