Rating: 
Summary: Don't base opinions on the sample chapter
Review: (I'm an author - read this accordingly)It seems that this book has an average rating of 1 star because one person reviewed the sample chapter and didn't like it. Firstly, to that person, don't judge a book by a sample chapter. In a normal book, a sample chapter gives a helpful look at the author's style. In a book where almost every chapter is written by someone different it's irresponsible to judge by it. This book isn't a collection of RFCs for all the projects. If you want that you'll have to dig through the source code because most of these projects are too young to have RFCs. This book is a good overview of the whole P2P subject. And that's a big subject.
Rating: 
Summary: On the Edge--Needs Follow-On Work
Review: I like this book very much because it brings together several pathfinders to explore the emerging peer-to-peer environment. Especially interesting to me were the technical topics (part III), not because I care about technical, but because they addressed the core global issues that have not yet been resolved and must be resolved if international peer-to-peer is to become the new new thing: metadata, performance, trust, accountability, reputation, security, and interoperability through gateways. The directory of peer-to-peer projects at the end of the book is really helpful--80 distinct projects are listed in 15 different categories--disappointingly, the editors chose not to do the courtesy homework of providing current contact information including a URL for each one, so thousands of people will have to duplicate that homework, a gross violation of the fundamental peer-to-peer ethic....one time data entry, universal access. This book is especially valuable to those following the early days of Ray Ozzie and the Groove Networks roll-out. As one who is an enthusiastic early adopter, and who believes that NSA needs to get out of the way and let them export the full value of their security, I see this book as the "first edition" guide to peer-to-peer, and I agree with the reviewer from Norway: we now need the "sons of" books and products that address the meta-data and other technical issues that are touched on by this first really excellent overview book.
Rating:
Summary: On the Edge--Needs Follow-On Work
Review:
I like this book very much because it brings together several pathfinders to explore the emerging peer-to-peer environment. Especially interesting to me were the technical topics (part III), not because I care about technical, but because they addressed the core global issues that have not yet been resolved and must be resolved if international peer-to-peer is to become the new new thing: metadata, performance, trust, accountability, reputation, security, and interoperability through gateways. The directory of peer-to-peer projects at the end of the book is really helpful--80 distinct projects are listed in 15 different categories--disappointingly, the editors chose not to do the courtesy homework of providing current contact information including a URL for each one, so thousands of people will have to duplicate that homework, a gross violation of the fundamental peer-to-peer ethic....one time data entry, universal access. This book is especially valuable to those following the early days of Ray Ozzie and the Groove Networks roll-out. As one who is an enthusiastic early adopter, and who believes that NSA needs to get out of the way and let them export the full value of their security, I see this book as the "first edition" guide to peer-to-peer, and I agree with the reviewer from Norway: we now need the "sons of" books and products that address the meta-data and other technical issues that are touched on by this first really excellent overview book.
Rating:
Summary: Where is the O'Reilly animal ? By the way, good book !
Review: As a techie I always look for an animal on the cover in the bookshop. On this cover are two naked men ! Edie Freedman (it's a she:-)explained for audience marketing there is no animal. She also told me, it was a fragment of the fresco of Migelangelo in the sixtine chapel. This was very helpful because I always get pain in my neck when looking up to fresco's on a ceiling so I am no expert. My guess that it was a fresco in italian renaissance style however was correct, and as a computer geek I feel proud on that. But Edie, two remarks: - why didn't you explain the cover in a colophon like in the Windows 98 Annoyances book ? - why don't you take fresco's of animals. Then it's still an O'Reilly with an animal on the cover, and it's also clear to me that it is not about hardcore programming. By the way, it's the best book on peer-to-peer I have seen, but as it (at this moment) is also the first and only one, so it's a number one in a contest without competition. I have only read chapter 1 and 3 yet, but Andy, I give it a five star already.
Rating:
Summary: Ignore reviewer of single chapter
Review: I am also an author. I don't understand how someone can type in a review after only reading a sample chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of the Technology and Policy of P-2-P
Review: I consider Peer-to-Peer to be one of the finest books on Internet issues that I have read. I highly recommend it to business and policy professionals, teachers, social scientists, and engineers.
