Talk:BitTorrent

BitTorrent has a new logo...

Check the site, then put it on here. It's simple, and green. 70.17.38.39 03:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Opening comments

I added "in many areas" to the text "Downloading of copyrighted material is ILLEGAL." - because downloading of copyrighted material IS not "universally" illegal - it is only illegal in "many"/"some" areas - US beeing one area I believe. In sweden (where I live) and many other european/african and asian countries it is currently NOT illegal to download copyrighted material without the copyright holders premission - it is ONLY illegal to upload/distribute copyrighted material - only the copyright-holder may distribute his/hers copyrighted material (or license that right to others).

For example, if I were to download say metallicas new album from someones ftp - I am not the one that is doing something illegal where I live - it is the person that owns the ftp. However some uploading might be okay, for example distributing copyrighted material, like metallicas new album, to family and friends fall under fair use in many countries.

There are also countries that has not signed the berne convention (or whichever it is) that deals with copyrights between countries, North Korea beeing one and Cuba another, I believe. (wich means that in those countries you can freely copy anything from the rest of the world).

However it is wrong to state that it IS illegal in a universal sence, and it is more correct to add "in many areas".

The default behaviour of most bittorrent software is to redistribute while obtaining data. --Honta 10:48, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Yes that is why I had ftp as an example and not bittorrent. However the sentence claimed that "downloading of copyrighted material is ILLEGAL", which is what i was objecting to. (it did not say that use of bittorrent to download material is illegal). However it is not certain that downloading of copyrighted material via bittorrent is illegal either - since we are allowed to redistribute small sections of copyrighted works to others (like 30 seconds of a song), or even entire songs/movies to friends and relatives. (fair use, maybe not in the USA). Further on, from the users perspective, he/she is pressing a link on a web-page and downloading a song/movie/software/whatever. So even in the case of bittorrent it is not certain that downloading of copyrighted material via bittorrent *IS* ILLEGAL (*everywhere*). It is simply not a fact. However I am happy with the current text "ILLEGAL in many countries". :)

The article says: "While initially created to distribute legal files, such as GNU/Linux distributions or large movie trailers, BitTorrent is also being used by some to download copyrighted music, movies, and software, similar to many other peer-to-peer networks." Just because software is copyrighted, doesn't mean it can't be distributed legally. The copyright holder has to grant you a license to distribute the license though. The GPL, under which GNU/Linux is distributed, does this. Read GNU General Public License: "The GPL protects, using copyright law, the following freedoms for users and developers of free software". It should be changed to "to illegally download music,...". I'm making this change right now. Hopefully this comment will explain my change to people without legal background.

I think there is something strange with the current wording of the article. It says "BitTorrent can also be used for legal purposes", thus implying that downloading copyrighted material is an illegal purpose. However, in Sweden this is entirely legal, and distribution among friends (such as the 30,000 members of The Piracy Burea) could very well also be legal. Even if it might be illegal to download a movie with BitTorrent (because of the redistribution) the purpose (obtaining the movie) could be legal. Filur 22:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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The MIME for the MNG file is "text/plain." Isn't this a server issue, not a browser issue?--64.108.0.242 21:03, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yep, it should be set to something (the MNG page suggests the unofficial "video/x-mng"). But we'd need an MNG enabled browser to test that - any suggestions about a "trustworthy" one? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:20, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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I dont understand web seeding. If the dot torrent file says a copy of the FILE is available on website X. What is there to stop me from grabbing the file from the website instead of using a bittorrent client?

The server won't respond to the HTTP request for the file from a web browser. Server-side trackers are actually software running on top of the web server, and as such they can be configured to respond in specific ways to: improper requests, requests from banned IPs, and requests from unknown/unregistered IPs. You can also configure a tracker to do other non-torrent-related tasks such as recording upload/download statistics and making them available in realtime on a website. It can be written in just about any language, although perl, php, and other languages with native web-serving functionality are the easiest (and therefore most common) implementations. Maybe I'll merge some of this info into the main article. ----

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The 'how it works' section ends with:

When there are no longer any nodes connected to the tracker server who possess the complete file (so-called "seeds" or "seeders"), the nodes cannot finish the download if they do not have a complete copy distributed amongst themselves.

1) This is a run-on sentence 2) Is it true? - It is saying if !exists(some(node with all parts)) whereas i think it should be saying if !(for all parts(exists(some node with that part))) 3) It implies that the tracker is not obliged to serve specific parts of the file on request. Is this true?

my rewording would be:

Download of the complete file is only possible if other nodes in your group can supply all the missing parts. The tracker, though in posession of the entire file, is not obliged to support requests for specific parts of the file.

A BitTorrent tracker is not neccessarily in possession of the file. In fact, many simply have the IPs of the seeders/peers and information needed to verify the data. If a tracker is also seeding, it is a seperate action.

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Alternate Views

This should not be mentioned: "the standard eDonkey2000 protocol provides little "leech resistance" -- there are no benefits in providing upload bandwidth, just a UL:DL speed ratio when the upload speed is below 10 kB/s." This is not accurate! All edonkey supporting clients I know prioritize upload to people uploading to you, and try to validate clients as well. It does a lot more than BitTorrent to stop leeching and is a lot more efficient for large groups of files.

Ofcourse it *can* fully replace BitTorrent: if you make an edonkey server to share a small collection of files, and let people connect to it, that will do it. I wont get into technicality, but you can limit people from sharing their files, and you can get people to connect to a server by clicking a link, just like a .torrent file without actually having to download a file.

Further more about leech protection. In mldonkey, I *dont* upload to BitTorrent, since I think edonkey is more efficient. What does BitTorrent do to stop me leeching? But if I try not to upload to edonkey, my download speed drops significantly.

Also speaking about efficiency: have a look at this:

Client Downloaded  Uploaded
eMu 8376563  19087360
OVR 4239362  4359714
eDK 3151872  3502080
tML 1299456  1474560
sZA 359424  274432

This is just taken right now, from my upload list: 22:30pm, 30th June. What efficiency! -- I'm downloading 23 files, download maxed out at 60KB/sec, upload is set to 20KB/sec (bandwidth limit 26KB), also maxed out.

So please dont slander and say things like edonkey offers low leech protection, the original protocol was a little weak on leech protection, but it is of no relevance today. All ed2k clients now offer maximum leech protection, and older clients just get banned.

And as far as I know the only client that exploited the original edonkey protocol was mldonkey =<1.16, the reputation kinda stuck :) -- ofcourse using that client today, gets you banned.

Anyway, please review the bias against edonkey in the article. Although I'm also biased against BitTorrent, I wouldnt post such information on a non discussion page.

- Comment: I believe you would get different results in comparing edonkey to bittorrent if you where to try to max out the bandwidth of 10 mbit upload and 10 mbit download (which is a surprisingly common type of broadband in some countries) on a single file - for example the latest episode of a tv-show. For this bittorrent is, in my experience, superior.

I think in that situation, it may win depending on the source number difference. At the very least, finding sources for a single file is indeed faster on bittorrent since there is a tracker that keeps a separate list of sources for each file. Hardly efficient for tens of millions of files though and on edonkey, you get the benefit of finding sources on *any* server, not limited to the current tracker.--User:Hackeron 22:35, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My objections to the discussion above is about details not the discussion in it self.

The speed of bittorrent above edonkey has nothing to do with share ratios (assuming the speed of the peers are the same between the two clients). It is rather a function the size of the chunks of data every client announces. Chunk sizes in a torrent file is on average somewhere between 512K and 2MB whilst in an edonkey file is somewhere around the 9MB mark. Each of these two clients won't announce a chunk to the crowd of peers until it is downloaded locally. This makes the spreading of the complete file a function of it's chunk size primarily. The spreading is also affected by the frequency of the clients announcement of chunks.

