WEBVTT - How BitTorrent Works 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from How 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.160 Stuff Work stof Haylor and Welcome to tex Stuff. I'm 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.600 Jonathan Strickland and I'm and today we're going to talk 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.720 about torrence and how they work. And we actually Chris 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.040 and I did an episode about torrance well well well 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.080 into the past, but it was worth updating and talking 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.800 about because we're gonna be talking about some other torrent 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.120 related stuff in the near future. So we wanted to 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.280 kind of lay the groundwork and explain what exactly is 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.680 torrenting and how does that that technology actually work and 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.120 and why is there so much controversy around it. But 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.000 to start off, we kind of need to talk about 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.520 just how you would typically get a file, right, how 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.280 how files are transferred period at all? Under so the 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.440 normal process, yeah, by either by by any of the 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.600 protocols that you would use over the internet, be the 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:06.600 FTP or HTTP that's file Transfer protocol or hypertext Transfer 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:13.399 protocol excellent acronyms. So traditionally, your your computer, which in 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.960 this scenario we call the client, is going to contact 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.240 a a host computer a server in order to to say, hey, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.040 I want that thing exactly. Yeah, whether that thing is 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.200 a web page. So if your web browser can be 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.559 a client. Yeah, that thing could be a web page. 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.399 That thing could be a music file, it could be 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.600 a movie file, it could be uh an email. It 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.640 all depends on the people content, right that that you 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.240 want to get. Um. The server would then send the 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.880 file to your computer according to whichever protocol you are using, right, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.520 And it's using the basic set of rules that we 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.720 all know from the Internet, the idea of everything's in packets. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.080 Those packets travel through different routes and then they get 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.840 reassembled on your computer. But yeah, it's essentially a one 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.920 to one relationship, right, I'm asking the server to send 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.280 me something, the server send something to the client. Done, done, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.760 and you know, and the speed with which this can 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:04.880 happen depends on the amount of traffic on the server 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.720 the size of the file. Yeah. So let's let's boil 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.120 this down to an analogy. Alright, So, Lauren, you are 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.800 a server, I am, yes, So now you have entered 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.560 into the uh the service industry. You are a server 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.560 in a coffee shop. Okay, you serve terrible at that job. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.000 But let's let's imagine Lauren, that this is a reality 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.519 where you're not terrible at your job, you're actually pretty good. 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:35.280 You can serve up to three people simultaneously, so amazing, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.520 but only three people and uh, and the amount of 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.840 time it takes you to produce the order for the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.520 customer depends upon what they ordered, like what size of it, 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.359 and how complicated is the drink. Obviously these things will 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.320 factor into how long it takes you to prepare it. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:51.799 But you can still handle up to three. But then 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.800 there's a rush, right like, uh, I don't know, there's 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.720 some hipster band is in town and everyone needs their coffee, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.360 so they all rushed the coffee shop at the same time. 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.960 And now you've got twenty people asking you to make 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.720 very complicated drinks, but you can only serve three at 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.160 a time, and these drinks are getting progressively more complicated 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.040 and larger. Things start to slow down, so that person 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.480 who's you know, seventeen people back, feels like they're waiting 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.080 forever to get a coffee, and they're thinking, what's the 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.000 big deal. It should only take It's just a coffee, 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:24.800 You should just take two minutes. I should be in 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.600 and out in two minutes, and instead I've been sitting 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.560 here for fifteen minutes. And the lines barely moved. That's 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.760 the same thing we experience with this traditional approach. If 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.240 you're talking about a single server hosting a lot of files, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.240 a lot of clients contacting the server for the files, 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.680 and those files are big, it just means that things 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.120 can get bottlenecked and slow down. So there were some 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.680 different approaches to trying to figure out how to make 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.320 this uh more streamlined and put. One way is to 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.880 just increase broadband speed. Right, So, essentially, if you're talking 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.200 about the Internet being a series of tubes, that's it. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.640 It's a bigger, bigger, longer tubes. Yeah, bigger tubes and 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:05.640 more tubes. Yeah, those are your two choices, right. You 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.000 make them bigger so that you can shove more stuff 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.680 through the tubes, or you make a lot more of 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.600 them so that there are new ways for it to 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.880 pass through. But you're still kind of ball necked by 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.680 the the server itself and how quickly it can respond 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.919 to requests. Sure, so if this approach is really slow, 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.279 then one alternative is to distribute a file across a 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.960 network so that you have lots of different options when 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.480 you need to get that file. Right. So, in this instance, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.680 instead of saying that Lauren is the only person who 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.200 can serve coffee within a twenty mile radius. And that's 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.000 why we're all kind of uh, you know, up the 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:46.800 creek when we walk into the coffee shop and we 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.200 see there's fifteen people ahead of Instead, we have a 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.400 coffee shop on every corner and across the street from 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.320 each other, and next door to one another. Their coffee 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.240 shops everywhere. So really I just have to walk into 