BitTorrent
BitTorrent Logo
Developer	Bram Cohen
Latest release	4.0.2 / May 23, 2005
OS	Cross-platform
Genre	peer to peer
License	BitTorrent open source License
Website	www.bittorrent.com

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution tool written by programmer Bram Cohen and debuted at CodeCon 2002. The reference implementation is written in Python and is released under the BitTorrent Open Source License (a modified version of the Jabber Open Source License), as of version 4.0. The name "Bittorrent" refers to the distribution protocol, the original client application, and the .torrent file type. This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... A software developer is an entity, either a company or individual, that creates software. ... Bram Cohen Bram Cohen (1975—) is a computer programmer, best known as the author of BitTorrent. ... May 23 is the 143rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (144th in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ... A cross-platform (or platform independent) programming language, software application or hardware device works on more than one system platform (e. ... A software genre is a classification of software by its common function, type or topic. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively few servers. ... A software license is a type of proprietary or gratiuitious license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software — sometimes called an End User License Agreement (EULA) — that specifies the perimeters of the permission granted by the owner to the user. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia website. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is any network that does not rely on dedicated servers for communication but instead mostly uses direct connections between clients (peers). ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... Bram Cohen Bram Cohen (1975—) is a computer programmer, best known as the author of BitTorrent. ... CodeCon is a conference for hackers and technology enthusiasts. ... 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Python is an interpreted, interactive programming language created by Guido van Rossum in 1990. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Jabber is an open, XML-based protocol for instant messaging and presence. ...

With BitTorrent, files are broken into smaller fragments, typically a quarter of a megabyte each. As the fragments get distributed to the peers in a random order, they can be reassembled on a requesting machine. Each peer takes advantage of the best connections to the missing pieces while providing an upload connection to the pieces it already has. This scheme has proven particularly adept in trading large files such as videos and software source code. In conventional downloading, high demand leads to bottlenecks as demand surges for bandwidth from the host server. With BitTorrent, high demand can actually speed throughput as more bandwidth and additional “seeds” of the completed file become available to the group. Cohen claims that for very popular files, BitTorrent can support about a thousand times as many downloads as HTTP. Video is the technology of processing electronic signals representing moving pictures. ... HTTP (for HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the primary method used to convey information on the World Wide Web. ...

Sharing files

BitTorrent greatly reduces the load on the server, because the users generally download the file from each other, not the server. As the colored bars below each client show, the file is downloaded in random order, instead of sequential order.

To share a file using BitTorrent, a user creates a .torrent file, a small "pointer" file which contains: smaller file-size GIF for BitTorrent article, cleaned up the dithered and ugly pixels. ...

• the filename, size, and the hash of each block in the file (which allows users to make sure they are downloading the real thing)
• the address of a "tracker" server (which is discussed below)
• and some other data.

The torrent file can then be distributed to other users, often via email or placed on a website. The BitTorrent client is then started as a "seed node", allowing other users to connect and commence downloading. When other users finish downloading the entire file, they can optionally "reseed" it--becoming an additional source for the file. One outcome of this approach is that if all seeds get taken offline, the file may no longer be available for download, even if the torrent file is possessed. However, even if there are no seeds, as long as there is at least one distributed copy of the file everyone can eventually get the complete file. A hash function is a function that converts an input from a (typically) large domain into an output in a (typically) smaller range (the hash value, often a subset of the integers). ... A Bittorrent Tracker is a server which directs uploading and downloading of packets on BitTorrent. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... The front page of the English Wikipedia website. ...

Downloading with BitTorrent is straightforward. Each person who wants to download the file first downloads the torrent and opens it in the BitTorrent client software. The torrent file tells the client the address of the tracker, which, in turn, maintains a log of which users are downloading the file and where the file and its fragments reside. For each available source, the client considers which blocks of the file are available, then requests the rarest block it does not yet have. This makes it more likely that peers will have blocks to exchange. As soon as the client finishes importing a block, it hashes it to make sure that the block matches what the torrent file said it should be. Then it begins looking for someone to upload the block to.

BitTorrent gives the best download performance to the people who upload the most, a property known as "leech resistance", since it discourages "leeches" from trying to download the file without uploading it to anyone. (Although, confusingly, when used in opposition to "seeds" or "seeders" as in "S/L ratio" (meaning "seed/leech ratio"), "leecher" only means someone who hasn't downloaded the full file yet.) Leech resistance, in peer to peer networks, refers to controls used to prevent users from downloading files while not reciprocating and sharing files and bandwidth with others. ...

