DNA-inspired anonymous fingerprinting for efficient peer-to-peer content distribution

When selling electronic content, the merchant would like each buyer to receive a different copy of the content fingerprinted with a serial number, in order to be able to trace redistributors should illegal redistribution happen. On the other hand, the merchant would like content distribution to be as scalable as possible, in order for mass transactions to be possible. Multicast content distribution fails to satisfy the first requirement: all receivers get exactly the same copy of the content, which makes it difficult to trace illegal redistributors. Unicast distribution of fingerprinted content, on the other hand, fails to satisfy the second requirement: for each buyer, the merchant needs to compute a fingerprint and establish a connection. P2P content distribution is a third option combining the strengths of multicast and unicast: the merchant needs to establish unicast connections only with a few seed buyers; on the other hand, with a suitable fingerprinting mechanism, illegal redistributors can still be identified and honest buyers can stay anonymous. We present a P2P content distribution scheme with such an anonymous fingerprinting mechanism, which is inspired in the way DNA sequences combine and spread from ancestors to descendants.