Bit Torrent

A good or a bad?

Common methods of transferring files in the internet:

•Client-Server Model •Peer-to-Peer Network

What is a Client Server Model• It represents a central server sending a

whole file which clients are requesting for. (Connecting one-to-one directly)

• Files (Data) are primarily stored at server

• Clients won’t speak to each other except the server.

• It is a many (clients) to one (server) relationship

• HTTP & FTP are examples

Advantage(s):• Easy to set up

Disadvantage(s):• Large amount of bandwidth

and server resources to distribute a file, especially those very popular and large in size.

• Usually time consuming as there is a long queue that users have to wait through.

• Once the server is down, operations will cease across the network.

What is Peer-to-peer network

• It is a network without any file server or a centralized management source.

• All computers are considered equal; they all can share files without accessing to a server

• It is relatively faster than Client Server Model as clients can download a single file from multiple sources.

What is Bit Torrent (BT)

• It is a protocol designed for transferring files.

• It is a many (clients) to many (clients) relationship

• It is actually a “combination” of Peer to Peer Network and Client Server Model

Major terms in Bit Torrent

• Torrent – It is a small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent.)

• Metadata - It means the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself.

• Seed - A complete copy of a certain torrent

• Tracker - A server which coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients.

How BT works• After BT users download a .torren

t file, they can start downloading files.

• While they are downloading, they are uploading them (act as a seed) at the same time.

• A tracker coordinates the action of all such peers. It only manages connections and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth.

Some Advantages of using BT

• As users upload and download at the same time, network bandwidth can be utilized very efficiently.

• The more users downloading, the faster the download rate is.

• If there are more than 1 seed, even 1 of them is not functioned well, the download process of other users will not stopped.

Some Disadvantages of using BT

• Give rise to illicit downloads

• Causing huge loss to authentic products sellers

Action done to deal with the problem

• TECHNOLOGY; In Hong Kong, a Jail Sentence for Online File-Sharing

• “A Hong Kong judge sentenced a 38-year-old unemployed man to three months in jail Monday for using an Internet file-sharing system to make three Hollywood movies available for others to download free. The jail sentence was the first ever meted out against a person copying movies using the BitTorrent” (extracted from NEW YORK TIMES)

Conclusion

• BT makes used of the technology of p2p to let other users to download files from different peers (users) instead of downloading from the main server only.

• It is stable and fast.

• If it is misused as a source to do any illegal activities, then it should be carefully monitored by the government

THE END