One other consequence of this fact is that files tend to be available for longer periods of time on edonkey than bittorrent. This is simply because it takes longer to download a complete copy. One advantage of edonkey is however that the servers are searchable within the network without having to rely on separate servers for torrent announcements.

Finally, bittorrent is more leech proof during the initial seeding phase but that is about all. It is in no way, shape, or form more leech proof during the second phase after the which more seeds have sprouted. --Spinoza12 22:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

illegal ideas?

"While illegal ideas" Think about this for a sec. What's an illegal idea?

Ask the Attorney General. It is his job to know everything that is legal and illegal, after all, isn't it?

Well, planning a murder is illegal, and it's an idea, so I guess planning a murder(Or other crime(s).) could be called an "illegal idea", although I'm not a lawyer, and also isn't it that the Supreme Court's job, because you can't interpret the law if you don't know it.--Dp462090 00:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Spam in "Torrent sites"

We need to cleanup the whole torrent sites section, alot of it just seems to be some crap added by the representitives of those sites.

Torrent Sites

• [http://www.torrentreactor.net/index.php Torrentreactor.net] - Categorized list format (very popular.)
• [http://www.bogaa.org/ Bogaa] - Similar to suprnova
• [http://trackerwww.prq.to/ The Pirate Bay] - Created by piratbyrån, they [http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/ document] all legal threats recieved.
• [http://www.bitoogle.com/ Bitoogle.com] - Search engine
• [http://www.animesuki.com/ AnimeSuki] - keeps track of almost all (unlicensed) Anime Torrents
• [http://www.digital-update.com/ Digital Update] - Internet forum format
  • Needs registration.
• [http://www.filerush.com/ Filerush.com] - All the latest game downloads with high bandwidth seeds.
  • Valid, works a charm.
• [http://www.filesoup.com/ Filesoup.com] - Internet forum format
  • Forum.
• [http://bittorrent.frozen-layer.net Frozen-Layer Network] - Spanish Anime distribution page.
• [http://isohunt.com/ isoHunt.com] - IRC and BitTorrent search engine, P2P releases system
• [http://www.sharegroundz.com/ ShareGroundz.com] - Linux iso's, games, apps, movies, series, music
• [http://www.tlm-project.org/ The Linux Mirror Project] - Loads of Linux distribution ISO images as downloadable torrents.
• [http://kov4eg.net/ Lucky Ark] - The great russian bittorent project and community.
• [http://bittorrent.mafiotzii.ro mafiotzii.ro] - The first Romanian Bittorrent community.
• [http://www.solidz.com/ SolidZ.com] - Linux torrents and various other open source apps.
• [http://www.torrentbits.org/ Torrentbits.org] - A torrent tracker with leech resistance.
• [http://sourceforge.net/projects/webtorrent/ WebTorrent] - A PHP Frontend for Bittorrent, serving as a centralised BitTorrent download server.

down

• [http://www.suprnova.org/ Suprnova.org] (shutdown on the 12/19/2004)
• [http://www.corruptlogic.com/torrents/ CorruptLogic.com] - Light mirror of suprnova
• [http://caffeinated.homelinux.net/ Caffeinated Music] - Trade Friendly Music Torrents.
• [http://www.btorrents.com/ Btorrents.com] - Large BitTorrent community. Internet forum
• [http://www.lokitorrent.com/ LokiTorrent]
• [http://strikingcomic.com/torrents.html Nabasu's BitTorrent Bookmarks] - A good complete list with the biggest and the not so big trackers.
• [http://www.tvtorrents.net/ TvTorrents.net] - Tracker with RSS feed, focused mainly on tv-series.

kazaa

The bit about Kazaa and Participation Level should be a footnote or one sentence long, not a paragraph and change. That belongs in its own page (which it has) or in Kazaa; this is the BitTorrent writeup.

what's with the image

I took out this image:

animated GIF, animated MNG

because it's not at all clear what it's showing

Please sign your posts AaronSw.

It's supposed to show the distribution of data among computers sharing data via bittorrent, the botttom computer being the tracker. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 09:49, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

In that case I don't think it's very helpful. I don't see why I should sign my posts -- this isn't a personal position.

Why do you not think it's helpful? With a good explanation I think it would be very useful. And please see the signing guideline. violet/riga (t) 23:22, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A graphic could be helpful, but this one is too fast and noisy to understand. I guess I oppose the policy, then. I do sign my posts when I want people to respond to me personally, of course, but not in cases like this one where I don't want to be drawn into a discussion.

It would be much better imho if it was slowed down a lot --PopUpPirate 22:33, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it needs to be slowed down especially when it starts to get busy with all those connections (lines), but it's otherwise not a bad illustration. Some labels or a good description would also be helpful. --WurdBendur 01:15, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

The illustration should be changed because it is either wrong or misleading. There are no servers in BitTorrent, only peers. The tracker is a broker service, it does NOT provide content! The text under the animation is also wrong for the same reasons. /ama

I believe that this picture could be redone, gifs have a tendancy to be large, so make one that expresses and visually shows fragments of the "file" moving along (and more of them). I believe the gif moves too fast anyways. Perhaps showing a small example with 10 or so leeches, then zooming out to hundreds, helping to seed them. (just my 2 cents) --x1987x 22:54, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

There should be something to explain the things in the image, for example the colors. ripa 02:04, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I find this picture straight forward and easy to understand. The machine at the bottom is the initial seed for the file. It distributes the whole file to the network of peers by alternatively giving them chunks of the file. The file is represented in the grey boxes that fill up with colored squares, each square representing a chunk . The process of transferring a chunk of the file is represented by a colored line corresponding to one of the chunks. Looking at the animation you can see the way the BitTorrent protocol schedules transfers between peers.

I changed it a bit to make it more clearer. Hopefully this helps 70.56.249.159 08:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's changing way too fast to follow the individual "arrows". Animation speed should be around 5 to 10 times slower. -- anon, 2 Apr 2006

i second the above comment uri budnik 03:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Uploading to Commons

Could you upload these images to Commons so that we can use them in Wikipedia of other language?

Choking

I've seen the term "choking" used quite a bit... Can we have an explanation of it?

It refers to the state of an uploader, i.e. the thread that sends data to another peer. When a connection is choked, it means that the transmitter doesn't currently want to send anything on that link.

I've added it to the definitions section, along with some others. :-) splintax ^(talk) 14:48, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Should this page have links to copyrighted content?

In this page are many links to sites tracking specific copyrighted content, such as the South Park or Simpsons trackers. Is it legally appropriate for Wikipedia to provide links to sites which enable copyright violation?

As has been noted before, this is legal in many countries. Even in the US, I don't think there is any law preventing linking to a site that provides links to material which are protected under copyright. I suppose the question is rather whether it is appropriate for an encyclopedia to provide links to resources rather than links to other pages that describe the given topic. I think the links are helpful to anyone trying to understand what BitTorrent is. Many other wikipedia pages have external links like this. I say keep them.

i agree. the same argument (that wikipedia shouldn't provide information which can be used to infringe copyrights) holds for bittorent itself. i think it is critical that a distinction be made between Italic textinfringingItalic text copyrights and providing the Italic textabilityItalic text to do so, especially when the information provided can be used for legitimate purposes.

In the past it's been safe to link to an infringer. With the current legal climate, that might end. Caution is advisable.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.2.110.92 (talk • contribs) .

