Localhost: A browsable peer-to-peer file sharing system

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is increasing in use on the Internet. This thesis proposes Localhost, a P2P file sharing system that allows users to find files in the system by browsing a hierarchical directory structure, not unlike a “file system”. The hierarchical directory structure is global among all the peers in the system. Localhost stores the hierarchical directory structure simply by placing semantics on the files in the system. Localhost allows users to collaboratively build the hierarchical directory structure by way of a “popularity ” based system. The popularity based system allows every directory node in the structure to have multiple alternate versions, and lets users choose which version they prefer – the version with the highest number of viewer preferences is used as the default version. We model the popularity based system to find the range of model parameters that enable it to operate in a stable and progressive manner