[Paper Review] Secure Incentivization for Decentralized Content Delivery

Prateesh Goyal, Ravi Netravali+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Aug 2, 2018

Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies25 references5 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes Gringotts, a decentralized system that uses cryptocurrency and a novel Proof of Delivery Chain (PoDC) to securely incentivize peer-to-peer video content delivery. It demonstrates via a survey that 51% of users would participate for monetary rewards, and shows how PoDCs prevent fraud and Sybil attacks while enabling scalable, trustless payments via blockchain.

ABSTRACT

Prior research has proposed technical solutions to use peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery to serve Internet video, showing that it can reduce costs to content providers. Yet, such methods have not become widespread except for a few niche instances. An important challenge is incentivization: what tangible benefits does P2P content delivery offer users who bring resources to the table? In this paper, we ask whether monetary incentives can help attract peers in P2P content delivery systems. We commissioned a professional survey of people around theUnited States to answer several relevant questions. We found that 51% of the 876 respondents--substantially larger than our expectations--answered "yes" to whether they would participate for suitable financial incentives. Encouraged by the results of the survey, we propose Gringotts, a system to structure incentives and securely incorporate P2P delivery into content delivery systems. Gringotts provides a novel Proof of Delivery mechanism that allows content providers to verify correct delivery of their files, and shows how to use cryptocurrency to pay peers while guarding against liars and Sybil attacks.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate whether monetary incentives can drive user participation in peer-to-peer content delivery systems.
• To design a secure, decentralized payment mechanism that prevents fraud, Sybil attacks, and collusion in P2P content delivery.
• To enable content providers to verify correct delivery of files without relying on trusted third parties.
• To support scalable, low-overhead payments using blockchain and probabilistic transaction batching.
• To generalize the approach to other resource-sharing workloads requiring verifiable service delivery.

Proposed method

• Design of a Proof of Delivery Chain (PoDC) that cryptographically binds peers, clients, and content providers to verify file delivery.
• Use of blockchain to broadcast and finalize PoDCs, ensuring immutability and trustless settlement of payments.
• Adoption of probabilistic payments to reduce blockchain transaction frequency without compromising security.
• Integration of cryptocurrency payments to eliminate reliance on centralized payment intermediaries.
• Design of a lightweight protocol that allows content providers to verify delivery without storing or trusting peer logs.
• Incorporation of collusion-resistant mechanisms to defend against coordinated attacks between clients and peers or content providers.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 Can monetary incentives successfully attract users to participate in peer-to-peer content delivery systems?
• RQ2 How can content providers securely verify that files were correctly delivered by peers without relying on trusted third parties?
• RQ3 What mechanisms can prevent Sybil attacks and collusion in a decentralized, incentive-driven P2P content delivery system?
• RQ4 How can small content providers affordably and securely make micropayments to peers in a global, cross-border P2P system?
• RQ5 Can the proof-of-delivery mechanism be generalized to other resource-sharing workloads beyond content delivery?

Key findings

• 51% of 876 surveyed U.S. users indicated they would participate in a P2P content delivery system if compensated with monetary incentives.
• 70% of participating users expected to earn no more than 50% of their monthly Internet bill from participation.
• 27% of users were willing to accept cryptocurrency payments, while 40% were unsure due to lack of familiarity.
• The primary concerns among non-participants were security and privacy (83%), content liability (50%), and performance impact (47%).
• Gringotts’s Proof of Delivery Chain (PoDC) is unforgeable and tamper-proof, preventing manipulation by peers or content providers.
• The system is resilient to Sybil attacks and collusion between clients, peers, and content providers, ensuring secure and verifiable payments.