Peer-2-Peer Environments

Abstract

At the time of writing, there are 1.35 billion devices connected to the Internet worldwide (e.g., PCs, phones, PDAs, etc.), a figure which has been rising rapidly [47]. With almost a quarter of the world's populations already connected to the Internet and growth rates in Africa and the Middle East reaching almost 1000% over the past 8 years, the increases to on-line connectivity seem to be following a familiar pattern seen in other areas within the computing industry.

The computer hardware industry has also been characterised by exponential production volumes. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, in his famous observation in 1965 [54] (made just four years after the first planar integrated circuit was discovered), predicted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every few years. Indeed this prediction, thereafter called Moore's law, remains true today and Intel predicts that this will remain true at least until the end of this decade [55].