Open Problems in Data-Sharing Peer-to-Peer Systems Neil Daswani, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Beverly Yang   View Paper (PDF)   Return to Invited Papers Abstract In a Peer-To-Peer (P2P) system, autonomous computers at the "edge" of the network pool their resources (e.g., files, storage, compute cycles) in order to inexpensively handle tasks that would normally require large costly servers. The scale of these systems, their "open nature," and the lack of centralized control pose difficult performance and security challenges. Much research has recently focused on tackling some of these challenges; in this paper, we propose future directions for research in P2P systems, and highlight problems that have not yet been studied in great depth. We focus on two particular aspects of P2P systems - search and security - and suggest several open and important research problems for the community to address. ©2004 Association for Computing Machinery