[p2p-hackers] Content validation with KARMA and other anti-free loading mechanisms

[William Tracz]

I have recently been looking at the KARMA system of
free load prevention and was wondering if it is at all
possible (without centralisation) to
authenticate/validate the content transmitted. By this
I mean is there any way without a centralised bank-set
to restrict credit being awarded to people sending
certain files - mainly illegal content.

I have thought long and hard about it and can not see
any way that this is possible? I am taking for granted
that on the network I can freely modify files (i.e add
digital signatures etc. to them) to help the process.
Is centralisation the only unfortunate answer?


WT

( The KARMA paper can be found here:
http://mnl.cs.sunysb.edu/home/karthik/BitTorrent/papers/incentives/karma.pdf
the BitTorrent reference is deceptive, it seems to be
for an eDonkey style network )


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