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1. Introduction: The term “peer-to-peer” (P2P) refers to a class of systems and applications that employ distributed resources to perform a critical function in a decentralized manner. With the development and deployment of computers, P2P is increasingly receiving attention in research, product development, and investment circles. P2P raises some security concerns for users and accountability concerns for IT. It is still a technology in development where it is hart do distinguish useful form hype and new form old. In the rest of this paper I will evaluate these observations in general as well as for specific P2P systems and applications. P2P gained visibility with Napster’s support for music sharing on the Web (Napster 2001) and it’s lawsuit with the music companies over digital rights management. 2. What is peer to peer? There are several definitions of P2P that is being used by the P2P community. The Intel P2P working group defines it as “ the sharing of computer resources and services by direct exchange between systems” (p2pwg, 2001). Peer to peer is about sharing: giving to and obtaining form the peer community. A peer gives some resources and obtains other resources in return. I the case