EKM: An efficient key management scheme for large-scale peer-to-peer media streaming

Abstract

Recently media streaming applications via Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay networks are getting more and more significant. However, before these applications can be successfully deployed, it is very important to develop efficient access control mechanisms to ensure that only legitimate members can access the media content. Existing schemes of key management and distribution often fail in facing a large-scale group accessing. In this paper, we propose an efficient key management scheme (EKM) for large-scale P2P media streaming applications. It employs the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) technique to build a key distribution overlay network and incorporates a periodical global rekeying mechanism, which is highly scalable and efficient, and is robust against frequently joining/leaving of members. EKM can cut down the overhead of storage and communication on the server side, which can eliminate potential bottleneck of the server. We demonstrate its scalability, efficiency and robustness properties through simulation. Its performance can be examined under real environments by combining EKM with the existing P2P media streaming protocols. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.