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.840 any coffee shop and I really just stand in the 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.480 middle of the street and show coffee and someone will 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.440 bring one. So that's that's kind of the idea of 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.280 the peer to peer network. In this sense, you have 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.039 some form of software that allows you to connect to 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.400 a distributed network where when you participate in this network, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.880 you're essentially giving permission to access part of your hard drive. Yeah, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:22.839 you just set aside a little folder on your hard 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.839 drive that is okay for this program to access, and 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.320 then everyone else who is running the same program also 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:33.480 has folders set up. Hopefully they have stuff in them, right, Yeah, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.080 Because one thing you could do is you can set 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.120 up this folder and then immediately move stuff out of 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.400 the folder, and then you're leaching. That's the term, right right. 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.480 It's it's considered a faux pause in sharing circles just 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.280 because you're you're not putting anything back out into the community. Right. 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.360 So with peer to peer, let's say you've got this 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.240 folder that's designated as a shared folder, and when you're 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.599 connected to the software, anyone who's also connected the software, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.479 when they're searching for a specific file, it your file. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.719 If you happen to have that file within your folder, 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.360 you come up as an option to connect to download 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.520 from your computer. Now, the problem with peer to peer, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.839 it solves one issue, right. The one issue is that 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.120 if you go with the clients server uh model, then 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.159 you are limited by the server. Like if the server 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.000 is the only machine out there that has an existing 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.440 version of this file, then that's the one destination you 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.680 can go to, and you are stuck with whatever problems 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.360 that might have. In peer to peer, you're adding more tubes, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.760 but you're not making them any bigger. Right, So in 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.800 other words, like I could you know, if we're going 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:39.840 back to our coffee shop, example, and we have these 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.680 coffee shops everywhere, I can walk to the coffee shop 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.960 that's closest to me, but there's no guarantee that that 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.640 coffee shop won't have the world's slowest server, or you know, 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.400 like that someone who's just they they are very meticulous 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.720 about the way they make their coffee, or there might 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.560 be two or three people in front of me at 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.360 that coffee shop and I have to wait for them. Anyway, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.840 it gives me more options. It does not necessarily mean 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.240 it will be faster, and the really good software will 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.919 identify the person with the best connection who has that 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.400 file exactly yes, So that way it gives you the 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.200 best chance of having a smooth transfer. And it's also 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.160 good to note that this creates more stability when you're 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.800 trying to get a file. So the other big issue 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.920 with the old clients server approach is that if that 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.880 server suffers a problem, if it goes down for some reason, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.280 power outage or whatever, then you're stuck. You know, you 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.120 don't you do not get that file. And if you 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.320 were trying to download a big file and it was 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.880 maybe seventy of the way done and the power goes out, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.000 there's a chance that file could get corrupted in the 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.400 process and then you have to start all over again, right, 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.200 which was a real bummer when peer to peer was 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.720 was really big back in the early two thousand's, like 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:54.040 late nineties, um, because you know, it was about that 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.880 modems that could that could handle broader band than fourteen 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:04.200 four speeds became available for consumer purchase. And after that, 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.400 you know, when when people started getting connected to the 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.000 ethernet was really when Peter Pierre happened. Yeah, and then 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.640 you you were able to you know, one of the 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.480 downsides is that traditionally, with most Internet service providers, your 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.280 upload speed is a fraction of what your download speed is. Right. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.520 The reason for that is that ages ago, when companies 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.800 began to offer Internet service, they looked at the broadband 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.520 that they had available, like the bandwidth they had available 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.439 to the size of the tubes. Essentially, they're saying, all right, 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.240 here's here's what we are capable of delivering to our customers. 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.680 How are we going to determine how much is down 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.600 link versus uplink? And then they said, well, you know, 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.440 probably people aren't sending stuff up to the Internet that frequently. 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.439 They're mostly trying to consume stuff pull stuff down. This 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.280 was before we were uploading millions of years worth of 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.240 YouTube videos every second. Yeah, this was this was back 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.360 when that was not even a consideration. So the idea 0:08:58.440 --> 0:08:59.920 was that, well, you know, we can just make it 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.920 fraction upload speeds will be a fraction of download because 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.200 you there's nothing as frustrating really as sitting down. Well 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.200 this is probably that's that's exaggerating, but it's very frustrating 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.360 to sit down and try and get at some sort 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.679 of content online and then just see either a buffering 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.360 thing or a loading screen and it just goes on forever. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.040 If you're talking about the old old days of the Internet, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.400 there's nothing like trying to look at a picture of 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.560 something and watch it slowly load pixel line by pixel line, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.719 and you're just thinking, I have no idea what I'm 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:31.880 looking at. I won't know for another forty five minutes. