Prototype software – such as a search engine based on peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing techniques, a new network management system for Internet providers, and a spam database – has attracted the interest of companies such as Yahoo.
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The free rider problem eventually leads to congestion on the network, slowing it down. On the Gnutella P2P network about 70% of users are judged to be free riders.
A major task of the Delis project was to develop mechanisms that discourage such unco-operative behaviour, and encourage altruistic, sharing behaviour without dictating to users what they should or should not do, says Meyer auf der Heide.
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Every user or ‘peer’ with the Minerva software on their computer owns a local search that indexes a small portion of the Web according to their particular interests. If it gains a large user community, the P2P search engine would work by using the input of everyone on the Minerva network to provide better query results than is currently possible.
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Another prototype system developed by the Delis team is a management platform for telecommunication networks. The P2P-based platform integrates the wide range of current and future data formats and services in use.
The team also developed software tools for visualising routing systems, for simulating mobile ad hoc networks, for analysing experimentally evolutionary games, and for data management. The algorithms they developed can be used for computing the statistical and topological properties of large, dynamic networks.