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  • How torrents work ?

    Abhishek Rawal

    Member

    Updated: Oct 25, 2024
    Views: 1.1K
    I have series of questions in my mind on working of torrents.

    -- What are Seeders ?
    -- What are Peers ?
    -- What is Seed-Peer Ratio ?
    -- Why seeds decreases as no. of downloads increases ?
    -- Why is it so that some torrents have more seeds & some have low even though uploaded at same time ? Does no. of seeds depends on uploading speed of uploader ?
    -- What are DHT (nodes) ??
    -- What does "wasted" mean ? Why we get wasted files ?
    -- What are trackers ?
    -- When a torrent has zero seeds & zero peers, means they are dead .. but in technical term what does it mean ?

    and lastly, basically how this sharing of datas work ? Is the files stored in any server when uploader uploads it ? If yes, then isn't it against copyright law ?

    sorry for bunch of questions.
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Replies

  • Mahesh Dahale

    Member • Aug 19, 2012

    Seed or seeder - A computer with a complete copy of a BitTorrent file
    Swarm - A group of computers simultaneously sending (uploading) or receiving (downloading) the same file
    .torrent - A pointer file that directs your computer to the file you want to download It helps your computer to receives multiple pieces of the file simultaneously
    Tracker - A server that manages the BitTorrent file-transfer process
    Leeches - People who download files but do not share files on their own computer with others


    Downloading pieces of the file at the same time helps solve a common problem with other peer-to-peer download methods: Peers upload at a much slower rate than they download. By downloading multiple pieces at the same time, the overall speed is greatly improved. The more computers involved in the swarm, the faster the file transfer occurs because there are more sources of each piece of the file.

    If you continue to run the BitTorrent client software after your download is complete, others can receive .torrent files from your computer; your future download rates improve because you are ranked higher in the "tit-for-tat" system.



    (<a href="https://computer.howstuffworks.com/bittorrent.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">How BitTorrent Works | HowStuffWorks</a>)
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  • Anoop Kumar

    Member • Aug 20, 2012

    Torrent is a way to share files/data directly between one user's computer to another without any need of server.
    Tracker is server which just maintain the information of that torrent.
    A torrent sharing data is generally fraction-ed in number of clunks let say 1mb of 1 chunk. and If any one downloaded/have this chunk then it can be downloaded by others
    Seeder: which have 100% data of that torrent and other can leech(download) from that guy's computer.
    Peers: Who don't have 100% data but others can can download data from this guy's machine which he have.While this guy downloading renaming data from others machine.
    Seeder/peers ratio: number of seeders/number of peers.
    Swarm : number of seeder+peers who are involved in this downloading/uploading.

    How it works: I have a file and I want to share among a torrent site users. I will create a torrent file using uTorrent and add the tracker of that torrent site and upload it to that torrent site.
    Then I will download that torrent. Now since I have 100% data. There will be 1 seeder present for it.
    After that interested people (peers) will now download that torrent and a direct link will be created like FTP for uploading from my machine to others. Their downloading speed is now depends on my uploading speed.

    If seeder/peer=0/0 that mean there is not participant in that torrent.
    -- What are DHT (nodes) ?? I don't know exactly but, it automatically search for other sources to download that file
    -- What does "wasted" mean ? Why we get wasted files ? don't know

    Is using torrent illegal: No, it is way of sharing data. if you go to download Eclipse IDE or Linux OS CD. you can download using torrent also. as torrent can automatically resume your download your file again in case of power/internet disconnection without any loss/broken chunk.As it implement MD5 hashing that you can verify easily.
    Why illegal files can be shared on torrent : server can say that we don't have file stored on server and we are not responsible for user what they are sharing.
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  • valsa

    Member • Nov 20, 2012

    Now the torrent trackers close illegal torrents if the possessor of rights ask them to do so.

    Downloading using torrents is really very convenient.
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  • narayana murthy

    Member • Nov 21, 2012

    but illegal torrents are still running on some sites
    i am not telling those sites because i am one who using them 😛
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  • lal

    Member • Nov 21, 2012

    The .torrents are slowly making way for 'magnets'. Users do not get to download a '.torrent' file, instead a 'magnet' link will give the information about the torrent. They say this makes the ability to track down torrent transfers even complicated. If anyone have more information about magnets, do share.

    Each file shared on the torrent are divided in to pieces of defenite size. The client requests data(as pieces) from not just one peer, but many. In such a condition the client may recieve same piece from different peers. But since there are multiple copied f same data, the extra copies are discarded. Along with this, if a hashcheck fail occurs (because of corrupted data) with a downloaded piece, then that data is also discarded. Both these contribute the wasted data. A bad internet connection usually makes a lot of wasted data. And every time the download is paused, the wasted data increases(Im not sure why).
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  • Anoop Kumar

    Member • Nov 21, 2012

    Magnet link concerns about a file rather than which tracker is announcing (maintaining) it.

    Torrents: When you download torrent it is bit of information about data chunks and location of and tracker location which maintain the torrent routing.

    Magnet link: It just uses the which file has been shared on basis of SH1 hashing technique.
    for any two different instance(file,nuber,text or whatever) , there will be a different hash code for different file.
    file url will be like that: magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C .
    Now where ever this sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C code will be find out in swarm (connected computers through the bit torrent client), it makes connection from that computer start downloading/uploading.
    Torrents works on URL (where ever tracker URL is found, it searches for the specific file using Hashcode )
    Magnet link works on URN (Uniform Resource Name): Where ever that Hashcode found it makes a connection.
    Sources: #-Link-Snipped-# #-Link-Snipped-# .
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  • Manish Goyal

    Member • Nov 25, 2012

    Have you ever seen students completing their assignments in a group in college

    Just imagine that situation, same is the concept torrents work

    There students from which assignments are getting copied are seeds, rest are peers

    Rest are simple definition take help from wiki pedia
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