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:33.640 I would I would like the record to state that 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.600 I just used I just gestured at Jonathan to help 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.319 you guys understand what he was talking about and exactly 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.080 how ineffective that was. That was a great visual representation 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.679 on an audio podcast. Yeah, so you know that this 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.880 approach meant that we suddenly had all these other options, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.520 this peer to peer approach, and this is the way 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.520 a lot of those file sharing services back in the 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.960 day worked because lime Wire, Napster, that kind of thing. 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.080 They well, yeah, it's all about let's find people who 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.360 have the stuff you want and connect this create a 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.160 connection directly to them. Yeah, so it almost becomes like 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.680 a direct phone line in a way, where the connection 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.520 is between the host computer and your computer, so you 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.800 can get the file and then of course once you 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.800 have the file, your computer can become a potential host computer. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.720 So now an improvement on that was bit torrents approach, right, 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.880 and I think it will be really interesting to get 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.720 into the intricacies of how bit torrent works. But before 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:37.079 we do that, let's take a quick break. Let's get 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.120 back to the show. Alright, we're back, and Lauren, you 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.000 alluded to bit torrent. Now, this was a totally different 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.080 approach in the sense that it was someone coming up 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.880 with the idea of how can we make these download 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.200 speeds faster, not just more reliable so that I have 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.120 more options, but how can I get the stuff I 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.800 want faster, particularly if it's a really large file, you know, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.000 and if you're if you're like Jonathan said earlier, if 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.400 your internet connection is maybe not the best and something 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.520 cuts out somewhere that you won't lose all of the 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.240 progress on downloading a file you had already made. So 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.240 this was the idea of a programmer named Bram Cohen. Now, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.080 Bram Cohen had worked for several dot com startups that 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.000 never really took off, and they just kind of failed 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.000 over and over, and he really wanted to work on 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:25.040 something that worked. That was a big ambition of his 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.120 understandable And in two thousand one he was also getting 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.160 really irritated by these problems we're talking about the slow 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:36.840 download speed of large files. He liked the idea of 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.160 the peer to peer network, but he didn't care for 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.720 the execution. So in two thousand one he begins work 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.280 on a new protocol. Now we've used the word protocol 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.400 several times in this podcast, just to remind you. A 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.200 protocol really is just a set of rules. It's kind 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.640 of a kind of a seven instructions for a computer 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:58.000 to follow. So he designed a protocol that he called BitTorrent. Now, 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:02.680 this was an attempt to solve that connection problem um 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.000 and the speed problem at the same time. So you know, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.240 peer to peer adjusted the connection. He wanted to do 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.400 speed as well, So how do you do that? Well, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.480 his approach was to create this protocol that would allow 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.640 files to be distributed in pieces, and as you receive 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.920 a piece, you are also able to upload that piece 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.600 even before your file finishes downloading. So I might have 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.000 a file that's at twenty seven percent as it's slowly downloading, 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:30.480 that is completely available for other people on the network 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.040 who are also trying to get that file. You could 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.840 also get pieces of these files from multiple sources, so 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:39.480 as long as everyone had the same file, then you 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:41.640 could get, you know, a piece here and a piece there. 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:46.280 So imagine that everyone has at least some part of 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.920 a five piece puzzle, and one person down the street 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.560 is giving you pieces uh one through twenty seven, and 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.559 someone on another side of the street is giving you 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.199 pieces forty three through fifteen, and you're just getting You're 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.520 getting the whole puzzle, but you're getting them from different 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.560 locations all at the same time. It's like it's like 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.000 if everyone in that in that coffee house street has 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.200 a cup of coffee and you just kind of run 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.000 down and they all pour a little bit into your cup. Right. Yeah, 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.640 it's similar to that, except except with less like gross 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.240 spittle contamination. And also there's a pretty design at the top. 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:21.800 I don't know how they managed that while you running 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.000 down the street like a crazy person, but you know 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.920 they're talented, that's all. So he was thinking like this 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:32.040 would be the way of solving this problem of slow 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:37.800 download speeds. Now, he did not necessarily go about testing 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:42.120 this in a very scientific, scientific PC way. Did you 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.760 see how he tested Okay, folks, here's how he tested it. 