Though BitTorrent is a good protocol for a broadband user, it is less effective for dial up connections, where disconnections are common.

BitTorrent Basics

.torrent

The torrent file is where it all starts for uploading and downloading. When one finds what they want to download or what they want to upload, whether it is CD image file to a mpeg file to a directory of a file, they download or create the .torrent file. The metadata file contains general information about the shared file (size, name, etc).

seed

A seed is a machine that has a complete copy of the torrent. When downloading is completed, it will seed the file so others can complete their download, and seeds the complete file as well. The more seeds there are, the better the chances are for completion of the file.

peer

A peer is a computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Usually a peer does not have the complete file, but parts of the file. Peers are also called leeches, which are peers who only download the file and close it as soon as it is finished, whereas a peer usually leaves the file open (and becomes a seed) to achieve a 1.00 share ratio. (see Etiquette below)

swarm

a swarm is what all machines that are connected to a file is called. 6 peers and 1 seeds is a swarm of 7 plus your client.

tracker

A tracker is a server on the Internet that manages the actions of BitTorrent clients. The tracker has a list of peers to contact for downloading/uploading.

Comparison to other file sharing systems

BitTorrent download window, using the original client

The method used by BitTorrent to distribute files parallels to a large extent the one used by the eDonkey2000 network, but nodes in eDonkey's file sharing network usually share and download a much larger number of files, making the bandwidth available to each transfer much smaller. BitTorrent transfers are typically very fast, because all nodes in a group concentrate on transferring a single file or collection of files. While the original eDonkey2000 client provided little "leech resistance", most new clients have some sort of system to encourage uploaders. eMule, for example, has a credits system whereby a client stores the amount of data it has uploaded and downloaded from every client and gives clients that have net upload to it a higher priority in the queue. However, the nature of the eDonkey2000 concept means download speeds tend to be much more variable, although the number of available files is far greater. BitTorrent in action. ... BitTorrent in action. ... eDonkey network (also called eDonkey2000 network or ed2k) is a file sharing network used primarily to exchange music, films and software. ... In computing, eMule is a peer to peer file sharing application that works with the EDonkey network and has more features than clients on this network. ...

Version 4.0.2 running in Windows XP

A similar method to BitTorrent was the Participation Level introduced in KaZaA in 2002. The Participation Level would increase when you upload and decrease when you download. Then when you upload a file to someone else the person with the highest Participation Level gets it first, then they upload it on to the person with the next highest Participation Level, and so on. This can be visualised as a pyramid, with the people who have the most upload bandwidth available at the top and people with less bandwidth on progressively lower levels. This is the most efficient way to distribute a file to a large number of users: it is probable that even the people at the bottom of the pyramid will get the file faster than if the file was served by a non P2P method. Unfortunately the system adopted by KaZaA is considered by some to be flawed as it relies on the client accurately reporting their Participation Level and therefore it is easy to cheat with the many "unofficial" clients. This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... Kazaa Media Desktop (once capitalized as KaZaA, but now usually left as Kazaa) is a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol. ... 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Legal issues

While created to distribute files legally, such as GNU/Linux distributions, large movie trailers, or CD images of the Baen books on CD (which are legal, and only available via file sharing), BitTorrent is also used to download music, movies, and software illegally, similar to many other peer-to-peer networks. Tux, a penguin, is the official Linux mascot. ... CD may stand for: compact disc Canadian Forces Decoration cash dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) certificate of deposit České dráhy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers Datorförening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s Panhard race... Baen Books is a publishing house that publishes science fiction and fantasy novels, including numerous military science fiction genre works. ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ...

BitTorrent was used to distribute high-quality bootlegs of the movie The Matrix Reloaded created from film prints just days after the movie was released in theaters. There were BitTorrent links on Slashdot to the Half-Life 2 source code (soon after it was leaked in October 2004), as well as to the (incomplete) Windows NT and Windows 2000 source trees in February 2004 (amidst rumoured third-party leaks). The Matrix Reloaded is the second installment of the Matrix series, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released by Warner Bros. ... Slashdot (frequently abbreviated as /.) is a popular technology-related website, updated many times daily with articles that are short summaries of stories on other websites with links to the stories, and provisions for readers to comment on the story. ... Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter computer game and the highly anticipated sequel to Half-Life, developed by Valve Software. ... Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ...

