The word BitTorrent evokes a lot of cynicism and negativity. Over the course of this decade, BitTorrent has been associated with piracy and hackers. It has grown from an altruistic effort to provide efficient file transfer in the form of distributed networks, into this. People now believe the very act of using BitTorrent is illegal. Go to any casual internet user and they will provide you with their perspective of what BitTorrent is. And I can guarantee a majority of them will give you a story about how 'BitTorrent' is stealing movies. That is why I believe I need to give a very different perspective on what this program does and how the file sharing protocol behind it works. The News Media and other sources have provided only one use of BitTorrent. But it deserves more than that. Used properly, it is a very effective and egalitarian way of sharing files.
First you need to know is that, yes, BitTorrent is used to pirate films, music and any file that is of any demand to computer users. That is why the notoriety of BitTorrent is such as it is today.
The protocol behind BitTorrent is called the peer-to-peer protocol. This is how it works.
The peer-to-peer protocol uses networks made up of peers and seeders. Peers are the people requesting a certain file. They rely on people willing to share the files with them; those people are called seeders. The seeders leave their file open and the peer-to-peer program running, allowing others to access the file from the seeders computer.
Once a peer has successfully downloaded the file he/she requested, they too can become a seeder. So as the number of people who have the file increases., so does the availability of the file increase.
This is the whole idea behind peer-to-peer networking. Even if someone were to stop seeding, there would be others to take their place. Unlike a conventional server that can go down and be unavailable to users, the seeders are everywhere and are dependable.
The first users of peer-to-peer was Napster. Although the system they built still depended on a centralized list of addresses to relay to users where to download from, transactions were done between personal computer to personal computer. This was one of the most notorious programs during the late 90s to early 2000s. Napster had significant legal issues to deal with, and were brought down by a court order.
Kazaa was the second program to gain a massive following. It even had a CBS 60 minutes TV segment devoted to it. Kazaa was also vilified and the resulting media portrayal has snowballed into a negative portrayal of peer-to-peer programs.
It may surprise that Skype also uses peer-to-peer networking. Skype uses a peer-to-peer sharing method in order to run their processes on a users computer rather than on their servers. The creators of Kazaa also created Skype. They founded this Internet Telephony company and have garnered positive attention from the world community.
Although Bittorrent is being abused and used for illegal actions, it isn't a bad thing. The bad practices of its users are at fault. It isn't illegal to use Bittorrent.
Bittorent logo from bittorent.com
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