My personal opinion is that linking to generic trackers that may contain copyrighted content is OK, as long as they are notable, but linking to the Simpsons trackers etc, mentioned above, which specifically intend to infringe copyright rather than just track what users upload is unencyclopædic. splintax ^(talk) 14:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Obvious Exeem Advertisment

Under Decentralization, I saw this little beaut:

"Try it here: http://www.exeem.com/"

I pulled it out because it is clearly an advertisment. I'm also sure this text is also...

"eXeem marries the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. It also does this in a way that makes the whole system very easy to use. Something that has always prevented mass adoption by the surfing public."

Hell, the whole Exeem part should be rewritten. I'll leave the link out and let y'all decide what to do. -- Ghost Freeman 17:51, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since Exeem is in beta now, perhaps it's not premature to write an Exeem article. Most of the above can be converted into "these are the program's aims; whether it lives up to it is too early to tell and probably a matter of opinion even afterwards." -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:01, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Make sure to write how much it's a overmarketed FLOP! I still miss suprnova --x1987x 22:55, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Exeem is hardly having a major impact as yet, it seems to be not all its cracked up to be imho --PopUpPirate 00:10, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Without disputing your conclusion, I must point out that that is in fact your conclusion on the issue. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As I re-read the entry, it strikes me that the whole Exeem discussion is off-topic. Exeem doesn't purport to be a BitTorrent client, just a BitTorrent replacement incorporating some of its features. As such, I'd like to see a link to its own entry, with the discussion/debate about the program's merits there....not here. --Barte 16:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

License

Bram Cohen's website says BitTorrent is released under the MIT License, not a "BitTorrent License." -- somebody

Huh? It does say BitTorrent Open Source License, and the content most definitely is not the MIT License. -- 82.103.211.85 05:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Lokitorrent

LokiTorrent shut down today. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/10/loki_down_mpaa/ Jooler 23:22, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Speculation Article - for curious people (copied from somewhere)

On several BitTorrent and P2P forums we have noticed reports that LokiTorrent actually has been holding out hoping that the MPAA will make an offer to shut them down rather then wage on with the expensive pending lawsuit. We have decided to research this rumor ourselves to see what this popular torrent site is up to. Original this was posted on p2pforum but has vanished... We are posting this story for the public awareness. Some things we have noticed about the popular bit torrent site Lokitorrent that have raised some red flags is that they started collecting a US$30,000 legal fund to defend their site before they even were being sued! Even more odd was once they were sued they raised this amount to US$30,000 per month in legal fees plus US$4000 per month in site costs. To us this all sounds kind of fishy. Our question is why? After several failed attempts to reach Lokitorrent site admins looking for answers we went and contacted the MPAA which was more than happy to state that yes Lokitorrent and the MPAA were in negotiations and that the current offer could not be disclosed nor could the terms if the deal were to be reached. We all know bit torrent site admins take pride in their grassroots, non-profit image however most sites make huge amounts of money. Suprnova which claims to have shutdown due to MPAA pressure and to finish working on their Exeem project for their client is completely just lies. Suprnova was making alot of money. Figure if they had 2,000,000 visitors per day (which is what lokitorrent claims to have, suprnova many estimate had closer to 5,000,000) they would have made close to US$90,000 per month just from per-click ads. Do the math, (all you blog site admins will be kicking yourself because you know this is true) if even only 1.5% (my blog site even gets about 6%, so 1.5% is really low estimate) click an ad, even if by mistake they get an average of $.10 per click so they would be making US$3000 per day times 30 days, not to mention those annoying high paying popups. So now you are asking why would Suprnova shutdown if they were making so much? Well the answer is simple, with Exeem they have much lower costs as their whole system can run on 2 or 3 servers and their effort to maintain those 2 or 3 servers is alot lower as well when you consider they had more then 25 servers going at their peak. Exeem also will make them a ton of money through Cydoor. Some estimate they can easily make $1 per user per day which would put them at close to US$300,000 per day with their current user base. Cydoor is a information harvesting company. They harvest the users info to either sell to marketing companies and spammers or to use your info to hit you with ads directly for their clients. By using Exeem these companies know everything about you just by monitoring your online actions. You go to your email, they now know your email address, you fill in a form they have your name and home address, the information they can harvest is limitless and it is totally legal because when you install Exeem the user license informs you of this if you were to actually read it. If you dont believe us click here and read the part about Cydoor carefully. So why do Lokitorrent and Suprnova care so much about the public knowing about all this? They care because if you knew about it their image as being modern day Robinhoods would be tarnished and they would not be able to sucker you their user into donating Thousands of dollars to them. Our prediction is this Lokitorrent will sign a deal with the MPAA to shutdown, they will claim to shutdown saying that do to lack of donations they ca not afford to fight the case. The Lokitorrent admins save face with the BitTorrent community and continue their mufftorrent porn site and everyone goes on thinking they were just underdogs that could not afford to fight. We would actually like to hear a reply from lokitorrent or suprnova on this actually and we welcome their reply. Again this is all just still brain food and speculation at this point.

web torrent quote

The italicized paragraph in this section is odd, as there is no citation for the quote. It should probably be re-written. --Paraphelion 11:13, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I believe it's from the original WebTorrent paper here; unfortunately it 404'd when I checked it just now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:52, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

WebTorrent

WebTorrent doesn't appear to really exist. The link points to a directory for old term papers from 6.824, which is a class in distributed algorithms at MIT. Many classes such as this at MIT require students to design hypothetical applications. The author's website shows no indication of the software nor can it be found elsewhere on the web. The name WebTorrent also belongs to this bittorrent client. RSpeer 05:13, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Torrent Links

Does anyone else think all links to existing torrent sites should be removed? Given that most torrent sites are being shut down left and right these days, it's best not to advertise each address to anyone who may be reading. Ofcourse, by typing this, I'm not saying that I support any downloading, because I have a NPOV. - PSYCH 09:34, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• No. Elfguy 18:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Headline text

I don't know why, but someone found relevant to remove info about eXeem, LokiTorrent and Suprnova. They are (or were) very important aspects of BitTorrent. --Jolivierld 21:33, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, you'd know why if you read this talk page. eXeem was getting too much discussion on the BitTorrent page for something that actually isn't and never was part of BitTorrent, which is why it has its own article now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:06, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Other Data

"and some other data." seems very unessesary. Phoenix Hacker

Disambiguation

Some people may be confused that BitTorrent is the name of a program, yet it is also possible to use BitTorrent by using a program called something else (e.g. Azureus). I think this could be made clearer in the first paragraph, perhaps with "and the success of the protocol has led to many other clients being created by others". Or perhaps even by creating BitTorrent (protocol) and BitTorrent (client).

External links

40% of this article are external links. We definately have to remove 90% of these. Wikipedia is not DMoz. --minghong 11:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

True, but you just removed all the links to the most active torrent sites, we should at least have the most active ones. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 12:16, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

You know, it's hard to define "most". When you add back a few "most active" sites, someone else will add a few more. The list will be expanded again. So the best solution is to not list at not. I believe people won't come to Wikipedia looking for warez, fan-sub, pr0n, etc, right? --minghong 18:54, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Your argument doesn't hold water, we do just fine with external links on other topics which have alot of websites dedicated to those topics, we can remove obvious advertisement and prune other links by consensus just like we always have. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 17:45, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

shouldn't we be weary posting any links to active torrent sites, given that most are being shut down? Do we really want to advertise these sites to the wrong people?

