Patent ID: 7721110

Claim:
A method for securely sharing resources over a peer-to-peer network, comprising: broadcasting a single request to a plurality of peers by a requesting peer for a resource over the peer-to-peer network wherein the request contains an identification of the resource and the resource identification contains a resource version identifier; receiving a response from a responding peer on the peer-to-peer network indicating that the responding peer has the requested resource; retrieving the requested resource from the responding peer; periodically broadcasting a single progress message including progress information to the plurality of peers indicating that the requested resource is in the process of being retrieved; verifying the retrieved resource by ensuring the retrieved resource contains the version identifier embedded therein; and informing a service server on the responding peer that a local copy of the retrieved resource now exists; wherein a file name of the retrieved resource indicates a version of the retrieved resource, a file added to the retrieved resource specifies an original name of the retrieved resource, and the original name is utilized to verify the file name of the retrieved resource.