BitTorrent (BT) is the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing system. According to official BT information, more than 100 million active users use BT for file transfers every month. However, BT mainly relies on either a central tracker (tracker) or distributed hash table (DHT) for locating file seeders while it runs a risk of a single point of failure or cyber-attacks such as Sybil and Eclipses. To attack this problem, we proposed a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing system called IOTA-BT by integrating BitTorrent with IOTA in this paper. The advantages of IOTA over blockchain include scalability for high throughput, compatibility with Internet of Things (IoT) footprints, zero transaction fees, partition-tolerant, and quantum-resistant cryptography. The autopeering and neighbor selection of the Coordicide of IOTA is aimed at defending a Sybil or Eclipse attack. IOTA-BT inherits these advantages from IOTA. Moreover, our experimental results have shown that the cost of executing BT functions, such as releasing torrent files and retrieving seeder information on IOTA-BT, is acceptable for improving the security of BT. IOTA-BT can indeed efficiently provide users with a P2P file-sharing environment of higher security.
The Managing of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Technologies’ Network Effect: An Adaptation of Actor-Network Theory