Large ones like the pirate bay frequently make tech news, you really can't justify a bittorrent article without a mention of some of them, since they're an integrated part of BT culture as it were. –Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 04:30, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

I agree that links should be included, but if much of the article was links (which

I'm monitoring the page for link spamming. I believe it is reasonable to including external links to notable trackers, but many people are linking their own trackers (well, anon users are, I assume they're their own) for publicity, it seems. splintax ^(talk) 14:53, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

50% of net traffic

i read recently that the bittorrent protocol now accounts for over 50% of total net traffic. i think on /. - if anyone could source this statistic - would be worth quoting.

Try the new link to InfoAnarchy. SqueakBox 22:50, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Check your sources: I followed the links that you've provided and they say something different: bittorrent accounts for 53% of all P2P-traffic and 35% of total net traffic. From these numbers one can calculate that P2P accounts for 66% of all net traffic. 193.190.14.94 09:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Search engines

Should we have a search engine here or not? Can we discuss the issue rather than reverting, we don't want an edit war. I propose we don't have one until this issue is discussed here, SqueakBox 22:49, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I put this at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), and got this response:

It has been suggested we should not put a BitTorrent search engine external link in the article because of the legal ambiguity of BitTorrent. Ideas? SqueakBox 23:30, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

There is no legal ambiguity about BitTorrent. It would be like making FTP illegal. If the site itself is subject to a CRIMINAL case then definitly no, but since all these things are civil suits, I don't think it's a problem. IANAL, ofcours, just my two cents gkhan 23:40, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

1. There is no legal ambiguity about BitTorrent. In no way is BitTorrent itself is illegal. However, it is very clear that people who run search engines will be prosecuted and shut down. These sites are obviously illegal by modern standards.
2. Since BitTorrent itself is running a search engine (for as long as it can...) there is no real need to include links to other ones.
3. This amounts to link spam. Wikipedia is not a repository of links, and these sites are in not directly relevant to BitTorrent. It would be like including a link to Google in every article. —Sean κ. + 03:37, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On the strength of this I am returning the search engine, as I fully agrree, SqueakBox 23:46, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

While in some countries there have been rulings against linking sites that link to copyrighted material, in the US it should be fine I think. However, that's not the issue. Wikipedia is not a web directory. If this was an article about that specific Torrent search engine the link would be appropriate, per Wikipedia:External links. However here's it not the official link to a web entity, neither is it an information source. That's what the external links section is for. --W(t) 01:14, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

I think the link is very informative as it allows the reader to understand BitTorrent that much better, by searching for something, than would be the case otherwise, SqueakBox 02:17, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, not buying it. External links is for content, not services. If we can't explain what bittorrent is in the article we've got bigger problems than not having a torrent search engine in the external links. --W(t) 02:38, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

I'm buying it. A web directory is simply a database of links, however this page contains much more additional content describing the subject. The mere inclusion of these links does not render this page as a "directory", as you suggest. It's not like this is a print encyclopedia where we need to conserve space. --kizzle 07:11, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

The official site, the first external link, is also a search engine. Are you suggesting we remove that too, and if we remove on we should move all 3, as your objections cover all 3 links. Whois is full of whois search engines, IP address is full of IP search locator sites, to give 2 examples. In my opinion by offering links to these engines we are very much helping our reader and doing our share towards disseminating the knowledge of everything. For me as a reader these external links have added value to these articles, and if we take tem away we make the articles less informative, SqueakBox 05:57, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

The link to the official site is itsself information about bittorrent, namely "What is it's official site?". (It's also item one of what to link on the excellent Wikipedia:External links). If we're going to link madtorrent, why not link isohunt? and btbot? and bitoogle? and yotoshi? and ... ? --W(t) 03:24, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

That is what happens at Whois and IP address, and I believe all these other dsites should be linked here. Lets give our readers choice. And grouping together lots of rival sites links is not spamming, SqueakBox 03:48, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Can we have a debate about external links, and not just blank them. Why deny them to our readers (disapproving of BitTorrent is no reason, SqueakBox 14:50, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

I think that having a link to one search engine would be legal and helpful to readers. Any more than that just adds clutter and detracts from the information we are trying to provide. coyote376 04:21 10 Jun 05 (UTC)

Maybe create an article about bit torrent search engines..keeping track not only of active ones, but ones that have gotten take down notices and by who, etc. I agree, the search engine links don't belong here. --Paraphelion 14:59, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Given the legal controversies around the search engines creating a separate article sounds an excellent idea-and of course the search engine links would then live there (or not) but as a separate issue from this article. So strong support if someone will do it, 16:10, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Since there seems to be an agreement that for the most part the search engines don't belong there, I am removing them. coyote376 23:37 13 Jun 05 (UTC)

There is no consensus, and even less for your spamming stance of only having MadTorrent search engine alone, SqueakBox 21:49, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

There may or may not be consensus, but at the very least there is a very large majority against including the links, at least three people have removed them (and that's not including the anons). --W(t) 21:51, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

The discussion here indicates there is not a consensus. How, given the above, can you possibly claim it is just me, SqueakBox 21:54, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Read back, it's everyone arguing against including them and you arguing for including them. Whether or not there is consensus against including them or not is subjective, but there very clearly is a strong majority against including them. --W(t) 21:56, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)

Legality of BitTorrent search engines

If BitTorrent search engines are to be chucked on grounds of dubious legality, I would like to see some greater argument as to why. I guess it is because these search engines actually store links to sites which violate copyright; but the same could be said of Google. A search engine simply lists what exists on the web, after all; it does not encourage users to search for particular individual terms. There are perfectly legitimate uses for a Torrent search engine; again, surely it is the users, not the provider, whose actions create issues of legality or illegality. -- WebDrake 17:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Tell that to the sites that have been shut down.

I'm not disputing that sites with search engines have been shut down. I just think it should be a point of discussion on the main page as to what the real legal issues and history are as regards BitTorrent search engines. After all, a lot of the time that websites shut down it's because Big People come down from on high like a ton of bricks and it's easier to cave in than to fight what might be a winning case in the long run. WebDrake 19:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Legal Issues Removed

I removed the "Legal Issues" section because it is not NPOV. Although BitTorrent can be use to infringe copyright, so can many other things such as FastTrack, Gnutella, eDonkey 2000, and even things such as DVD, CD-R, and the VCR. None of those articles have a whole section devoted to illegal uses of the technology. The only mentions of Intellectual Property issues are technical measures used to prevent infringement. In a broader scope, things such as cars, knives, and dice have illegal uses, and none of those are mentioned in the respective articles. The inclusion of a section here is simply FUD. --160.102.72.223 1 July 2005 16:06 (UTC)

In light of this week's supreme court decision, I think legal issues are very relevant. In particular, if a program is marketed to infringe copyright (and, yes, I think Bram is a bloody fool for putting a search engine on the official BT webpage), then it can be legally liable for copyright infringement done with the program. This in mind, I restored the "legal issues" section. Samboy 29 June 2005 07:07 (UTC)

First of all, the inclusion of the search engine on the BitTorrent home pages does not constitute endorsement of copyright infringement, see the search engine TOS at [1]. Pay special attetion to sections 2 (agreement not to use the site to do illegal things, including copyright infringement), 4 (limitation of liablity), 5 (links are generated through an automated process, BitTorrent has no control), and 12 (DMCA safe harbor notification.) This clearly shows that BitTorrent is not marketed to encourage copyright violations. Also, you did not respond to any of my initial objections, and they are still valid. If you want to place a short section regarding the supreme court decision on the page, that would be okay, and I wouldn't revert it if it was NPOV, but I don't think that it is really that relavant. I will revert the legal issues section for now though. (BTW, I am the intial objector, I just forgot to sign my post) --160.102.72.223 1 July 2005 16:06 (UTC)

OK, it's your POV that any concern over legal issues with BitTorrent is FUD. The NPOV and therefore the Wikipedian way to handle it is to make sure the Legal Issues section contains the calmest, most concise, most fact-based explanation of why fuss over legal issues should be regarded as unnecessary. It is not to remove the section, and thus any examination of the issues, entirely. -- Antaeus Feldspar 1 July 2005 23:45 (UTC)

Etiquette

Since the Etiquette section mentioned it is considered to polite to upload as much data as you have downloaded, I added a paragraph on why many consider such a policy a bad idea. I didn't spend much time on it, so if someone wants to clean it up or better explain the math behind it, feel free. I think both items should stay because it is considered polite by many users of BT to seed until a 1.00 ratio but many users also are well aware that it is rather impossible to accomplish due to the math involved.

