Pricing strategy for incentivizing selfish nodes to share resources in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks

In this paper we describe a novel pricing strategy for carrying out lookups and obtaining data in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks with selfish nodes. Both the resource provider and intermediate nodes that assist in routing of lookup messages are appropriately compensated so as to cover their cost of providing service. This is in contrast to the traditional lookup schemes, which assume that data is freely available, and intermediate nodes selflessly cooperate and truthfully follow a given protocol in carrying out resource lookups. The proposed scheme provides efficient and natural means to prevent free-riding problem in P2P networks, and does not require prior trust relationships among nodes. Moreover, unlike other schemes it does not rely on any centralized entity or require specialized trusted hardware at each node.