The movie, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith became available to download by BitTorrent users hours before its worldwide premier. Within a few days, tens of thousands of people had downloaded a relatively high-quality workprint of the movie that was 20 minutes longer than the one in theatres. The FBI was able to shut down some of the sites that listed the trackers to download the movie and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and George Lucas were able to have the trackers removed from other sites. Despite these efforts, the file continued to be circulated on other sites. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is the third episode of the Star Wars film series (but the sixth film to be produced), to be released on Thursday, May 19, 2005. ... The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA, originally called the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association) is a non-profit trade association formed to advance the interests of movie studios. ... George Lucas George Walton Lucas, Jr. ...

Copyright enforcement

In December 2004 the Finnish police raided a major BitTorrent site. [1]. The court handling will take place later this year.

Suprnova, one of the most popular BitTorrent sites, closed in December 2004, supposedly due to the pressure felt by the founder and administrator of the site. LokiTorrent, arguably the biggest torrent source after the demise of Suprnova, closed down soon after. Allegedly, after threats from the MPAA, Webber, webmaster of the site, agreed to pay a fine and supply the MPAA with logs (the IP addresses of visitors). Suprnova. ... The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is a non-profit trade association formed to advance the interests of movie studios. ... An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique number, similar in concept to a telephone number, used by machines (usually computers) to refer to each other when sending information through the Internet. ...

Interestingly, Webber (known as "lowkee"), in the weeks following his reception of the subpoena, had begun a fundraising campaign to pay lawyers fees in a legal battle against the MPAA. In news reports, Webber said he would stand up to protect the rights of file sharers, which he did not. Webber raised approximately $45,000 (USD) through a PayPal-based donation system. It is unclear how much of that money went to the MPAA. Following the agreement, the MPAA changed the LokiTorrent website to display a message intended to intimidate filesharers. Webber did not comment on this change. A subpoena (pronounced suh-pee-nuh) is a writ commanding a person to appear under penalty (from Latin). ... The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is a non-profit trade association formed to advance the interests of movie studios. ... PayPal Logo PayPal is an Internet business which allows the transfer of money between email users, avoiding traditional paper methods such as checks/cheques and money orders. ...

Legal defenses

There are two major differences between BitTorrent and many other peer-to-peer file-trading systems, which advocates suggest make it less useful to copyright violators. First, BitTorrent does not offer a search facility to find files by name. A user must find the initial torrent file by other means, such as a Web search. Second, BitTorrent makes no attempt to conceal the host ultimately responsible for a given file's availability: a person who wishes to make a file available must run a tracker on a specific host or hosts and distribute the tracker address(es) in the .torrent file. While it is possible to simply operate a tracker on a server that is located where the copyright holder cannot take legal action, this feature of the protocol does imply some degree of accountability that other protocols lack. It is far easier to request that the server's internet service provider shut the site down than it is to find and identify every user sharing a file on a traditional peer-to-peer network. An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ...

Legal uses for BitTorrent

BitTorrent can be used by software developers who want to ease the bandwidth strain on their servers. If a developer offers a large file for download, the bandwidth limit of their server may be exceeded if a large number of people download the file. By offering the file via BitTorrent, they transfer much of the bandwidth burden to downloaders of the file. For example, the demo of the flight sim X-Plane is offered via BitTorrent, as well as the World of Warcraft beta and its patches. Another such example is PlaneShift, a free open-source MMORPG, which uses BitTorrent for its primary method of distribution. The fan-film Star Wars: Revelations is distributing two DVD images as well as the film by itself via BitTorrent. NetBSD operating system uses BitTorrent as an alternative way of downloading ISO images of its releases, since version 1.6.2. A flight simulator is a system that tries to replicate, or simulate, the experience of flying an airplane as closely and realistically as possible. ... X-Plane, produced by Laminar Research, is a flight simulator for personal computers, notable for its high degree of sophistication and customizability. ... World of Warcraft (WoW) is a class-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment. ... PlaneShift is a cross-platform fantasy MMORPG in development. ... Star Wars Revelations is an independent film released on April 17th, 2005, created by fans of the Star Wars franchise. ... NetBSD was the first of the freely redistributable, open source versions of the BSD Unix-like operating systems to produce a formal release, with NetBSD 0. ...

Following the success of the BitTorrent protocol, Bram Cohen, its creator, was hired in 2004 by Valve Software to develop a means of distributing patches and other content for online video games, proving that there are some less controversial reasons for the development of this technology. While many legal files, including Linux distributions, are available on other networks such as eDonkey2000 and Gnutella these are placed there by users and not generally part of the official distribution mechanism. So far, BitTorrent seems to be the most popular P2P protocol adopted officially for legal uses. Bram Cohen Bram Cohen (1975—) is a computer programmer, best known as the author of BitTorrent. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Valve Software is a Bellevue, Washington-based video game developer made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ...

