Another grave concern for both individuals and businesses when using P2P software is unknowingly having your computer used as a supernode. A supernode occurs when your computer is arbitrarily assigned as a hub.

When you are running software for P2P services, your computer’s disk space, bandwidth, and processing power are used to help other users on same system operate their software more efficiently because of their own network or firewall constraints.

Not only can this overload systems or networks with excessive data, disk space, and network bandwidth, unscrupulous hackers can also insert arbitrary code in each supernode’s address space or crash all supernodes.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems such as Skype operate by taking bandwidth (information carrying capacity) from customers on their service to assist other customers using their service - analogous to a symbiotic relationship. The tools that enable them to accomplish this are bundled in software their customers download to access their VoIP service.

By Dee Scrip © All rights reserved. Dee Scrip

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