I think that most of this should be stripped out as it applies to all P2P applications, not just BitTorrent. We should merge the section into P2P. violet/riga (t) 3 July 2005 12:50 (UTC)

The information on the math involved in reaching a 1:1 ratio is purely BitTorrent. And since BitTorrent, more than any other form of P2P, is concerned with the ratio of data shared to data downloaded I think it should stay here with possibly the addition of a similar section to the general P2P article. 69.3.92.105 8 July 2005 17:04 (UTC)

That bit it, yes, and I agree it should be left in. However, many other P2P systems have implemented anti-leech systems and much of the content can be generalised and placed in the P2P article. violet/riga (t) 19:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Torrent Search Engines

I think its not fair that users like SqueakBox, Weyes delete torrent search engines. Bittorrent lucks search option and just giving Cohen's site which doesn't index most of the torrent sites is one sided... If the sites doesn't contain any adware/spyware and popups and offers good search for torrents it deserves to be in the links section

Wikipedia is not a web directory. --W(t) 13:46, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

I agree with you and not Weyes on this one. I am deleting any stray search engine links because one link alone is spam for that company (ie none is better than one), but I do believe we should replace all the bitTorrent search engines or create a new article BitTorrent search engine and put them there, SqueakBox 14:54, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Jun 22 Yes wiki is not a web directory that why it has information about a subject not just links... links complement the information If we take your reasoning Weyes then we should delete all links going outside of wiki

Nope, just those not per Wikipedia:External links. --W(t) 03:10, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

In light of this week's US supreme court decision, I don't think we should be linking to these kinds of search engines. Bit Torrent was designed to make downloading of Linux distributions possible without overloading FTP servers; I have used it to download Fedora Core two and Fedora Core three. While people do use BitTorrent to "steal music and movies over the internet" (these are not my words; there are Ted Bridis' words from today's newspaper), I don't think we should encourage that activity by posting links in this article. Samboy 29 June 2005 05:13 (UTC)

Requested RFC for search engine issue

I posted a RFC for the search engine edit war, as the only consensus that seemes to be reached is that there is no consensus. We've been debating this for too long, it's time to get it resolved, and this is a good step towards doing that. I myself am undecided on the issue, but I do feel that it needs to be decided one way or the other.

I woukld like Weyes or someone to explain exactly why in Wikipedia:External links it prohibits the search engine links. See the end of Talk:IP address#ip2location, SqueakBox 23:23, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

1. First phrase of the first line: "Wikipedia is not a web directory", quoting from WP:NOT
2. BitTorrent search engines meet none of the criteria in the "What should be linked to" section
3. BitTorrent search engines meet none of the criteria in the "Maybe OK to add" section
4. BitTorrent search engines get taken down for copyright reasons all the time. In general, external links should be to sites that are likely to be there in a few years.

That enough reasons for not including the links? --Carnildo 01:39, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the BitTorrent search engine until this situation is resolved. None or many but one one is pure spam. I have also delinked the search engines on thios page to avoid similar spam, etc charges. I will respond to Carnildo later, SqueakBox June 28, 2005 14:37 (UTC)

Ok, I agree with your none or all idea. That does make sense. But what happened to the Official BT Homepage? That site is not *primarily* a search engine. The *main* purpose of the site is information about BitTorrent stright from the creator. I think we should continue to include the BT Official Site in the external links. coyote376 June 29, 2005 01:08 (UTC)

Agreed, the bittorrent homepage should be linked obviously (heck, it's the first entry of WP:EL). When was this removed? --W(t) June 29, 2005 01:19 (UTC)

It is very much of a search engine. Keeping your favourite search engine and removing the rest sounds like spamming to me, SqueakBox June 29, 2005 01:24 (UTC)

It is the official homepage of bittorrent, there's both WP:EL and a huge pile of precedent saying this should be linked. If you object to it being linked as being a search engine, I've removed the description that says it's a search engine too (that's not what we're linking it for after all). --W(t) 29 June 2005 01:30 (UTC)

I have replaced it with their FAQ. Much more informative, and no search engine in site. Given the controversty over the search engines it is not acceptable to just have the BitTorrent one,

We link to the subject homepage for all subjects that have one, there is no reason for this article to be different. --W(t) 29 June 2005 01:36 (UTC)

I'm against linking to these kinds of search engines; BitTorrent is for downloading popular open source software without overloading FTP and web servers. Any other use is, I hope, not endorsed by Bram Cohen. In light of the supreme court decision, any other position is very dangerous. Samboy 29 June 2005 05:17 (UTC)

Seems clear that BT homepage should be linked to, and no other search engines. Link to BT homepage is necessary for informational purposes about what BT itself is, and if that link leads to a search engine, well, them's the breaks. Dcarrano 29 June 2005 06:05 (UTC)

I agree. If Bram wants to shoot himself in the foot by marketing BT as a copyright infringement application, we shouldn't stop linking to his page. Samboy 29 June 2005 06:49 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to link to the home page when all it contains is a search engine and how to download the BT; in other words it contains no useful info, but it does mean we as Wikipedia endorse Bram's BT search engine and noone else's, SqueakBox June 29, 2005 14:21 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't endorse anything. We merely provide information, and in the case of subject homepages, it's information we've decided we want to provide for all articles. --W(t) 29 June 2005 19:43 (UTC)

Legality section

This article has about a screen and a half of discussion on legality, starting with "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."

Yet our Gun or Pistol articles don't contain text like "The pistol was used to kill 12 students in the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999". If they did, articles on weaponary would each be hundreds of pages long.

Do we have an elevated "expectation of extraordinary legality" for software that doesn't apply to other tools? Should BitTorrent be critisized here because it doesn't prevent illegal actions? Ojw 6 July 2005 19:55 (UTC)

Following section is phrased poorly: "BitTorrent, like any other computer tool capable of copying files, can be used to copy files without the permission of the copyright holder. Indeed, some might say that BitTorrent has become famous for its ability to do just that." First of all, BitTorrent itself isn't capable of copying anything - it is a file transfer protocol. For the same reason it isn't a tool Italic textper seItalic text, unless we're talking about the client. Something like "BitTorrent, like any other file transfer protocol, can be used to distribute files without the permission of the copyright holder. This ethically questionable use of the protocol is the main reason for its success." I removed the weasel "some might say" bit too. Although I think I replaced it with another weasel bit... Khokkanen 18:12, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I changed the section I mentioned. Now it's about a protocol instead of a copying tool. Otherwise it was fine so I left it as it was. Khokkanen 10:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Vulnerabilities

Aren't torrent clients susceptible to viruses? Viruses can be disguised, can they not?

