When KAD Meets BitTorrent - Building a Stronger P2P Network

The current wave of evolution that leads BitTorrent towards a fully decentralized architecture is both promising and risky. Related work demonstrates that BitTorrent´s Mainline DHT is exposed to several identified security issues. In parallel, the KAD DHT has been the core of intense research and was improved over years. In this paper, we present a study that motivates the integration of both worlds. We provide a performance comparison of both DHTs in terms of publishing efficiency. We investigate the security threats and show that the current BitTorrent Mainline DHT is more vulnerable to attacks than KAD while the download service of BitTorrent has much better performance. Given the strengths and weaknesses of both DHTs, we propose a design in which the two P2P networks can be merged to form a fully distributed, efficient and safe P2P ecosystem.