Design and Implementation of Peer-to-Peer E-Mail System

Abstract

E-mail has become the most widely used communication facility for all institutions and individuals in the present era. Existing E-mail systems employ a server-centric design in which the user is critically dependent on the mail server. Insecurity due to mail sever failures is a major problem faced by many users. Design and implementation of a secure Peer-to-Peer E-mail facility is addressed in this work. Locating the specific computer that stores the emails of a specific user is the critical design requirement for which a solution is offered through the implementation of Chord protocol, which maps an E-mail entity onto a specific node. The architectural design and implementation also provides for better confidentiality. The prototype implementation has been observed to provide a good scope for improved anonymity. We present our prototype implementation and discuss the scope of future extensions.