When I first picked up the book, I had modest expectations. I have been disappointed by technical experts treating topics from the social sciences -- and this book does just that. Different chapters focus on such issues as: incentives on users to cooperate, the vulnerability of computer networks to social control, strategies for reliable communications, and censorship. Yet in this volume each topic is treated clearly, intelligently, and insightfully. The authors not only summarize their topics well, they regularly offer sparkling insights. For example, in the chapter "The Cornucopia of the Commons," Dan Bricklin explains how certain peer-to-peer applications are enriched by consumption. The more that users consume from the electronic commons, the larger that electronic commons becomes. In the case of Napster, as users download files those files become part of the overall archive available to others. This turns the tragedy of the commons on its head: well-designed peer-to-peer applications can create explosive processes of value generation - an insight I find both provocative and profound. The book sits squarely at that most difficult spot on the intellectual spectrum: the place where technology and policy overlap. Is this a policy book? Yes, it is. The topics above are all policy-relevant, and for a technical expert many of them would be new. Is this a technology book? Yes, it is that, too. It talks about network architecture design, technical implementations of trust and reputation, name spaces, and searching. For social scientists, the book is an excellent introduction to computer networking. Peer-to-Peer is nearly 400 pages long and has 19 chapters. Amazingly, every chapter is worth reading. I can't say that about many edited volumes that I know! The editor also did a good job of integrating the different chapters so that the book has overall coherence. This book is perfect for a university-level class about the Internet. The chapters on name spaces are useful to study of ICANN and global governance. Chapters on Napster help when studying intellectual property, those on FreeNet are useful when studying free speech. In my Internet policy class, I sprinkle chapters from the book throughout the semester. Aside from teaching, the book is useful for anyone who wants to understand computer networking. It is accessible and readable, yet surveys a wide range of technical topics. Considering the importance of the Internet and of peer-to-peer networks, it can be surprising difficult to find good explanations of the issues. This book does just that. ###
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of the Technology and Policy of P-2-P
Review: I consider Peer-to-Peer to be one of the finest books on Internet issues that I have read. I highly recommend it to business and policy professionals, teachers, social scientists, and engineers. When I first picked up the book, I had modest expectations. I have been disappointed by technical experts treating topics from the social sciences -- and this book does just that. Different chapters focus on such issues as: incentives on users to cooperate, the vulnerability of computer networks to social control, strategies for reliable communications, and censorship. Yet in this volume each topic is treated clearly, intelligently, and insightfully. The authors not only summarize their topics well, they regularly offer sparkling insights. For example, in the chapter "The Cornucopia of the Commons," Dan Bricklin explains how certain peer-to-peer applications are enriched by consumption. The more that users consume from the electronic commons, the larger that electronic commons becomes. In the case of Napster, as users download files those files become part of the overall archive available to others. This turns the tragedy of the commons on its head: well-designed peer-to-peer applications can create explosive processes of value generation - an insight I find both provocative and profound. The book sits squarely at that most difficult spot on the intellectual spectrum: the place where technology and policy overlap. Is this a policy book? Yes, it is. The topics above are all policy-relevant, and for a technical expert many of them would be new. Is this a technology book? Yes, it is that, too. It talks about network architecture design, technical implementations of trust and reputation, name spaces, and searching. For social scientists, the book is an excellent introduction to computer networking. Peer-to-Peer is nearly 400 pages long and has 19 chapters. Amazingly, every chapter is worth reading. I can't say that about many edited volumes that I know! The editor also did a good job of integrating the different chapters so that the book has overall coherence. This book is perfect for a university-level class about the Internet. The chapters on name spaces are useful to study of ICANN and global governance. Chapters on Napster help when studying intellectual property, those on FreeNet are useful when studying free speech. In my Internet policy class, I sprinkle chapters from the book throughout the semester. Aside from teaching, the book is useful for anyone who wants to understand computer networking. It is accessible and readable, yet surveys a wide range of technical topics. Considering the importance of the Internet and of peer-to-peer networks, it can be surprising difficult to find good explanations of the issues. This book does just that. ###
Rating:
Summary: The avalanche is coming ...
