Other hosts can then resolve the peer name, retrieve the corresponding addresses and other information, and establish peer-to-peer connections.
The authority is identified by a secure hash of an associated public key, or by a place-holder (the number zero) if the peer name is "unsecured".
Internally, PNRP uses an architecture similar to distributed hash table systems such as Chord or Pastry.
The PNRP design arguably trades increased security and robustness for higher routing cost.
The internal index is in fact composed of the 128-bit hash of the peer name and a 128-bit location identifier, derived from an IPv6 address of the node.
The cache maintenance algorithm ensures that each node maintains adequate knowledge of the "cloud".
It is designed to ensure that the time to resolve a request varies as the logarithm of the size of the cloud.