Cohen: incentives build robustness in BitTorrent

What changed

Described BitTorrent's piece exchange, peer incentives and load-distribution mechanisms.

Scientific scope

The record is Cohen's sole-author 2003 workshop paper. It documents the system design and its claimed incentives, not every later client or protocol extension; the reported robustness remains scoped to the evaluated design and assumptions and is not treated as universal or adversary-proof.

Evidence

The linked sources identify this contribution and its scope. WRS has not independently reconstructed the scientific claims. The record is Cohen's sole-author 2003 workshop paper. It documents the system design and its claimed incentives, not every later client or protocol extension; the reported robustness remains scoped to the evaluated design and assumptions and is not treated as universal or adversary-proof.

Contributors

• Bram Cohen · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.

• Harvard NetEcon programme for BitTorrent paper
• Stanford-hosted copy of BitTorrent incentives paper

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-16.1. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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