Etiquette

Because BitTorrent relies on the upstream bandwidth of its users — and the more users, the more aggregate bandwidth is available for sharing the files — it is considered good etiquette to leave one's BitTorrent client open after downloading has completed so that others may continue to gain from the file that has been distributed. // Analog For analog signals, bandwidth is the width, usually measured in hertz, of a frequency band f2 − f1. ... Etiquette is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. ...

It is not clear, however, how long one should leave their client open after downloading has finished. Many clients report the byte traffic upstream as well as down, so the user can see how much they have contributed back to the network. It is generally considered good form to at least share back the equivalent amount of traffic as the original file size.

It is worth noting that the requirement of a "1.00 ratio" (uploading as much data as you have downloaded) is rather hotly contested given its relative impossibility to achieve for every person. On any given torrent, the best possible outcome is the original seeder with an infinite ratio (having only uploaded data and never downloaded any data), a number of peers with 1.00 ratios (having downloaded the file, uploaded just as much data, and then promptly logged off), and two users with a .50 ratio (the last two having each downloaded a separate half of the file and then shared their half with the other). This is highly unlikely to be achieved due to the very small chance of the last two peers downloading completely opposite halves and finishing just as the last seeder logged off and the fact that not all people will upload the same amount of data they downloaded as some will upload less and others will upload more. Additionally, this means that those who give back more data than they downloaded are hurting everyone else and since most torrents rely on users uploading more than they have downloaded to counteract users who logged off too early discouraging them from uploading is usually a bad idea. Ultimately, a perfect torrent would leave two end users with only a .50 ratio for the torrent which means every user would have to provide new content at least equal to the portion of data they did not get to upload in the last torrent to maintain an overall ratio of 1.00. A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is any network that does not rely on dedicated servers for communication but instead mostly uses direct connections between clients (peers). ...

While a 1.00 ratio per torrent is not feasible as a rule for all users who download that file, it is more of a guideline to encourage the average upstream of a given network. One network, for example, only allows access to torrents for the first 24-48 hours to people who have an overall ratio of 1.00.

The amount of time the client is left open may be more important than the amount of traffic contributed, since new users attempting to download a file will first need to find peers hosting the file.

Many advanced trackers now track stats such as how many seeders and how many downloaders were on a torrent at the time of a users disconnect as many consider this information more important than just the user's ratio of downloaded/uploaded.

New developments

The BitTorrent protocol is still under development and therefore may still acquire new features and other enhancements such as improved efficiency.

On May 2005, on the same day the elitetorrents.org, a tracker website, was shutdown, Bram Cohen eliminated the need for Web site hosting of centralized servers known as "trackers" in the latest beta version of BitTorrent. It is now possible to have a torrent up in minutes, with a file, a website, and no understanding of how it works. In addition, Cohen launched a new service on BitTorrent's website, which helps you find files - both legal and illegal.

Cohen explained that the tracker removal feature is part of his ongoing effort to make publishing files online "painless and disruptively cheap," the move is only one of several designed to remove BitTorrent's dependence on centralized trackers.

This change is said to cause some trouble in the legal efforts to shutdown illegal file sharing. However, Tarun Sawney, BSA Asia antipiracy director, said BitTorrent files could still be identified, since with or without the tracker sites, someone still hosts the infringing files (Renai LeMay, "BitTorrent enemies face new hurdle", Cnet News.com (May 20, 2005), at: http://news.com.com/BitTorrent+enemies+face+new+hurdle/2100-1032_3-5715093.html) (The Guardian, "May the source be with you", (June 2, 2005), at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1496722,00.html).