Review: I expect this will be one of the really important computing books published this year. Five years ago, I proposed a filestore that would be impossible to censor because it was too widely distributed across the Internet. I called this `The Eternity Service' after the `Eternity circuits' described by Arthur C. Clarke in `The City and the Stars'. I had been alarmed by the Scientologists' success at closing down the Penet remailer in Finland; this showed that electronic publishing can make it easy for rich people with ruthless lawyers to suppress publications. Gutenberg's invention of print publishing made it impossible for princes and bishops to censor troublesome books, but might electronic publishing not make it possible once more? If there are only half a dozen servers containing a controversial document, then court orders can be purchased to close them down. Might not electronic publishing compromise the enormous gift that he gave mankind? I could never have imagined the effect my paper would have. Rather than sedition, blasphemy or pornography, the battle is being fought over music copyright. Thanks to the Recording Industry Association of America, and its lawsuit against Napster, the Eternity Service has spawned a host of peer-to-peer systems such as Gnutella, Mojonation and Publius that have become front page news. There are also less-well-known systems, such as Red Rover, whose goal is to enable dissidents in places like China remain in contact with each other and with the rest of us. Sometimes, I have felt a bit like a skier who sets off an avalanche, and can only watch in fascination as it thunders down the valley. So I eagerly awaited my advance copy of this book, and I have certainly not been disappointed. Although it has been put together rapidly by a number of different authors, this is not just a list of what systems X, Y and Z do, and how they work. The first chapters place the peer-to-peer movement in a broader context: the early Internet was peer-to-peer, as was usenet. More recently, IP address congestion has led the builders of systems such as ICQ to design their own namespaces; alternatives to DNS are one of the emerging features of peer-to-peer. After the introduction, there are chapters on a number of different systems: SETI@home, Jabber, Mixmaster, Gnutella, Freenet, Red Rover, Publius and Free Haven. Although many of these systems are relatively young and evolving quickly, their successes and failures to date help sketch a map of the peer-ro-peer space as of the beginning of 2001. They teach us what has worked, what hasn't, and what just might. The lessons learned are distilled in the last seven chapters of the book. The themes brought out here have mostly to do with how these services can be made predictably dependable. Performance and trust are intricately intertwined; only by having means to protect against a wide variety of flooding and other attacks can service be maintained in the face of hostile action. However, technical mechanisms alone are not enough; there will probably have to be economic and social incentives for users to behave in apropriate ways. This is very timely, as people have recently come to recognise the major role played by perverse economic incentives in creating and maintaining information security vulnerabilities. I believe that this book will become essential reading for a surprisingly broad range of people. Peer-to-peer issues do not merely affect designers of systems such as freenet, but potentially any system that has to deal with large scale and intermittent connectivity. If you believe that within ten years we will see all sorts of devices from burglar alarms to fridges and heart monitors able to establish ad-hoc communication with each other using mechanisms such as Bluetooth, then the next thing to consider is how these ad-hoc networks can be defined and protected. Here, the lessons from peer-to-peer may be invaluable. If you need to understand the peer-to-peer movement - where it came from, where it's going, and what it can teach those of us who are working in related fields - then this book is a must-read. I also think it deserves a place on the shelves of everyone doing serious research in computer science. Ross Anderson, Cambridge University Computer Laboratory
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I read one of the sample chapters online on Jabber, the peer-to-peer instant messaging service, and was thoroughly disappointed. By Chapter 6, I would have expected the hype to have waned away, and would like to see a technical description. But the chapter read like a marketing document, with sparse technical content.
Rating:
Summary: very good introduction to p2p research
Review: i read this book as a quick way to get up to speed on the current state of peer-to-peer research in preparation for further work in the area for my masters thesis. although there is a lot of research going on in this area, this book is a good way to get acquainted with some of the key issues and projects in the area. since it is not super-technical it is a quick read and this is important because it allows you suss out the terrain without wasting a lot of time.
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