But this isn't specific to BitTorrent. --kizzle 20:35, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

They're no more vulnerable than any other method of file transfer. The one critisim against BitTorrent which actually has some truth in it is that a file cannot be scanned for viruses or spyware until it has been fully downloaded, whereas with traditiona peer-to-peer downloads files often can be scanned if only a portion has been received. However any good virus scanner or antispyware program will scan all files on opening/execution, making BitTorrent no more secure or insecure than the operating system itself.

On the plus side, due to the SHA hashing it is extremely unlikely a malevolent party can offer files through BitTorrent which are undistinguishable from the real deal. User:Anárion/sig 21:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

BitTorrent is much safer than for instance [Internet Explorer] or Mozarella [Firefox]. If you run software without scanning them first you might as well ask for your computer to be compromised. --Marco 21:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Nevertheless, I think this is an important topic that should be addressed in the article. Such software in my experience is often banned from university networks (and this ban is heavily policed!), partly to stave off lawsuits in cases of copyright infringement but also on security grounds. The precise quote from one sysadmin stating this policy was, "If you use these programs under Windows you expose yourself to viruses and malware, thus jeopardizing our whole network. You may "by mistake" or on purpose download material that is not free, which can result in economical consequences for you, the Institute or the University." It's therefore necessary for the article to have a clear statement of what the risks are and how best to avoid them.

One particular clarification: you cite the SHA hashing as providing protection but of course this is only as good as the honesty of the original provider. If someone deliberately sets up a Torrent with a virus included in the original data, the SHA hashing will let this go through just fine, right? I would imagine this must be quite a risk, particularly with respect to those naughty, naughty people who specialise in hosting copyright-protected data they should not be sharing. -- WebDrake

You would imagine that, but try downloading and checking out stuff from common trackers for a while. But it's certainly possible. Also, a copy of the official client has been offered for download from an unofficial site with a malware wrapper around it. --24.2.110.92 16:44, 1 October 2005

Is it SHA? I thought it was MD5. In which case, it can be spoofed with collisions, but if it's SHA (especially SHA2), then things are okay. Could someone clarify this, maybe mention it in the article? --Sycomonkey 18:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Bittorrent uses SHA-1. That is, the 160 bit (20 byte) SHA hashsum. (Not SHA-0 and not SHA-2 etc.) Although some minor vulnerabilities has been found recently in SHA-1 it should be strong enought for some time to come. And yes, it "only" guarantees that the file you get is the exact file(s) the torrent-file was made from. If the original torrent-file maker used bad files, you get the exact same bad files. But an outside attacker can not afterwards insert bad data into an existing torrent / swarm. --David Göthberg 02:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Rephrasing Eitquette section

The etiquette section contains a few "strained" sentances. I would like to propose a rephrase of it, but first I would like to clear up some facts. The section currently says the following among other things:

"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."

This seems misleading at best, and incorrect at worst. Exactly how would one be 'hurting' anything by contributing more than one has downloaded? The only interpretation of the above I can think of, is that it is 'hurtful' with respect to attaining the 'perfect' swarm, as described before it. That is, if one is looking to distribute a file in a way that minimizes the overhead for all parties involved, everyone should share exactly as much as they have downloaded. One would be 'hurting' the perfection of the distribution process by contributing 'too much'. Is this what the author meant?

But beyond that I cannot see how it is correct in the general case. In practice, contributing to a swarm (in the general case) by seeding is never going to have any kind of negative impact on the average download speed of the swarm, regardless of whether other people are leechers or not. The above makes it sound like contributing more than 1:1 would be a bad thing even if everyone had the capability and will to contribute exactly 1:1.

It is incorrect. I can't even understand what the author of that passage is basing it on, but I'm sure it's not bittorrent.

Scode 13:21, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Problems with this article

I'm not disputing that this article is pretty well-written or factually most likely correct, but from the way it is written it seems to only explain BitTorrent to an audience of people who have a pretty good idea of what BitTorrent is in the first place. Otherwise it is extremely confusing, and doesn't really provide a simply overview for other users:

"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 and 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."

I think what is needed with this and many other technical (especially internet-related articles) is a simple overview section that non-technical people can understand. This is not a personal request - I'm a programmer and have little problem with this article, but I imagine most users would have no idea what BitTorrent actually is, and the steps required to use it: 1. Download the Application 2. Find a BitTorrent file to download (how?) 3. Open the file Understand the meaning of Seed, Peer. --Macgruder

BT Clients and software that use the BT protocol

These two should be split into two different sections. While some software might take advantage of the BT protocol, they are far from from actual clients.

Does anyone else have any thoughts? - Vernon

I quite agree. You can start with a copy of the BitTornado page, since they share a lot. I suggest the page BitTorrent (Client) or BitTorrent (Torrent Client). 67.171.74.109 05:31, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, look what I found: BitTorrent client - someone already created it. I'm going to change a few links that refer to the client to this page instead of the one about the protocol.

Hmm, I'm not sure I did this correctly. First the infobox doesn't work in it's new home. And I think I should be using (client) to disambig.

Well, I fixed the infobox. If the new page does get a new name the infobox templates I created should be deleted.

Etiquette - maths

Could someone explain why the 1.00 everywhere except the last two at 0.50 is "better" than an even spread of the share ratios (put another way, isn't this breaching NPOV)? That is to say, if you have a seed who uploads 1 full copy of the file and then retires, with n downloaders, then the n downloaders will download n copies of the file and upload n-1 copies, all told. You get (an average) share ratio of (n-1)/n, or 1 - 1/n each, which is definitely below 1.00, assuming no-one else seeds until necessary. (This also strikes me as being a far more intuitive way of approaching the maths required, and shows what I think is a counter-intuitive result: the more clients on the network, the more those clients need to upload.)

Your math looks more correct.

81.132.61.108 16:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

That is because it is correct. Parts of the post above should be merged into the main article. I am thinking specifically about this part:

[...] if you have a seed who uploads 1 full copy of the file and then retires, with n downloaders, then the n downloaders will download n copies of the file and upload n-1 copies, all told. You get (an average) share ratio of (n-1)/n, or 1 - 1/n each, which is definitely below 1.00 [...]

That part is correct.

[...]assuming no-one else seeds until necessary[...]

But I do have objections. The average in this example is calculated for the n and is not affected by anyones additional seeding among the n. The individual ratio for the clients in the n swarm is though. If someone seeds indefinately (or because of assymetrical upload speeds becomes an early seeder) and exceeds the average for the swarm, the average for the rest of the swarm (the peers minus the new seeds remaining) will sink. It will tend to approach zero if this process of recalculationg the average for the remainder of the swarm each time a new seed is created, unless the torrent continues indefinately, and unless the number of peers never decrease, something it will never ever do.

All in all, ratios are in my opinion an effort to use torrents as a permanent storage space, something it was never intended to do. Maintaining unrealistic share ratios is dubious at best and harmful to the swarm at worst. In my opinion the only realistic share ratio to monitor would be 0.5. Certainly not 1.0. And 0.5 would correspond to a torrent with one seed and two peers. The average among the peers would be 0.5 in this case. However, the two may have an individual share ratio different from 0.5 depending on upload/download speeds. The extreme case would be one client at 1.0 and the other at 0.0. I hope this expansion of this topic has enlightened the unenlightened few and got someone pumped up to correct the main page.

--Spinoza12 22:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And upon re-reading this part (etiquette) in the main article I must point out that the way it is currently written is simply incorrect, and not just incomplete as I initially thought. --Spinoza12 22:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

File Discussion

Does anybody know any discussion boards discussing a bunch of particular torrents?

