Adoption of authenticated Peer-to-Peer academic networks - a case study of a failure

Abstract

The use of P2P applications in universities has been mainly focused on questions related to file sharing and copyright. violation, and little attention has been given to the development of secured and authenticated P2P applications, specially conceived to academic environments. In this paper, we describe Bumerang, an authenticated campus P2P network, which despite technological quality and top level institutional commitment, didn't reach critical mass of users, failing at the individual adoption level. To understand the factors that contributed for this result, we make a retrospective analysis of the process of conception and diffusion including results from the network activity. We conclude that we must reinforce their perceived utility, deal with the security concerns with new approaches and stay away from using the P2P term.