Alternative approaches

The BitTorrent protocol provides no way to index torrent files. As a result, a comparatively small number of websites have hosted the large majority of copyright infringing torrents, rendering those sites especially vulnerable to lawsuits. In response, some developers have sought ways to make publishing of files more anonymous while still retaining BitTorrent's speed advantage. The Shareaza client, for example, provides three alternatives to BitTorrent: eDonkey2000, Gnutella, and Shareaza's native network, Gnutella2. BitTorrent also inspired the privately held company InmateMediaGroup: eXeem. It is backed by Andrej Preston, the administrator of the now defunct Suprnova BitTorrent website. eXeem is supposed to decentralize BitTorrent and eliminate the need for web-based trackers (easy targets for the RIAA or the MPAA). Unlike BitTorrent (the protocol and the official client), eXeem is closed-source and owned by a corporation. Distributed trackers is also one of the goals for Azureus 2.3.0.2 and BitTorrent 4.1.2. Another interesting idea which has surfaced recently in Azureus is virtual torrent. This idea is based on the distributed tracker approach and is used to describe some web resource. Right now it is used for instant messaging. It is implemented using a special messaging protocol and requires an appropriate plugin. Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owners exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. ... Shareaza is a Windows–based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, EDonkey Network, and BitTorrent network protocols and which can handle magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links. ... eDonkey network (also called eDonkey2000 network or ed2k) is a file sharing network used primarily to exchange music, films and software. ... Gnutella (pronounced ) is a file sharing network used primarily to exchange music, films and software. ... The Gnutella2 peer-to-peer protocol is a reworking of the Gnutella protocol, written mainly by Michael Stokes. ... eXeem Beta 0. ... Sloncek (meaning little elephant in Slovenian) is the pseudonym for the man thought to be named Andrej Preston. ... Suprnova. ... The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a special interest group representing the U.S. recording industry, and the body responsible for certifying gold and platinum albums and singles in the USA. For more information about sales data see list of best selling albums and list of best selling... The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is a non-profit trade association formed to advance the interests of movie studios. ... Azureus is a Java BitTorrent client, with support for I2P and Tor anonymous communication protocols. ... Azureus is a Java BitTorrent client, with support for I2P and Tor anonymous communication protocols. ... An instant messenger is a computer application which allows instant text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. ...

BitTorrent search / Trackerless

A new BitTorrent online search was recently implemented (Betanews article). One can search content provided by BT. A new beta "trackerless" client was also released. This eliminates the need for a tracker.

Web seeding

One recently implemented feature of BitTorrent is web seeding. The advantage of this feature is that a site may distribute a torrent for a particular file or batch of files and make those files available for download from that same web server application; this can simplify seeding and load balancing greatly once support for this feature is implemented in the various BitTorrent clients. In theory, this would make using BitTorrent almost as easy for a web publisher as simply creating a direct download while allowing some of the upload bandwidth demands to be placed upon the downloaders (who normally use only a very small portion of their upload bandwidth capacity). This feature is an unofficial one, created by the author of a specific third-party client.

Broadcatching

Another proposed feature combines RSS and BitTorrent to create a content delivery system dubbed broadcatching. Since a Steve Gillmor column for Ziff-Davis in December 2003, the discussion has spread quickly among many bloggers (Techdirt, Ernest Miller, and former Tech TV host Chris Pirillo, for example). In an interview Scott Raymond explained: RSS, pronounced arr-ess-ess, is a web syndication protocol primarily used by news websites and weblogs. ... Broadcatching refers to the use of RSS feeds and BitTorrent peer to peer file sharing as an alternative to distributing multimedia content on the Internet. ... Ziff-Davis Inc. ... TechTV (May 11, 1998 - May 28, 2004) was a 24-hours per day technology cable and satellite television channel based in San Francisco, California, featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. ... Chris Pirillo hosting Call for Help Chris Pirillo is the founder and maintainer of Lockergnome [1]. He spent two years hosting the TechTV (now known as G4) show Call for Help before being terminated from the company. ...

"I want RSS feeds of BitTorrent files. A script would periodically check the feed for new items, and use them to start the download. Then, I could find a trusted publisher of an Alias RSS feed, and 'subscribe' to all new episodes of the show, which would then start downloading automatically — like the 'season pass' feature of the TiVo."

While potential illegal uses abound as is the case with any new distribution method, this idea lends itself to a great number of ideas that could turn traditional distribution models on their heads, giving smaller operations a new opportunity for content distribution. Similar to Linspire, the system leans on the cost-saving benefit of BitTorrent, where expenses are virtually non-existent; each downloader of a file participates in a portion of the distribution. The TiVo (tē-vō) personal video recorder is a consumer video device allowing users to capture television programming to internal hard drive storage for later viewing (called time shifting). TiVo systems function similarly to VCRs, but use non-removable hard-disk storage, and contain much more sophisticated software to record... Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash), is a Linux distribution based on Debian. ...