OH... like pirate sites... anonymous comment... jeeze, go search google news.--x1987x 02:16, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

External Links- again

The external links section has gotten out of hand again. Again, Wikipedia is for information, not lists of links. We need to remove most of it. Per our previous discussion, I'm removing all the torrent search engines. For now, I've left the forums listed. Not sure how everyone feels about leaving these, but I'll leave it up for discussion. I'm also taking down the "Registration Sites" as they appear to be search engines that also provide reviews on the files.

I removed the most recently listed guide because it is a repeat of information already linked to. I also think the entire sections about "Technicial help and discussions", "Technical analyses", and "Legal" links should be removed, but I'll leave that up for discussion before I delete them. My reasoning comes from the Wikipedia rules on external links. coyote376 19:41, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I've removed a few external links and a couple of unneccesary headings. We don't need to become a repository for every BitTorrent FAQ and tracker that there is. That's what Google is for. Kevin 04:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I put the BitTorrent.com link back - we've not been squatted (I'm VP engineering at BitTorrent) Trapper 21:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy of list of clients

At List of BitTorrent clients we have a rather nice separated piece of data IMHO. Why don't we just get rid of the equivalent list in this page? --logixoul 17:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Good idea - but make sure all the information from this page is actually in the other page as well. List of BitTorrent clients really shouldn't exist at all - see bug 3744: Lists and comparisons. Brian Jason Drake 13:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion for opening paragraph

Hi! A quick suggestion for an improvement to the intro. I suggested to somebody whose big media file is getting slammed that they offer a BitTorrent copy. They were afraid that it was like other p2p systems and that nobody would come to their site to read their intro before getting the file. The opening bit is great from a technical level, but I think it would be even better if it made clear that it's just a file transfer protocol, albeit one that's more scalable. --William Pietri 16:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone vandalized the main article

Some sentences were vandalized and I don't know who to tell because I am new.

---

I reverted back to an earlier unvandalized version. I hope I fixed it and din't make it worse.

is bittorrent still free?

i have browsed to bittorrent.com site and i have seen something like payment!

BitTorrent is still free. There is a page on the website soliciting donations, but these are not at all required. --bbatsell | « give me a ring » 23:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, my fault. I was on bittorent.com :)

A great deal of duplicate material...

"Sharing Files" and "How BitTorrent Works", the first two sections of the article, contain a great amount of material that is identical. Almost three full paragraphs worth.

I'm sure that's not intentional - and as I'm not an authority on BitTorrent, nor am I much of a wikier, I'm leaving it, but I felt I should put something here.

Dangerous wording

In May 2005, on the same day the tracker website elitetorrents.org was shut down, Bram Cohen released a new beta version of BitTorrent that eliminated the need for Web site hosting of centralized servers known as "trackers".

Readers connect dots that shouldn't be connected here. This wording suggests a cause/effect relationship that is unprovable and biased for this supposedly "unbiased" encyclopedia.

I agree, somewhat. But could you word it in any other natural/easy-to-read way? Because I can't. --logixoul 15:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the EliteTorrents info doesn't need to be there at all.. splintax ^(talk) 13:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Aight, now that you said that, I noticed it was in the Copyright Enforcement section as well. I'm removing it from the problematic place. --logixoul 20:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

API: PEP link trouble

Under the subsection for API there is an external link to PEP, though with the entire URL and one of the brackets visible. I tried correcting it just now, but found that it is actually typed correctly and for whatever reason not displaying itself as it should. Does anyone know how to fix this? Take a look at it if you're not sure what I mean. 134.114.59.41 05:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It was an earlier link, which I have fixed, but it still reads badly. I don't know enough about it to improve the grammar. --Mike Van Emmerik 11:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Leech section

It currently says leeches are on asynchronous connections, but it seems like asymmetric makes more sense (i.e. download speed much faster than upload). Also another reason for accidental leeching might be firewall or port-mapping rules the user is unaware of, either in their Linksys-or-whatever router or a VoIP terminal adapter. However, I'm not clueful enough about the current state of the client software to know how well the clients deal with outgoing-initiated-only connections. Ttwaring 17:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Asymmetric is correct. From what I can see, you are no more likely to leech if you're unconnectable. That would just slow your upload and download down, since you can't connect to peers. (It's not like there are more connectable seeds than peers.. well, on average, that wouldn't be logical, though there could be some correlation between newbies not seeding and not being connectable..) splintax ^(talk) 13:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Terminology

Availability

Is the definition of availability correct? From the definition, what i can understand is if there are only two peers with 50% of data each(both having same pieces) & no seeds, then the availability is 1. But the actual availability is 0.500. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I was thinking the same thing. Ill change it in a week if nobody gives a source of the opposite Martijn Hoekstra

Swarm/Peer/Seeder

First a Seeder is defined as a Peer who is sharing a complete copy, then in the Swarm section the size of the swarm is defined as the number of peers plus the number of Seeders. I changed this to accomodate the Seeder definition. If incorrect please also redefine Seeder. Martijn Hoekstra

Broadcatching

Re the blurb on "broadcatching", it might be worth mentioning that the torrent indexer site TorrentSpy supports RSS feeds of torrents that are in specific categories (you can get RSS feeds of those categories). Just a thought. - nathanrdotcom 01:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Torrent links cut down too much

The links to outside torrent sites have been consistently cut down, over and over, the past couple weeks. And it's way too short now. Some people objected to the links entirely for legality reasons, but most people seemed fine with them and said it was legal. Others objected to some of the links which explicitly mention copyright material, such as the Simpson's torrent. But in some cases, it seems like links were removed for no real reason, but I'm too lazy to go back through each page of the history to figure it out. I'm putting back up some of the links that were removed. If anyone has any idea why any of them shouldn't be put back up, say so here. 71.126.151.245 23:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Linking to sites like Demonoid is a clear violation of at least the spirit of WP:C, and, I contend, the fact of WP:C. Links should be good faith examined to determine if they infringe copyrights, with the assumption that a torrent of a copyrighted file infringes copyrights. I will once again remove those links which I know from good faith examinations to breach WP:C. Pti 14:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem, however, is that the site owners over there do not control the content. So, for instance, Wikipedia links to Anarchopedia in the "Wikipedia is not" article. Technically, I could post copyrighted material on Anarchopedia right now, or many people could post tons of copyrighted material. The official bittorrent search engine contains copyrighted material. And heck, since Google and Archive.org index random sites and quotes text in them (as well as keeping cached copies), then they keep copyrighted material as well. I think that the difference is that if a site EXPLICITLY hosts copyrighted material, in the sense of openly encouraging it, that it's a violation of WP:C. So, yeah, some of the links should come down.

However, I don't see why Demonoid should come down, but not others. I mean, Demonoid doesn't explicitly say it's for illegal filesharing. And there's just as much illegal content on Demonoid as there is on Empornium.us and The Pirate Bay, two links you didn't remove. One could even argue that The Pirate Bay should be removed too, because their name, the "PIRATE" bay directly implies that they're promoting illegal activity. Among other things that they've said and done. 71.126.139.169 16:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Those are (or were, the last time I looked and the last time I edited) internal links to wikipedia articles about the sites, rather than direct links to the sites. It's possible the articles contain links to the sites, but I'll leave those articles to someone else because I'm a bum.

I really do not buy the argument that e.g. demonoid does not control the content. A number of the sites I removed, I believe, claim that they remove copyrighted material when notified of it; however, they merely do this in an attempt to avoid legal consequences. They still knowingly participate in piracy.

