Torrent F.A.Q

**Zoe** · 10-10-2007, 06:41 AM

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is a file distribution system used for transferring files across a network of people. As you download a file, BitTorrent places what you download on upload for other users; when multiple people are downloading the same file at the same time they upload pieces of the file to each other. BitTorrent pieces together the file you are downloading, to where the first part of a file you get may be the last part someone else gets. As you continue to retrieve the file, BitTorrent also uploads data to other users. For example, a person with 98 percent of the file done is directed to the people with the 2 percent of the file they still need.

The files downloaded via BitTorrent are called torrents.

What are "Torrent" files?

Usually this refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent.) Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to find the link again.

How do I use these small ".torrent" files?

There are several choices here, because unlike some peer to peer applications (such as Kazaa), the BitTorrent implementation is open source. This means that programmers are free to take the source code to the program and modify it, if they feel there is something they'd like to change. Here are some of the Best Torrent Programs on the net:

Code:

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ 
http://www.bitcomet.com/
http://www.bittorrent.com/
http://pingpong-abc.sourceforge.net/
http://www.bittornado.com/

Where can I find more BitTorrent files?

You can find a lot of BitTorrent files on Xphilez.com but even more can be found on Torrent search engines. Here are a few of the best on the net:

Code:

http://isohunt.com/ 
http://www.mininova.org/
http://search.mybittorrent.com/
http://www.torrentsearch.us/
http://www.torrentbox.com/
http://www.torrentspy.com/
http://www.bytenova.org/
http://www.torrentreactor.to/
http://www.bitsoup.org/
http://thepiratebay.org/

What if I want to create my own Torrents?

Sharing files that you have with others is relatively easy with BitTorrent, but a little extra work is required compared to marking a directory as "shared" as with some other file sharing applications. There are essentially three elements necessary to sharing a file with BitTorrent:
The tracker, which coordinates connections among the peers. Bandwidth required is very moderate compared to the size of the files being shared.
The web server, which stores and serves the .torrent file. This is usually a quite small file, and is only requested once by each peer before initiating the transfer. The web server also serves to index and organize the torrents, since there is no built-in search capability in the BitTorrent protocol -- existing web techniques are instead used.
At least one seeder. This is the only element of the three that contains any of the file's actual contents. The seeder is almost always an end-user's desktop machine, rather than a dedicated server machine.
Below are the steps to create and distribute the ".torrent" file, and begin the seeding.

Quote:

1. Decide what you want to share. A torrent can contain either a single file, or a directory of many files. This is often quite convenient, since it avoids the step of creating an archive (.zip, .rar, etc.) if you need to store multiple files. For example, if you are sharing a 2-CD movie, put both of the files in a directory and create a torrent for that, rather than zipping the files and then creating a torrent for the single archive file.

IMPORTANT NOTE! Despite what I would call common sense and courtesy, I see people doing stupid things at this point all the time! For example, if the file you are sharing was originally posted to Usenet and came in a number of parts (.RAR, .R00, .R01), do not put those parts in an archive and then create a torrent of that. Most media files are already compressed, and rar-ing or zip-ing them just adds an additional step for everyone that receives the files. And for the love of $DEITY, do not include the parity files in your torrent! In summary, if the end product you are sharing is an .AVI file, create a torrent for that. This makes it easier for people to hold on to the original form of the torrent, and this tends to lead to it being shared longer. If you distribute your AVI file as an RAR containing 33 parts, which itself contains a ZIP, then people will trudge through the processing of the files to get the AVI, and then most likely delete the original since it's in a form that is useless to them. Therefore, they cannot (re-)seed the torrent since they've lost the original format. Finally, you do your part to put an end to the neverending stream of "How do I open .R00 files?" questions. (end opinionated rant)Run maketorrent. (See this section of the FAQ if you haven't installed it.) If you are sharing a single file, click the (file) button, otherwise click the (dir) button. In either case a file dialog will appear, and you should select the file/directory that you wish to share.

2.Enter the tracker's announce url in the space provided, or use the drop-down list to select from one of a common list of trackers. Remember, if you use a site's tracker when creating a .torrent file, plan to upload/post the file to that community. You can also add a comment, but it's optional.

3.Select the piece size, or just accept the default value of (auto). In general, the smaller the piece size, the more efficient the BitTorrent download will be, but will result in a larger .torrent file. 256 kB seems to be the most common piece size in use these days, but you can experiment with other settings if you want. Avoid very large piece sizes for small files; likewise avoid small piece sizes for very large files.