RSS feeds layered on top keep track of the content, and because BitTorrent does cryptographic hashing of all data, subscribers to the feed can be sure they're getting what they think they're getting, whether that winds up being the latest Sopranos episode, or the latest Sveasoft firmware upgrade. (Naturally, however, ensuring that the same data reaches all nodes neglects the possibility that the original, source file may be corrupted or incorrectly labelled.) See also: Topics in cryptography The security of all practical encryption schemes remains unproven, both for symmetric and asymmetric schemes. ... A hash function is a function that converts an input from a (typically) large domain into an output in a (typically) smaller range (the hash value, often a subset of the integers). ... The Sopranos is a popular HBO drama created by David Chase. ... Sveasoft is a California based company that develops alternative firmware for consumer grade Wi-Fi routers. ... In computing, firmware is software that is embedded in a hardware device. ... In computing, an upgrade is the process of replacing an older system with more recent hardware or software in order to bring the system up to date. ...

Bittorrent clients and applications, which support the protocol

Despite ample discussion, the first practical applications of this idea have only surfaced recently.

• Programmer Andrew Grumet has announced the release of a beta version of an RSS and BitTorrent integration tool for Radio Userland's news aggregator [2].
• TV RSS is another solution.
• SwarmTV yet another BitTorrent + XML television system.
• Undercurrents, a UK based video activist group are working on an offline TV service using RSS and BitTorrent. It can be seen at beyondTV.
• Thinkingest is providing commercial broadcatching and pro-bono consulting for community projects, such as OurMedia [3].
• Anime fansub communities often use Bittorrent for their releases, and the most popular announce sites like animesuki, Tokyo Toshokan, and downloadanime.org have RSS feeds.
• X Hollywood aggregates RSS feeds from BitTorrent websites.

And also, A scene from Cowboy Bebop (1998) Anime (アニメ) is Japanese animation, sometimes billed in the west under the portmanteau Japanimation. ... Fansub - short for fan subtitled; a copy of a foreign movie or television show which has been subtitled by fans into their native language. ... AnimeSuki (the name comes from the Japanese words Anime and Love) is a website that focuses on providing unlicensed Anime Fansub using the BitTorrent Peer-to-peer system. ...

• Azureus also has an RSS feedreader plug-in which can be used in conjunction with the sites mentioned above.
• Blog Torrent offers a simplified BitTorrent tracker to enable bloggers and non-technical users to run a tracker off their site with the added functionality of letting visitors download a file even if they do not have a BitTorrent client installed by automatically installing a client and the desired file. (GrepLaw interviews makers of Blog Torrent.)
• WritTorrent offers a blog posting plugin for Azureus, as well as RSS feeds for the built-in Azureus tracker.
• TvM is another BT/RSS feedreader for Windows designed to be as simple as possible.

Podcasting is starting to integrate BitTorrent to help podcasters deal with the download demands of their MP3 "radio" programs. Specifically, iPodder supports BitTorrent for the RSS 2.0 enclosures that power podcasting. Azureus is a Java BitTorrent client, with support for I2P and Tor anonymous communication protocols. ... This article is about a type of web application. ... Podcasting is a method of publishing files via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed to receive new files automatically. ... MP3 is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format. ...

See also

• Magnet link
• Super seeding
• List of BitTorrent clients
• Comparison of BitTorrent clients

This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. ... Super seeding is a feature in BitTorrent that was first added by BitTornado, and then added to many other clients as well. ... The following is a list of BitTorrent clients. ... ...

External links

• InfoAnarchy site
• BitTorrent News & Information BitTorrent information and news on Zeropaid, BitTorrent Clients
• Guide To BitTorrent- Primer on MP3 Newswire
• Evil Timmy's BitTorrent FAQ
• BitTorrent News
• Magoo's Guide to BitTorrent or Magoo's Guide on Radified.com

MP3 Newswire is one of the earliest news sites focused on digital media technology. ...

Torrent sites and trackers

(Many of these sites temporarily go down due to bandwidth limitations, legal issues or technical difficulties. Most are run by volunteer staff and most return within a day.)

General collections

• BitTorrent.com: A search engine created by Bram Cohen, with a simple interface similar to, bitoogle or Google
• myBittorrent.com Huge BT-community site with 100.000 torrents.
• Seedler.org: A multi-lingual torrent site with great amounts of torrents.
• bitoogle.com: THe original bittorrent search engine. Supports multi-lingual torrent searches.
• TorrentSpy.com
• TorrentPortal.com
• Mininova.org: SuprNova alternative.
• Kedora TV: Directory of videos using RSS feeds.
• TorrentMine.com: Torrent Search Engine
• Unofficial RSS feeds
• speedtorrent.dl.am: German torrent site.
• Yotoshi.comBittorrent search engine
• isoHunt.com: IRC and BitTorrent search engine and P2P releases system.
• X Hollywood: Index and news of BitTorrent sites.
• TorrentReactor.to (the .net website was domain hijacked): Large search engine.
• Prodigem: Creative Commons licensed BitTorrent hosting service.
• Pirate Bay: Swedish-hosted BitTorrent tracker website. Lots of entertaining legal threats.
• TorrentBox.com
• Novatina
• Bittracker.net: Free Bittorrent Tracker. Requires registration to upload but not to download (Multilingual).
• Torrent Typhoon: Torrent Typhoon is a BT search engine that searches all major torrent sites at once. Accesses over 320,000 torrents.
• MadTorrent.com Torrent Search This site indexes all major tracker sites to provide a quick way to search through them.

