BitTorrent for Not Yet Techies

BitTorrent is so popular, it's estimated to account for over one-third of all Internet traffic. That's an incredible figure, and shows that's far ahead of the early file sharing technologies such as Napster and Kazaa.

Those early file sharing protocols were slow because they were direct. You found a file you wanted to download from somebody else's hard drive. Then their computer was tied up while you downloaded it. Just as your computer was tied up while somebody else downloaded it from your hard drive.

So they're not bad for small files, but impossible for really large files -- such as music, TV shows and even movies . . . which run 1 gigabyte and up. BitTorrent solved the problem by distributing the file-sharing process load along the entire network.

First, somebody creates a file such as a homemade video. They upload it to a BitTorrent network (web server or local machines) such as a BitTorrent search engine. That is, they seed it. The file is the seed and the creator/uploader is the seeder.

You download a Bit Torrent client software program, such as the official one from the web site run by BitTorrent's creator, Bram Cohen -- BitTorrent. (Would you be surprised to learn that while he was testing his program in 2001, he used public domain pornography? Or that the second use BitTorrent was put to, was the Linux operating system.)

The homemade video looks interesting to you. So you find a link which is in a small file called a torrent -- the file extension is .torrent. You download that torrent, which doesn't take long because it's small -- it's basically a table of contents of the main content file.

This small torrent file then connects with a public tracker site. The tracker software distributes the downloading. It's distributed -- which means that you may get pieces of the file from many different locations. The tracker keeps track of it, making sure you get the entire.

And the weird part is, that as you're downloading it, you're also uploading it to other downloaders. Yet that's what makes this file sharing process so efficient.

All of you trying to get hold of the file are called leechers.

So you're all part of a large (size depending on the popularity of the file) network distributing the file to each other.

Those who have the file are called peers.

The totality of peers with the file and leechers trying to get the file is called the swarm.

And what you're all doing has become a verb -- torrenting.

If the file somehow gets off the network, possibly due to its age, the creator can put it back on the BitTorrent network, which is called reseeding.

One other important term is the share ratio. This is the amount of downloading you've done as compared to uploading. The ideal share ratio is 1.0, which means you've given as much as you've received.

1. Many files such as movies etc are pirated copies. By downloading them you're violating copyright laws and could be prosecuted.

2. A file can say it's anything. You may think you're downloading the latest blockbuster movie but it's a program that takes over your computer.

3. Malicious viruses, adware and spyware can be embedded inside other innocuous content.

4. I'm sure that BitTorrent is still being used to distribute pornography, which could be illegal where you live.

Also, although BitTorrent files are compressed, they're still huge. You need a DSL or cable modem for your Internet connection. And plenty of space on your hard drive on which to store them.

Next: Microsoft InfoPath