4.Click create torrent to begin the process of creating the file. You can then select if you want to create a single .torrent for all the files in the directory, or a number of separate .torrents. Most of the time you want a single .torrent for the whole folder, unless you know what you're doing. When finished, you should find a newly created .torrent file in the same directory as the file/directory you selected to share.

5.Upload this .torrent file to a web server. Usually this means going to the web page of the site whose tracker you used and clicking the "Upload torrent" link. The procedure varies from site to site, but it's usually always explained in a FAQ link or forum posting. If you are running your own web server (and have configured it appropriately) then upload the file to your server's public web space, or whatever method you use to put files on your server.

6.Finally, you must seed the file. Until this step, nothing but metadata has been transferred. Seeding is necessary to actually transmit your file to others. There are several ways to do this, but the simplest is to use your ordinary BitTorrent client just as you would with any other file. Navigate to the page on the web server where your .torrent is posted, click the link, and when the BitTorrent client starts be sure to select the same file/ directory that you used in maketorrent in step 2 above. The client should check the files and verify that they are complete, and then connect to the tracker and begin seeding

Most of the better BitTorrent programs now have built-in Torrent makers meaning you won't need a program called "maketorrent" which creates torrent files from files stored on you Hard Drive.

Most Torrent search engines will act as a webserver and allow you upload your torrent to them. It usually requires registration with the engine.

Here is one of the best places to find a tracker as it lists the biggest and best trackers on the net:

Code:

http://thebeehive.info/?p=tlist

Some quick BitTorrent notes:
.Torrents can always be restarted at any time if you had to stop or if you lost your connection so theres no fear of losing your file.

.Torrents depend mostly on your internet speed and the faster your upload is the faster your download will be. At first you might start off slow but depending on how many leechers and seeders are on you will gain speed as you download more of the file and you are able to upload more.

.BitTorrent is all about sharing, and you won't be able to download anything without doing so. So no leechers here please!

.Check the Torrent search engines often as new files are added by the minute!

.Torrent search engines usually tell you how many "leechers"(people still downloading the file and don't have a full copy yet) and "seeders"(people who have already downloaded the file and are just sharing) are on that file at the time of your search. Try to download files with lots of "seeders" so that your download will go much faster.

Some quick Torrent Termonology:

Quote:

Torrent
Usually this refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent.) Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to find the link again.
In some uses, it can also refer to everything associated with a certain file available with BitTorrent. For example, someone might say "I downloaded that torrent" or "that server has a lot of good torrents", meaning there are lots of good files available via BitTorrent on that server.

Peer
A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Generally a peer does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed.

Seed
A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent. Once your client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it.) This is known as being a seed or seeding. You can also start a BT client with a complete file, and once BT has checked the file it will connect and seed the file to others. Generally, it's considered good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finished downloading, to help out others. Also, when a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others. Remember, the tracker doesn't know anything of the actual contents of a file, so it's important to follow through and seed a file if you upload the torrent to a tracker.

Reseed
When there are zero seeds for a given torrent (and not enough peers to have a distributed copy), then eventually all the peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, since no one in the swarm has the missing pieces. When this happens, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect to the swarm so that those missing pieces can be transferred. This is called reseeding. Usually a request for a reseed comes with an implicit promise that the requester will leave his or her client open for some time period after finishing (to add longevity to the torrent) in return for the kind soul reseeding the file.

Swarm
The group of machines that are collectively connected for a particular file. For example, if you start a BitTorrent client and it tells you that you're connected to 10 peers and 3 seeds, then the swarm consists of you and those 13 other people.

Tracker
A server on the Internet that acts to coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of peers to contact. Periodically throughout the transfer, your machine will check in with the tracker, telling it how much you've downloaded and uploaded, how much you have left before finishing, and the state you're in (starting, finished download, stopping.) If a tracker is down and you try to open a torrent, you will be unable to connect. If a tracker goes down during a torrent (i.e., you have already connected at some point and are already talking to peers), you will be able to continue transferring with those peers, but no new peers will be able to contact you. Often tracker errors are temporary, so the best thing to do is just wait and leave the client open to continue trying.

Downloading
Receiving data FROM another computer.

Uploading
Sending data TO another computer.