Pti 18:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Protocol

I was wondering what protocol BitTorrent uses. Is it TCP or UDP?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.49.215.174 (talk • contribs)

As far as I can understand, TCP. [2] - File:Ottawa flag.png nathanrdotcom ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 01:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I came here wondering the same thing. It appears to be TCP -- added to the article. -- Jon Dowland 13:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, BitTorrent uses TCP for most data, though clients with DHT or UDP tracker support do use UDP for those purposes. However, I think it's more accurate to describe BitTorrent as "utilizing HTTP", since HTTP is a subset of TCP... splintax ^(talk) 14:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

How does a user connect to other peers?

I get how other p2p programs are able to connect and download from users, because they're all done manually. I was wondering however that how BTclients are able to connect to some peers and start downloading, while it doesn't connect to other peers? someone care to fill me in? (Cloud02 19:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC))

Not entirely sure I understand your question, however in some torrent clients there are adjustable limits on how many peers it will connect to. Also, some peers will always be 'unconnectable' (usually behind a firewall or NAT box, and no TCP port forwarding has been configured). Two unconnectable peers can't communicate with each other. --ozzmosis 02:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "they're all done manually"? BT uses the tracker to communicate with peers - the tracker gives you a list of IP addresses to contact, and the BT client performs a handshake with them to initiate communication. splintax ^(talk) 14:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes you are not able to connect to every peer. Sometimes the peer just logged off so you would be trying to connect to a peer that isn't running BT. Also Azureus is making a system that computes where you are on the internet. http://azureus.aelitis.com/wiki/index.php/Vivaldi_View AgentSmith15 02:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

External links: trackers and indexers

Moving trackers to Bittorrent_tracker and indexers to Bittorrent_Search_Engine. Why didn't you think of that. -- Dodo bird 18:43, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Swarm numbers

What do the Swarm numbers mean that some torrent websites give to their torrents? Examples: (1,11) or (2,29). --Abdull 17:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that's seeds to peers (i.e. 1 seed to 11 peers or 2 seeds to 29 peers). FYI, be prepared for a really slow download if that's the case. 204.38.191.99

Formula for Calculation of Average Speed

For a recent assignment (on Bittorrent) I thought up a Formula that calculates the average optimal speed for a Bittorrent connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rformula.JPG

S(A) - Speed of the Average connection L - Number of Leechers in the Swarm S - Number of Seeders in the Swarm U - Average upstream connection speed.

Bluetooth/Bit Torrent thoughts

This is probably a dumb question (Google didn't answer it for me, which is always a bad sign...):

Is Bluetooth limited to files transferred via the Internet? Strikes me there might be some benefit in implementing it in other file transfer situations such as e.g. Bluetooth. As I understand it, there are two useful characteristics to BT:

i. distribution of data to reduce loads on servers

ii. the ability to stop and restart downloads without breaking

Let's say your gaming device has a Bluetooth version of BT built into it, which runs in the background. Place a few Bluetooth seeding points in e.g. train stations and provide users with free new movies, clips and games updates on the fly (kinda like an ongoing Easter egg feature). Allow users to watch the progress of the updates and charge them for downloads completed over the Internet (works as a teaser ad, like with movies).

Is this feasible? Attractive? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.72.169.116 (talk • contribs)

Would be much more feasible to use a wifi access point (which Google will stream ads through in their new public wifi thing) since very few laptops come with built-in bluetooth but just about every laptop comes with built-in wifi. Cynical 08:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

SXSW music package

Hey guys, I didn't quite know where to put this- it's a little daunting for a first time Wikipedia commenter. I tried not to destroy anything or make a mess. Anyway I was reading the article and I thought it would be good to have the new SXSW music package of 1000 mp3s added to the 'legal uses of BitTorrent' section. It counters the argument that BitTorrent cannot be used for the music industries benefit.. this allowed 1000 artists to be discovered for free and will help many unsigned bands get much exposure and many of them after attending the festival and having their song in this package have recieved record deals. This means that the record industry will profit off the back of a BitTorrent project effectively. The link was publicised on the BitTorrent.com homepage in association with SXSW and I am really enjoying the free tunes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.209.52.170 (talk • contribs)

Prodigem clarification?

The section

The BitTorrent web-service Prodigem has made available an ability to any web application capable of parsing XML through its standard Representational State Transfer (REST) based interface.

confused me. An ability to what? Ducky 00:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Material coming and going?

What looked like interesting and potentially valid information was added by 87.103.87.220 [3] without edit comment, and admittedly without any citations either. But then, also without comment and with no cited dis-proving to boot, it was reverted half an hour later by Cynical. What's going on? Is this article 'finished' and no more detail is needed? Did Cynical manage to prove to his/her satisfation that that information was false? If so, why no comment to that effect? Surely a {{fact}} tag could have been added to encourage us all - including the user at 87.103.87.220 - to try to verify the information? Maybe it didn't suit Cynical's POV? Just seems a bit harsh and negative to me. --Nigelj 20:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Link spam in 'Authorized use of BitTorrent'

I tidied up this section a few days ago, but as I said in my edit comment at the time, it is an obvious honey-pot for link-spam. There is no way, as time goes by, that this article can hold a link to every legitimate .torrent file that someone, somewhere, would like to publicise. Maybe we need a few most-notable examples here, then a link to a new page where people can compete to list all their links, or maybe not even that - just remove the honey-pot. What do others think? --Nigelj 10:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Security Issues

It would be nice if somebody could go into detail about security issues of BitTorrent. A specfic comparison to other P2P applications would be of great benefit to those of us trying to convince our colleagues of the safety of using BitTorrent to distribute large video files.

Error Message in References

References 12 and 13 show up to me as: ^ Error on call to template:cite web: Parameters url and title must be specified ^ Error on call to template:cite web: Parameters url and title must be specified Mathiastck 05:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Revamped How BitTorrent Works Section

Encouraged by the 5th pillar of wikidom, I was (perhaps foolishly) bold in updating the How BitTorrent Works section. I found the who section informative, but it seemed to lack a clear begining or end. I sucked what I felt to be the main juice of the article out and reformed it to add in a begining and an end, and reword some of the more difficult passages. I appologize to the original author if I stepped on your toes, I tried to maintain your voice as much as possible while adding more structure and references.

I hope it pleases. --Justinwiley 15:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Broadcatching exists

There is a brief segment on broadcatching as a thing to come, but TVTAD (http://www.tvtad.com/) does indeed do what that paragraph describes, listens to an RSS feed for new releases of series, and auto-starting them for download. If someone could add that to the wiki, itd be great.

85.164.1.105 10:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Complete Rewrite Of Etiquette Section Needed

The Etiquette section discussing the theoretical impossibility of a 1.0 ratio on a single torrent is of no practical relevance to anyone and a pointless thought experiment. Therefore I suggest it be completely rewritten or simply removed. It is true that it is impossible for every member of a swarm on a single torrent to reach a 1.0 or higher ratio. However, noone asks you to since most people realize that it is impossible. Private trackers track only a global ratio which is the sum of anything a user uploads or downloads on any torrent he participates in. A user might not get the chance to seed back a specific torrent at all remaining with a 0.0 ratio for that torrent but then get a 2.0 ratio on another torrent which makes up for it. It is perfectly possible for all users of a tracker to have a 1.0 or higher global ratio, both in theory and pracice. Unless someone has major objections, I will rewrite the Etiquette section, removing the irrelevant discussion of ratio on a single torrent.

Begin new comments from --Spinoza12 23:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC) Please see my discussion of this very topic above on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:BitTorrent#Etiquette_-_maths

... to see some objections to your post.

In particular this passage

It is perfectly possible for all users of a tracker to have a 1.0 or higher global ratio, both in theory and pracice.

In theory and practise it is most certainly not.--Spinoza12 23:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)