AN APPROACH FOR MONITORING NODE SELECTION TO SUPPORT

The peer-to-peer architecture (P2P) has garnered several studies as a viable architecture for massively multiplayer online games. A challenging area in the field of P2P MMOGs is the implementation of security as centralized control is kept to a minimum or may not even exist. Cheat prevention and detection in real time are some of the more specific areas of concern for such architecture. Attempts have been made in designing an approach that would help address cheating; however, since this area of security is extensive in nature, there are still many issues that are yet to be solved. The goal of this research is to be able to create an effective and reliable system that will help detect malicious players within the game system. By doing so, this research hopes to contribute to the continuous research for effective security in distributed online games. As part of the goal, the research focused on how P2P nodes can be used to monitor and self-police other nodes considering that they can also be compromised and may leave the game at any given point in time. The research also looks into the performance penalties involved in the process and utilized Quake as a testbed. Key Words – peer-to-peer networking, security