Share Rating
If you are using the experimental client with the stats-patch, you will see a share rating displayed on the GUI panel. This is simply the ratio of your amount uploaded divided by your amount downloaded. The amounts used are for the current session only, not over the history of the file. If you achieve a share ratio of 1.0, that would mean you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded. The higher the number, the more you have contributed. If you see a share ratio of "oo", this means infinity, which will happen if you open a BT client with a complete file (i.e., you seed the file.) In this case you download nothing since you have the full file, and so anything you send will cause the ratio to reach infinity. Note: The share rating is just a number that is displayed for your convenience. It does not directly affect any aspect of the client at all. In general, out of courtesy to others you should strive to keep this ratio as high as possible, of course.

Distributed Copies
In some versions of the client, you will see the text "Connected to n seeds; also seeing n.nnn distributed copies." A seed is a machine with the complete file. However, the swarm can collectively have a complete copy (or copies) of the file, and that is what this is telling you. Referring again to the "people at a table" analogy, consider the case where the book has 10 pages, and person A has pp.1-5 and B has pp.6-10. Collectively, A and B have a complete copy of the book, even though no one person has the whole thing. In other words, even if there are no seeds, as long as there is at least one distributed copy of the file everyone can eventually get a complete file. Meditate on this, the Zen of BitTorrent, grasshopper.

Choked
This is a term used in the description of the BitTorrent protocol. 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. A BT client signals that it's choked to other clients for a number of reasons, but the most common is that by default a client will only maintain --max_uploads active simultaneous uploads, the rest will be marked choked. (The default value is 4 and this is the same setting that experimental client GUI lets you adjust.) A connection can also be choked for other reasons, for example a peer downloading from a seed will mark his connection as choked since the seed is not interested in receiving anything. Note that since each connection is bidirectional and symmetrical, there are two choked flags for each connection, one for each Tx endpoint.

Interested
Another term used in the protocol specification. This is the corollary to the choked flag, in that interested refers to the state of a downloader with respect to a connection. A downloader is marked as interested if the other end of the link has any pieces that the client wants, otherwise the connection is marked as not interested.

Snubbed
If the client has not received anything after a certain period (default: 60 seconds), it marks a connection as snubbed, in that the peer on the other end has chosen not to send in a while. See the definition of choked for reasons why an uploader might mark a connection as choked. The real function of keeping track of this variable is to improve download speeds. Occasionally the client will find itself in a state where even though it is connected to many peers, it is choked by all of them. The client uses the snubbed flag in an attempt to prevent this situation. It notes that a peer with whom it would like to trade pieces with has not sent anything in a while, and rather than leaving it up to the optimistic choking to eventuall select that peer, it instead reserves one of its upload slots for sending to that peer.

Optimistic Unchoking
Periodically, the client shakes up the list of uploaders and tries sending on different connections that were previously choked, and choking the connections it was just using. You can observe this action every 10 or 20 seconds or so, by watching the "Advanced" panel of one of the experimental clients.

For more BitTorrent Infomation please visit the site below as that site is a reference for some of the information found in this How-To:

Code:

http://dessent.net/btfaq/

**Zoe** · 10-10-2007, 06:42 AM

How To Identify Fake Torrents Uploaded By Anti-piracy Organizations, They can catch u and make u pay dearly

Did you know that MPAA and RIAA are always setting traps for pirates to get caught of downloading copyright materials? I didn't know that until I read one article from TorrentFreak. The anti-piracy organizations can easily trace you when they upload a very popular .torrent file to some popular torrent tracker site. When you download the .torrent file and load it, your bittorrent client will start connecting to the anti-piracy organizations trackers. That's when they record your IP address and can possible get in touch with you for downloading copyrighted materials!

This is a very scary trap because I know a lot of people who knows how to download from bittorrent but don't know anything about peer, leecher, tracker and etc... In short, they don't know how bittorrent works but they know that by waiting for days, the download will complete and they get what they want.

Here's how you can know if the Torrent or Tracker is fake.

Fenopy has created a Fake Finder page that lists the most popular fake torrents and the latest fake trackers. It also allows you to search for fake torrents by keyword or infohash.

I took a look at the whole list of all fake torrents and the filename looks pretty real. There's no way you can know whether the torrent is fake or not unless it's listed on Fenopy Fake Finder list.

If you're using uTorrent, here's how to check which tracker are you connecting to.

After loading torrent file to your bittorrent client, look at the "General" tab and you'll see "Tracker URL". If the tracker URL is listed on Fenopy Fake Finder, please, don't even start downloading it!

Technorati Tags: utorrent, tracker, MPAA, RIAA, piracy, pirates, Fenopy, Fake Finder, bittorrent