Fighting Pollution Attacks in P2P Streaming

Date
2012-11-27
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In recent years, the demand for multimedia streaming over the Internet is soaring. Due to the lack of a centralized point of administration, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) streaming systems are vulnerable to pollution attacks, in which video segments might be altered by any peer before being shared. Among existing proposals, reputation-based defense mechanisms are the most effective and practical solutions. In this thesis, we perform a measurement study on the effectiveness of this class of solutions. We simulate a framework that allows us to simulate different variations of the reputation rating systems, from the centralized global approach to the decentralized local approach, under different parameter settings and pollution models. In order to ensure that the framework and the simulated solution is representative enough, we dissect existing proposals and simulate a flexible defense mechanism, in which different components may be enabled and disabled by simply tuning certain parameters. Our experimental results reveal that global knowledge of the reputation rating is necessary to provide the best defense against the attack. But it is often susceptible under collaborative attacks, like collusion. We also find that expelling misbehaving peers is often more useful to prevent attacks than limiting their likelihood to be connected, although this can lead to poor playback quality. Based on these key observations, we propose DRank, a fully distributed rank-based reputation system, which decentralizes the global ranking system and combines it with Bayesian reputation rating systems. Experimental results show that this technique is more flexible and robust in fighting pollution attacks.
Description
Keywords
Computer Science
Citation
Tauhiduzzaman, M. (2012). Fighting Pollution Attacks in P2P Streaming (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26178