What Is Torrent?

Many members of the computer-fluent community engage daily in an activity widely known as "torrenting." Torrenting is a highly popular peer-to-peer file-sharing activity that allows participants to send and receive files from other computers. Although it's often used for purposes that may border on copyright infringement, such as the sharing of music, it has widespread legitimate use in many programs and systems in the world.

1. How Torrenting Works

   • All torrenting takes place using a torrent program. Examples of torrenting programs include uTorrent, Azureus and the original BitTorrent. These programs allow your computer to send and receive files on a specific port and interpret the data from .TORRENT files. .TORRENT files contain all of the information on a specific torrent--who started it, what the torrent contains, and how to download and upload information corresponding to that torrent. When the .TORRENT file is opened by a torrent program, the torrent program connects to other users who have portions of the torrent and downloads the torrent from them. Upon receiving portions of the torrent, your computer becomes able to upload (or "seed") the file to other users. Once the torrent program has received all portions of the torrent, it assembles them into a file using the directions found in the .TORRENT file.

   Trackers

   • Torrenting begins and ends at large networking servers known as trackers. Your torrent program (or "client") connects to these servers using a list found in the original .TORRENT file. Trackers have a list of all users connected to it and which files they're able to seed. Your client picks from these users and downloads data from them accordingly. Upon connecting to the tracker, it registers your computer and the files that you yourself are able to seed. Trackers also keep logs of one's ratio--how much your computer uploads, measured against how much your computer downloads--and determines the amount of bandwidth you receive.

   Ratio and the Fair Share Policy

   • All torrent trackers incorporate a "fair share" policy, which restricts or grants access to bonus torrent bandwidth accordingly. Fair share policies basically say that if you're not seeding as much as you are downloading ("leeching"), you will receive less bandwidth from the torrent. Conversely, if your seed-leech ratio is high, you will download files from the torrent much quicker than someone with a low ratio. Priority on the tracker is also given to those with higher ratios. This means they will connect to other users on the server ("peers") more quickly.

   Torrent Culture

   • A large culture has sprung up around torrenting. Found in websites all over the Internet, these cultures generally promote fair share policies and file-sharing honesty, and discourage copyright infringement or file theft. Generally, these communities are invite-only. Open membership is only granted at specific times, generally once a month. Anyone wishing to join who doesn't want to wait until membership becomes open must secure an invite from someone else who's already part of the community. Other torrent sites are completely private. For example, the torrent site known as "What.CD" requires potential users to solve several puzzles to gain membership, and then undergo an interview and a speed test (to determine whether or not a user can upload efficiently) before acceptance.

   Controversy

   • Unfortunately, since its inception, peer-to-peer torrenting has been highly controversial. Because trackers cannot and do not keep track of what information can be found in their torrents, the potential for copyright infringement, file theft and even child pornography exists. Organizations pursue legal activity against torrent trackers and users every day under claims of copyright infringement. However, despite all of the controversy, torrenting remains a very popular way to transfer large amounts of data from and to users at a very quick speed. Many computer companies, such as Blizzard Entertainment, even use torrenting to allow users to download their software.