Identifying First Seeders in Foxy Peer-to-Peer Networks

This paper describes a new approach for identifying first seeders in illegal file sharing investigations involving Foxy, one of the most popular Chinese peer-to-peer networks. In identifying first seeders, the approach focuses on determining the slow-rising period of the cumulative seeder curve instead of merely measuring the number of seeders. The relationships between file popularity, number of packets and the maximum upload limit during the time that the first seeder is connected to the network are also analyzed. These relationships are used to specify rules that investigators can use to determine if an identified seeder is, in fact, the first seeder.