In 2001, a computer geek named Bram Cohen (25) visited the annual DefCon ‘hacker’ convention in Las Vegas to show off his new toy… BitTorrent. It then debuted at CodeCon 2002 the following year and gained popularity, being featured on an online P2P magazine as well as a few respectable news sites. Fast forward a few years, and a significant percentage of internet traffic belongs to BitTorrent usage, the MPAA and RIAA hate it and Microsoft is at tempting (unsuccessfully) to copy it.
How it works
Let’s take a general example here. Imagine you are in a room with three other people. One of these people (let’s call him A) has a complete jigsaw puzzle with him. The objective is to transfer a copy of the jigsaw to each of the other three people in the room in the most efficient way possible. Initially ‘A’ transfers a portion of the file to a person in the room. Simultaneously, he transfers a different portion to the other, and yet another portion to you. Now we have three different portions of the jigsaw puzzle, which if put together make one hundred percent. While ‘A’ continues to transfer the rest of the file, each person in the room can now transfer their portions to each other as well.
Let’s get a little geeky and use BitTorrent lingo, which you will need to know if you ever decide to venture into torrent territory. The jigsaw here is a file..let’s say a movie (movie.avi). ‘A’, who has the complete file is called a ‘seed‘. The person who doesn’t have the complete file is called a ‘leech‘ or ‘leecher‘. Both these types can be commonly called a ‘peer‘. For example, if someone says “I’m downloading this file off 1 seed and 3 leechers”, that means he’s connected to and downloading from 4 peers. So what happens is, a seed sends a different parts of the file to each leecher. Each leacher in turn transfers parts of the file to other leechers. This way, if a seed disconnects, 100% of the file will still be able to downloaded since there’s a full copy amongst the leechers.
Do it yourself
Now that you know how the protocol works, it’s time foe some hands-on experience. You’ll be happy to know that all software need to delve into the BitTorrent world is free…and free of spyware/malware/adware and other annoying *ware’s.
In the BitTorrent world, all you download off websites are small files called ‘torrents’ (with a .torrent extension) Once you download the torrent onto your computer, you run it with a BitTorrent client. The BitTorrent client will handle the rest for you.
BitTorrent client
There are as many BitTorrent client’s out there as there are budding rock groups in the world. Each client have it’s own streangths and weaknesses. I recommend ‘qbittorrent‘ which I myself use, though there are other really good torrent clients. The official BitTorrent client is available at BitTorrent.com and a simple Google search will link you to many more.
The client is the software that keeps track of all your downloads. It’ll also present you with more information than you’ll know what to do with. Your client can allow you to ‘chat’ to others, prioritize certain files in the torrent, etc. If I just confused you..that’s okay, you probably don’t need those features anyway.
Torrents
After you have downloaded and installed a BitTorrent client, you will need to find yourself a torrent of your choice. These can be downloaded off from the websites. Usually these sites have search facility which allows you to search for the torrents you want. You don’t have to worry about the file size, because torrent files are usually less than 50kb’s in size. (If you are using ‘qbittorrent‘ it has a build in torrent search engine which enables you to download torrents from various torrent sites)
At this point many users new to torrents are surprised at how a 700mb ‘movie.avi‘ downloaded in 5 seconds. It didn’t. What actually downloaded is the TORRENT file. Think of a torrent as a small file telling your BitTorrent client where to find the actual ‘movie.avi‘ file from.
Great! At this point you have the items on my very short ‘what you need’ list. The complicated part is over. Next open the torrent file with your chosen BitTorrent client. That’s it! Now you can leave your computer and indulge in your favorite extra curricular activity while the torrent downloads.
Future of BitTorrent
BitTorrent, Inc. is continuously working on making a more efficient delivery network. BitTorrent DNATM is their next step in the evolution of digital content delivery; it combines the extreme efficiency and organic scalability of peer networking with the control and reliability of a traditional content delivery network (CDN). BitTorrent DNA uses one or more existing origin servers or CDNs to seed a managed peer network.
Use of the peer network is tightly controlled by a specialized tracker operated by BitTorrent, Inc. and accessible to BitTorrent DNA customers through a web-based dashboard that provides control and reporting tools.
Thanks to Raveen Wijayatilake and BitTorrent, Inc.