Bram Cohen Bram Cohen (1975—) is a computer programmer, best known as the author of BitTorrent. ... Googles main pages unusually spartan design, uncluttered appearance and quick loading time have contributed greatly to the sites mass appeal. ... Suprnova. ...

Forums

• Digital Update
• Filesoup
• Sladinki007.net
• Speedtorrent-Board.net
• Torrent Forums
• Torrentmind.com
• Torrentmind
• Zeropaid.com

Registration sites

• Conviniforums: Universal BitTorrent information and file reviews.
• Torrentbytes: Formerly known as Torrentbits.
• FileMp3: Dedicated to MP3s.
• Oink's Pink Palace: Dedicated to music.

Specific content

• f.scarywater.net: For sites rendered inaccessable due to the Slashdot effect.
• autopatcher.scarywater.net: BitTorrent files for AutoPatcher.
• http://www.homecomputermagazine.com/torrents.htm: BitTorrent files for the free PC magazine

• Anime:
  • AnimeYume.org: Also has non-English releases.
  • AnimeSuki: Keeps track of almost all anime torrents (unlicensed and strictly English-language fansubs only).
  • Frozen-Layer Network: Spanish Anime distribution page
  • a.scarywater.net
  • BoxTorrents
  • Tokyo Toshokan: A BitTorrent library for Japanese media.

• Computer games:
  • Filerush.com
  • Nwgat.Net
  • 3dgamers.com: Torrents for large game demos.

• GNU/Linux:
  • SolidZ.com: Linux torrents and various other open source applications.
  • Linux torrents: Distro torrents
  • ShareGroundz.info: Legal Linux ISOs, games, and applications.
  • Nwgat.Net: Linux torrents.

• Music:
  • jamendo.Com: Full, high-quality albums from all genres.
  • easytree.org: Live recordings of trade-friendly artists in lossless file formats.
  • etree.org: Trade-friendly live recordings in lossless formats.
  • LegalTorrents: Wide selection of acoustic, electronic, and experimental music as well as the Wired Magazine Creative Commons CD.
  • Must-Suck Torrents: Videos of music performances.

• NetBSD:
  • NetBSD BitTorrents: Official torrents of NetBSD release ISO images.

• Politics:
  • Torrentocracy: 2004 US Presidential Election torrents.
  • ChomskyTorrents.org: Filesharing resource for videos of Noam Chomsky's talks.
  • outragedmoderates.org: Torrents of government documents, with a focus on US foreign policy.

• Television shows:
  • XTVi Various TV Show torrents
  • #digitaldistractions: Various shows, with a focus on educational material
  • Whose Torrents Are They Anyway?: Whose Line is it Anyway? episodes
  • South Park torrents
  • Robotolabs [rl] - Simpsons BitTorrent website

The Slashdot effect is a particular example of how a popular website can cause a smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close after causing a great increase in the number of visitors going to the smaller site. ... A scene from Cowboy Bebop (1998) Anime (アニメ) is Japanese animation, sometimes billed in the west under the portmanteau Japanimation. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Tux, a penguin, is the official Linux mascot. ... Tux, a cartoon penguin frequently featured sitting, is the official Linux mascot. ... Tux, a cartoon penguin frequently featured sitting, is the official Linux mascot. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikicities has a wiki about Music: Music Music City : a collaborative music database All Music Guide: includes a comprehensive and flexible Genre and Style system MusicWiki: A Collaborative Music-related encyclopedia Science... NetBSD was the first of the freely redistributable, open source versions of the BSD Unix-like operating systems to produce a formal release, with NetBSD 0. ... NetBSD was the first of the freely redistributable, open source versions of the BSD Unix-like operating systems to produce a formal release, with NetBSD 0. ... Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... Whose Line Is It Anyway? is an improvised and largely unscripted comedy game show. ...

