Hacking IT: Torrent, anyone?
March 3, 2006
 By Ronnie Apteker
Read this column at your own risk. I started messing about with BitTorrent and with eMule a while back and they are addictive. You have been warned!
Before we jump into today's digital detour, cast your mind back to the turn of the century. Y2K wasn't the only thing getting a lot of attention in the high-tech domain. Remember Napster? The phenomenon that changed the way audio files were distributed online? The music industry was on full alert, and people were downloading songs like there's was tomorrow. Internet traffic due to Napster was overwhelming, and that is where our story begins.
I am not going to explain the technicalities of a peer-to-peer networking environment, so let's just summarise by saying that a P2P network is as good as it gets when it comes to harnessing the networked power of all available computing machines on the internet. And the most active P2P system, accounting for an estimated 35 to 70 percent of all internet traffic, according to various sources, is called BitTorrent.
Even if the minimum traffic of 35 percent is correct, it is nothing short of huge. So what is the nature of all this traffic? Think big files… You guessed it: movies. And music files – entire albums in fact, computer games, TV shows, mini-series, you name it. I can go online and download the latest movies playing on circuit in America right now with this technology.
Yes, you need fast internet access and yes, it takes a while to download a one-gig file, for example, even with a fast connection, but it really is an idiot-proof proposition.
I can keep my BitTorrent running in the background while I bang away at the keyboard, and, a few days later, presto, there's the latest entertainment, in solid digital quality. Check out www.bittorrent.com
The BitTorrent website says it best: "BitTorrent is an open-source software project that is free to use and enables very large files to be stored and retrieved efficiently at essentially no cost." It goes on to say that, although it is used for pirated music, it comes into its own when distributing really large files such as movies, games and large pieces of software such as the Linux operating system, things that would otherwise be very costly for companies or individuals to make available for download.
A major contributor to BitTorrent's success comes from the way it creates incentives for users to give as well as to take. In a study conducted in 2000 on one P2P network it showed that almost 70 percent of users never shared files, and around half of the files available were offered by just 1 percent of users. Again, their web site says it best. "BitTorrent is designed to remedy this. It rewards those who share files with others by increasing the download rate at which generous users can receive content, " explains Bram Cohen, the system's creator.
"More sharing means there are more potential locations where copies of a given file are located, which in turn increases access speed. BitTorrent uses a technique called swarming, in which files are broken into small chunks that are then passed between peers. Two peers downloading the same file at the same time can also swap chunks they have already received from other peers, increasing the efficiency of the transfer."
What is a torrent? The dictionary says it is a flood. A down pour. An outburst.
This is all making sense. When I run my BitTorrent software I am indeed being exposed to a flood of bits, and all those bits add up to hours and hours of fun.
Wait a minute. Is any of this legal?
Well, er, the software is. And as far as I know I am allowed to write about it. But breaking copyright laws is not cool. I know a bit about intellectual property and about things like movies. Yes, I wouldn't be happy if some of the film projects I have been involved with suddenly started showing up on BitTorrent. But this is progress, I think. And it is something we can't escape.
If all this torrent talk is getting too much, let's take a look at e-mule. This was my favourite application all of last year. I am still an e-mule junkie, and every time I find something on the Net that uses this workhouse, er, workmule, I am amazed all over again – it's like a magic trick. So, here is another cool diversion: check out www.emule-project.net
The message here today: share the love. And also shares the files. That way the torrent and the mule will live happily ever after.
Ronnie Apteker is one of the founders of Internet Solutions, the country's largest corporate internet service provider. He is also a movie producer, an author of two books and sometimes a stand up comedian.
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