Free-riding Analysis Via Dynamic Game with Incomplete Information

Abstract

P2P networks are distributed, acentric and self-organized systems. Due to the incomplete information of network environment, the uncertainty of trust relationship among peers and the selfishness of the peers in P2P networks, which give rise to many free-riders that seriously impact the stability and scalability of P2P networks. In this paper, by analyzing the incomplete information of network environment, the uncertainty of trust relationship among nodes, the phenomenon of the free-riding is studied based on game theory. The IIDGTrust (Incomplete Information Dynamic Game Trust)mechanism is presented through the case “Supplying the Public Resources”. Updating the trust relationship among the nodes according to the Bayesian law, which make nodes choose better strategies in time. The experimental results demonstrate that the IIDGTrust mechanism can effectively reduce the proportion of the free-riders in the P2P networks and maintain the stability of networks better.