Under flash-crowd conditions, where congestion arises near the server because a large number of users wish to retrieve files from it over a short period of time, users are in a unique position to benefit enormously from each other by sharing retrieved files. Pseudo-serving, a new paradigm for Internet access, provides incentives for users to contribute to the speedy dissemination of server files through a contract set by a super-server. Under this contract, the super-server grants a user a referral to where a copy of the requested file may be retrieved in exchange for her assurance to serve other users for a specified period of time. In this proposed project, we will investigate issues that must be resolved in order to make pseudo-serving an effective tool for dissipating flash-crowds on the Internet. This includes issues related to the acceptability of the contract to the user, the ability of the super-server to set contracts that account for the physical distribution of sources of the requests, security issues and various approaches in dealing with contract breaches, and strategies for integrating pseudo-serving into various caching policies. The outcome of this research will help the World Wide Web to scale more gracefully and provide a mechanism through which users can barter their local resources for preferential access to information from busy servers.
