Peer To Peer (P2P)And

Torrenting

James Jenkinson

What is P2P?

P2P or peer to peer sharing is just as the name suggests, but maybe not noticeable. P2P runs by connected to another computer and simply taking files like applications, photos, videos and music from one computer and putting it on your own.

P2P On A Global Scale

Of course P2P can manipulate the internet to do the same thing but on particular networks available around the world. You connect to a network with other users and share all your files with each other.

Applications That Use P2PThere are hundreds of P2P applications that can be downloaded for free off the internet. The most popular being applications such as Limewire, Frostwire, Bearshare etc. These work by installing on your computing and connecting to a server with millions of files uploaded onto them that can be accessed and downloaded by anyone with the software related to them.

I In Depth Look At

Limewire is a standard P2P search engine application and is the most popular choice for downloading music.

It is comprised of three sections, the search tab, the monitor tab and the library tab.Limewire is extremely easy to use making it extremely easy to break the law

Search TabThis is the layout of the search tab, you can search all files on the network or choose to search for specific file types like music or video or applications. You basically do a search for the particular file you are looking for and double click it to download it.

You must be careful of what you download, people have lots of viruses shared across the network, it is easy to simply download one thinking it is a song or video

Monitor TabThis is the layout of the monitor tab, it monitors your downloads and all the searches you have made since opening Limewire. It also monitors uploads to the network and what people are taking from your computer. Limewire can also be used as a torrenting

application, but it is not recommended as it takes more resources than a normal torrenting application because of its P2P application embedded

Library TabThis is the layout of the library tab, it displays all the files you have downloaded and sorts them into their particular file type. It also shows a playlist creater located in the bottom half of the window so you can play your downloaded media in Limewire itself.

Downloading media and software from Limewire is illegal if you do not own the media that you are downloading

Torrenting (What Is It?)

It is a method of downloading that is very popular these days due to its ability to achieve a high speed of downloading.

Although they can reach high speeds it is not always the case, torrents are built up on things called seeders and leechers, the next few slides will go into detail about seeders and leechers.

Benefits of Torrenting

There are many benefits to torrenting than to original p2p sharing, the main one being the ability to search the internet for extra trackers in order to increase the speed of the torrent. This is always useful for people with a large bandwidth and want to use it. Torrenting speed is only restricted by the bandwidth of the internet connection being used

Seeders

Seeding occurs when a file is being downloaded, while you are downloading the file from another computer, people are also downloading the same file from your computer. This is the key to torrentings high speeds, because without it there could be a huge amount of people downloading from the same source seriously killing the speed of your download. The keeps the network traffic to a single server to a minimum and helps it run very smoothly as to say your download speed will be consistent.

Leechers

Leeching essentially is just downloading a file, you are leeching it from someone else.

Torrenting Applications

Again there are hundreds of torrenting applications on the internet available for download, three examples of these are Utorrent, Bit Tornado and bit torrent. They are generally light weight applications due to their small task that they are created for, downloading files with the directions that they are given.

In depth look at

Utorrent is the most lightweight of all torrenting applications because it is only built to take torrent files and download the files that are in the torrent, there are no search features or extra settings of that nature, and in my opinion is the most effective torrenting application.It is comprised of only one screen and is very easy to navigate

Utorrent LayoutThis is the one and only

screen in utorrent it is comprised of the

main window whichlists what torrents are

queued to be downloading, thepercentage completedof each download, and

the download andupload speed of each

Torrent. There is also a smallwindow on the left which shows

which torrents are beingdownloaded and which ones areactive inactive and completed,

clicking on these toggles the mainwindow.

The bottom is compiled of tabs for different properties of the torrent selected such as a speed

graph, tracker list, peer list and file pieces currently being downloaded

Getting a Torrent File

.Torrent files can be found all over the internet, in fact there are many websites that are dedicated to supplying torrent files for any video, music or application files in the world. There are also search engines on the internet that search all torrent dedicated sites for particular files that you request. An example of a torrent site is www.mininova.comAn example of a torrent site search engine iswww.torreentz.com

Legal IssuesJust like P2P sharing, torrenting itself is not illegal because it is a form of P2P sharing, but the content that is downloaded is most probably illegal, generally the only time it isn't illegal is if it is free software or if you own a licensed copy of the software.Currently there is alot of issues surrounding ISPs and torrenting, in Australia ISPs refuse to contact the police when there is torrenting happening within their network, however in America and the UK ISPs are known as internet police and will contact the police whenever torrents are being downloaded on their network.

Conclusion

Millions of people do it and because of this many more people start to do it because they do not believe they will be caught if someone is downloading more than they are, however police are beginning to crack down on home users who like to torrent and P2P across the internet. This hopes to achieve a halt to downloading because people will realise that they can be caught.I wouldn't recommend downloading anything that you do not legally own.