Brief Bit Torrent Tutorial

["Wynn J. Taylor" <wjtaylor@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Everyone,


It seems some people are a little Dazed and Confused about Bit Torrent and
how to use it.

This is a breakdown of what it is and how to use it. I will get a little
technical but mostly just give an overview. Right. Let's get to it.

DISCLAIMER:

NEITHER I, NOR FBO, ITS OWNERS, MEMBERS, OR OTHERS CONNECTED WITH MYSELF OR
FBO CONDONE THE ACT OF PIRACY OR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. BY USING BIT
TORRENT CLIENTS, YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAWS. BY READING THIS
DOCUMENT YOU ACCEPT ALL LIABILITY FOR SUCH ACTIONS AND AGREE TO RELEASE
MYSELF, FBO, ITS OWNERS, MEMBERS, AND OTHERS CONNECTED WITH THE
AFOREMENTIONED FROM LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES INCURRED FROM SUCH ACTIONS
DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. THIS DOCUMENT IS PRODUCED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
ONLY. WHILE EVERY INTENTION IS TO PROVIDE ACCURATE INFORMATION, I MAKE NO
CLAIM THAT THIS INFORMATION IS ACCURATE AND IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. IF YOU FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS, YOU DO SO AT YOUR
OWN RISK.

SORRY ABOUT THAT.

1) Bit Torrent is a peer sharing PROTOCOL. Basically it is a standard for
how to conduct peer to peer sharing. FTP is a File Transfer PROTOCOL. Bit
Torrent is just a different type of PROTOCOL. (Peer to Peer)

2) There are MANY different Bit Torrent CLIENTS out there. One is named Bit
Torrent. (Yes, they did that just to confuse you. :) ) Others are Bit Comet,
Bit Tornado, and Azureus. There are more but I would recommend Azureus. It
is written in Java so it runs on all platforms, as long as you have a java
virtual machine on your OS. It has many plug-ins available and conforms to
the Bit Torrent Protocol very well. THAT'S IMPORTANT as not all clients do
and this can cause problems later on. The drawback is that since Azureus is
written in java, it can be a CPU hog. It is best to put it on an old Pentium
3 that is collecting dust and let that download for you.

[STOP]

Don't worry if I just confused you. Download and install both of these:

1st
Java:
http://www.java.com

then
Azureus:
http://azureus.sourceforge.net

[OK let's continue]

3) OK now you've got a file sharing client, similar to a Kazaa, Bear Shear,
or Morpheus client of yesteryear. There is one important difference with a
Bit Torrent client. Kazaa, Bear Shear, EMule, etc. all used 1 network to
connect people. Bit Torrent is decentralized. There is no 1 network with
lots of people on. There are tons of networks. So how do you connect to one
of the networks? I'm glad you asked. You need to find a TRACKER. These are
the Bit Torrent (BT) sites mentioned in the last few days. Get an account
with them and you can download files.

But Here's the thing. You don't download the file you want from the tracker.
Instead you download the TORRENT. This is a small file that tells your
client which computers have the data you need. Then your computer connects
to those computers for the files you want!

Wait a while and bada bing, bada bang, bada boom! You got your file! Don't
forget to let others get the data off of your computer. That's how the
systems works. This is called SEEDING.

[TECHNICAL NOTE - IF IT CONFUSES YOU FAHGET ABOUT IT]
Music industry people can be a real pain in the arse, so the good thing
about BT clients is that they can't target one network to shutdown like
napster, kazaa, etc. Every show you want to download has a different
torrent. Every torrent points to a set of different computers sharing that
show. So if they catch you distributing 1 show, they don't know what other
shows you are transferring, because the torrent only gives info on the show
you requested. The tracker keeps track of all the torrents on that tracker.
Even if the music industry shuts down a tracker (the BT site) there are tons
of other trackers out there each with oodles and oodles of torrents.

[TIME IN]

4) As an optional step. If you use Azureus, configure your settings per the
Azureus wiki. Google it, or hit up the IRC channel. There are too many
variables to explain here. They can help you better on the IRC. This will
just increase performance.


Congratulations you have just graduated Bit Torrent 101.

There's a lot more going on than what I have mentioned, but if you read the
FAQs and play with the Azureus features you'll begin to figure it out rather
quickly. Azureus is very visual and has lots of statistics for you to see
and follow the status of your torrents.

Good Luck!

-Wynn