Monitoring The Gnutella Network

Abstract In this paper, I describe an intelligent agent crawling the Gnutella peer-to-peer net-work in order to detect clients in a certain IP range. This tool is helpful for administrator trying to avoid wasting bandwidth due to peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Moreover, almost all files shared over the internet are illegal – like non-licensed MP3 music – which can lead to po-tential law suits. In the past years, security leaks are often found in various server programs. Peer-to-peer network established as one of the major sources for internet viruses and worms. On the following pages, I will evaluate the opportunities and challenges of monitoring the Gnutella network from the technical, commercial and social point of view. I describe the implementation of GnutellaWatch which is a easy-to-use Java program suitable even for personnel without a broad understanding of network technology