Eclectic trackers and portals

• throughput.de: A search engine for all types of torrents.
• TowerSeek.org: Advanced crawler-based search engine for torrents.
• Torrents.to: Torrent search engine for music, movies, TV, and other content as well as the latest BitTorrent clients.
• Nabasu's BitTorrent Bookmarks
• The Pirate Bay: Created by piratbyrån, they document all legal threats received.
• WebTorrent: A PHP frontend for BitTorrent, serving as a centralised BitTorrent download server.
• PartyBits
• LMTLinks/LickMyTaint: Torrent listing as well as a helpful forum.
• TheBeehive: List of active trackers.

Piratbyrån (The Piracy Bureau) is a Swedish organization established to support the individuals fighting against current ideas about intellectual properties by sharing information and culture freely. ... PHP logo PHP is a popular open-source programming language used primarily for developing server-side applications and dynamic web content, and more recently, other software. ...

Usenet newsgroups

• alt.binaries.torrents
• alt.bittorrent
• alt.pl.bittorrent

Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... A newsgroup is a repository, usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ...

In the news

• News BitTorrent: Daily internet news about BitTorrent
• NYT: File Sharing's New Face (should work without registration)
• Wired: The BitTorrent Effect
• NPR: File-Sharing Tool Grows in Popularity
• BBC News: How Doctor Who spread on the net
• AfterDawn: MPAA sues six TV BitTorrent sites

The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Wired magazine is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ... NPR logo For other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation) National Public Radio (NPR) is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. ... BBC News and Current Affairs (sometimes abbreviated BBC NCA) is a major arm of the BBC responsible for the corporations news gathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online. ...

Technical help and discussion

• Filesoup -> Technical Discussions
• Basic BitTorrent FAQ at AfterDawn
• Youceff P2P Community: Technical help for BitTorrent users but also covers other P2P networks. For example, Common Bittorrent Error Messages: Explained.
• Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide
• Tracker Errors: Tracker errors explained.
• Unofficial, but more complete documentation of BitTorrent
• Lengthy tutorial on the usage of BitTorrent (unofficial)
• Luna Tech Tutorials: Full image and description guides on how to create torrents with various torrent creators and upload torrents to a tracker.
• AfterDawn's P2P guides: Guides for ABC, BitTornado, BitComet, Azureus and G3 Torrent
• Controlling Bittorrent using a Linux firewall: Using Linux to control bittorrent traffic - to apply QoS policies, log or block the protocol.
• modtang's BitTorrent guides: Visual guides on how to use various BitTorrent clients.

Technical analyses

• Animation of BitTorrent in action (MNG format, not supported by all browsers.)
• The BitTorrent P2P file-sharing system, Johan Pouwelse, 18th December, Register - A detailed study of the BitTorrent network

MNG (pronounced ming) is a public file format for animated images. ...

Legal

• LokiTorrent Complaint (PDF)
• Settlement Against LokiTorrent Owner (PDF)
• MPAA's attack on Television (PDF)

• Programmer Andrew Grumet has announced the release of a beta version of an RSS and BitTorrent integration tool for Radio Userland's news aggregator [4].
• TV RSS is another solution.
• SwarmTV yet another BitTorrent + XML television system.
• Undercurrents, a UK based video activist group are working on an offline TV service using RSS and BitTorrent. It can be seen at beyondTV.
• Thinkingest is providing commercial broadcatching and pro-bono consulting for community projects, such as OurMedia [5].
• Anime fansub communities often use Bittorrent for their releases, and the most popular announce sites like animesuki, Tokyo Toshokan, and downloadanime.org have RSS feeds.
• X Hollywood aggregates RSS feeds from BitTorrent websites.

And also, A scene from Cowboy Bebop (1998) Anime (アニメ) is Japanese animation, sometimes billed in the west under the portmanteau Japanimation. ... Fansub - short for fan subtitled; a copy of a foreign movie or television show which has been subtitled by fans into their native language. ... AnimeSuki (the name comes from the Japanese words Anime and Love) is a website that focuses on providing unlicensed Anime Fansub using the BitTorrent Peer-to-peer system. ...

• Azureus also has an RSS feedreader plug-in which can be used in conjunction with the sites mentioned above.
• Blog Torrent offers a simplified BitTorrent tracker to enable bloggers and non-technical users to run a tracker off their site with the added functionality of letting visitors download a file even if they do not have a BitTorrent client installed by automatically installing a client and the desired file. (GrepLaw interviews makers of Blog Torrent.)
• WritTorrent offers a blog posting plugin for Azureus, as well as RSS feeds for the built-in Azureus tracker.
• TvM is another BT/RSS feedreader for Windows designed to be as simple as possible.