Ethical Torrenting

     Now, say that everyone was downloading a 500Mb file from a server on a 512 Kbps Cable Connection. If many people were trying to download that file, it would take a very long time because of the high amount of people. The connection simply is not fast enough. there is also the problem of the hosting bandwith . Say you sign up with a host offering 10 Gigs of monthly bandwidth. After 20 downloads of the 500Mb files, you will have used up all of the bandwidth, and shut down the site. Torrents are an answer to this because they use little bandwidth from the web host, and the more people download, the better the connection.

II. Operation

     Okay. lets say that this 500Mb file was turned into a torrent. If you went to the same site, and downloaded the file, it would only take a few seconds, and only be a few Kb in size Thus saving bandwidth. Well, I assume your smart enough to know that the torrent isn't your 500Mb file. So where do you get the file? I like the I.O.U. analogy.

     A torrent is much like an I.O.U. Instead of someone owing you money, they owe you a file. Now, you can't take an I.O.U. to the bank and get cash from it, you need to get the money from the person who gave you the I.O.U. So, you can't download this torrent the normal way (from your web browser) you need a seperate program. The most famous is the almighty BitTorrent. Other favorites include Azureus, UTorrent, and Shareaza. I personally use BitTorrent.

III. Who's Who

     There are many words associated with Torrents that everyone should be aware of.

     There is alot of contreversy over the tracker. The tracker shows you in a simple web file how many seeders and leechers there are for each torrent. Some people are very angry that the tracker clings to the torrent, but offers nothing in return, such as seeding the torrent.

IV. How it All Goes Together

     Okay, now the person who owns the site where you downloaded the torrent is the torrent's first Seeder. He or she has the torrent downloaded in Bittorent, and left the application running.The person who makes the torrent must do this. I f they don't, no one else will be able to get the file. Think of the Bittorrent application as a web server. As long as its up and has the file in it, others can access it. Now that the torrent maker has the torrent seeded, others can download, or leech off of him/her.

     Now, for the first coule of leeches, the download might be slower that one would expect. However, unlike an http download, the more people downloading, the better. You would think that since alot of people are downloading, the connection may be slow. That may be true for the first leecher or two because they are only downloading from one other person on a questionable connection. However, after the leechers are finishe downloading the file, they become seeders. Just like the origional torrent maker. They keep the program running, and allow people to download from them as well.

     How? Well, Bittorrent breaks up the file into very small chunks of data. If that 500Mb file was broken into say, 3Mb chunks, there are over 100 different chunks to download. So, bittorrent clients can download different chunks form different seeders, and compile them at the end of the download to make one whole file. This even allows for leechers to download from other leechers.

     Lets say Jim has downloaded 40% of the file, and Rob has downloaded 20%. Rob can download some chunks from the seeders, but also from some of the chunks that Jim has already downloaded. If this keeps occuring, and the torrent is highly desired, there can be hundred of seeders along for super fast download times.

V. The Morality Of Seeding

     You are supposed to seed a torrent after you downloaded the file. The amount of time to do that, however, has always been in question. Its the basic "Do on to others as they have done to you" example. You downloaded from a group of people, now let others do the same from you. The amount of time to do so varies from person to person. May people think that 24 hours seeding is the correct amount, others mimic the time it took for them to download, and others think you should always allow that file to seed until the end of time. Personally, I think that you should seed as long as you have the file on your computer. Its there, so you might as well seed it.

VI. The Dark Side Of Torrenting

     Now, there are some people who abuse the system. Using it to transport pirated or illegal content. However, this is a dangerous practice and it is very likely you will get caught. If you download an illegal torrent, others will be able to see your ip address, from there they can find out who you are. If a government official downloaded the file, he could instantly find that you are downloading the file and have you arrested.

     Other dangers include malicious users who target you via your ip and try to do harm to your system. Other users may even attach viruses to content hoping to infect you. Most Bittorrent users go on the buddy system with this though. They don't harm you, you don't harm them, everyone has their file, everyone is happy.

     On a lighter side, there are also users known as hit-and-run leechers who close the torrent program immediately after they download the file, and thus never seed it. This is something you definately should not do.

VII. Conclusion

     Congradulations, you are now rady to start torrenting. Remember, always seed, give your files a virus scan, and be sure to inform all your friends about torrents, and get them involved in the community.

Website Powered by HTML

All origional Content and site design licensed under the Creative Commons law; some rights reserved. All content on this website is for informational purposes only. Any and all trademarks are property of their respected owners. I am not held responsible if harm happens to you or to any of your belongings from anything you might read, or download here.

This site is best viewed in Firefox at 1024x768 Resolution