Reflecting on the past, preparing for the future: from peer-to-peer to edge-centric computing

In many aspects of human activity, there has been a continuous struggle between the forces of centralization and decentralization. Computing exhibits the same phenomenon; after having abandoned mainframes in favor of PCs, the last decade has witnessed an unparalleled centralization and consolidation of services in data centers and clouds. Yet, trust, privacy, security and autonomy concerns are requiring to shift control again, taking services from the central nodes (the "core") to the other logical extreme (the "edge") of the Internet. This development can help blurring the boundary between man and machine, and embrace social computing in which humans are part of the computation and decision-making loop, resulting in a human-centered system design. In this tutorial we will elaborate on the necessary steps to be taken and challenges to be solved to realize this vision. The tutorial will include an overview of related research topics, including peerto-peer networks, blockchains, hybrid a...