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:51.040 He collected a batch of freely available pornographic material and 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.880 then invited beta testers to see about getting hold of 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:59.200 this stuff using the bit torrent protocol. Stay classy, Cohen, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.000 But now he figured that this was kind of a 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.320 sure fire away. And because it was freely available stuff, 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.000 it wasn't like it wasn't copyright. I didn't have to 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.920 worry about running into problems with torrent systems have having 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.480 fact run into lots of copyright issues. We'll talk about 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:16.560 that towards the end of the show. You know, that's 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.800 that's a that's a totally different discussion. But yeah, he 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.880 he wanted to try and test it out, and apparently 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.520 that wasn't considered a terribly auspicious beginning. But he eventually 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.360 did launch a working version of bit torrent for the 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.800 general public in October two thousand two. Now two years 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.840 later in two thousand four, he had a five person 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.320 company working on a search engine that would work alongside 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.200 his protocol. So he designed the protocol, but one of 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.200 the issues people were running into was how do you 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.600 find the torrent files which are pointer files. I'll talk 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.080 about them a little bit more in a second. How 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.280 do you find these files that then facilitate the downloading 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.480 process when you're you're actually using the bit torrent software 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.400 and this is by a tracker server. Right, So he 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.880 created he worked with this five person company. Actually, this 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.440 five person company worked for him to create the search 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.800 engine that would look for these torrents to help make 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.040 this process work more smoothly. Uh. He was also then 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.800 looked at by a little company called Valve. Yeah, so Valive. 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.800 Valve is thinking, you know, we want to do a 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.000 downloadable distributed network approach for our games. We want to 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.440 have this ability to deliver games to our users that 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:33.440 is fast and reliable and doesn't put a lot of 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.920 pressure on our own servers. Right, we don't that way, 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.880 we don't have to build out a whole data center 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.200 just to support this. This model, this distribution model, so 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.280 they contacted Cohen and they hired him to work on 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.080 a platform that we now call Steam. Cohen was one 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.000 of the people who helped build that program out, and 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:54.720 it was all because they saw what he was doing 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.200 with bit torrent, and they said, that's the approach we 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.360 want to take. And in fact, Valve and Blizzard are 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:05.720 two companies that use bit torrent for a perfectly legitimate 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.960 means of distributing their files. It's a good time to 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.680 just mention there's nothing illegal about torrent files. No, no, 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.440 it's it's just a matter of distribution. It's kind of 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.360 like if you were to say, yeah, but you can 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.240 get illegal material that way. You can get illegal material 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.920 through the mail, But you wouldn't say that means we 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.600 should shut down the postal service. You might say we 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.760 should shut down the postal service for other reasons, but 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.560 not for that one. And same sort of argument you 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.360 could use for bit torrent, like to say, let's get 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.200 rid of bit torrent because some people are sharing illegal files, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.440 even lots of people sharing illegal files, doesn't mean that 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.720 the tool itself is wrong, right. The technology itself can 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.520 be used for lots of really cool things like yeah, 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.920 like like letting people like Valve put games up online 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.720 without having to buy giant servers, or independent artists put 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.200 their music online, right right, Yeah, And there there are 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.040 a lot of reasons there their entire you know, whether 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.720 it's software or video files, music files. You know, there 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.399 are a lot of reasons why you would want to 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.120 take this approach. And uh, one of the big ones 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.720 is that it, like you said, it takes the strain 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.600 off the provider. Right. So, if I'm a small business 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.520 or an artist, an independent artist, I might not have 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.119 the resources available to me to create a dedicated server 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.080 where people can come and download stuff, especially if I'm 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.240 having to pay lots of fees to maintain that. And 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.760 you know, I mean, you know, for example, if you 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.840 post some music to your personal website and uh, Neil 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.239 Gaiman or Will Wheaton link it on Twitter, and all 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.920 of a sudden, you're completely overwhelmed. This, by the way, 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.520 is a complete invitation for both Will Wheaton and Neil 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.560 Gaiman to tweet about our podcast. We would love that. 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.159 That would be gorgeous. Um. But yeah, so I wouldn't 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.159 even know what to do with myself. I would probably 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.159 totally flip out. No, I would totally flip out. I 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.520 wouldn't probably there. There's no probably there. But yeah, in 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:59.000 two thousand five, already by this time, okay, the bit 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.120 torns only three years old from when it officially launched. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.080 Even by then, Hollywood had taken notice and was not 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.280 terribly happy. Yeah, the Motion Picture Association of America and 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:15.080 also the Recording Industry Association of America. That's um, the 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.760 m P A A and the R double A R 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.359 I double A is is like that's music. Essentially an 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.639 m P A is film. Uh So m P A A. 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.680 UH in particular was concerned because the bit torrent protocol 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.760 did make moving large files much easier, which meant that 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:36.720 suddenly people were able to upload and download large files 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.920 like rips of films. They take a DVD and ripped 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.280 the film from the DVD and then share it and 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.920 you would get illegal copies. Or if you were working 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.800 on a digital film and you were part of a 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.440 digital film production and you had access to the file, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.560 there were movies that leaked out. Um some famous instances 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.000 of movies that leaked out before they had even hit 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:01.360 the theaters where people were getting hold of pirated copies, 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.560 and Hollywood was really taking him a bit torrent, even 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.840 though again, as we said, but torrents a tool, it's 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.640 not like it was specifically facilitating the illegal activity. However, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.480 on November twenty two, two thousand five, Brand Cohen had 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.960 a joint news conference with the chairman of the m 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.640 p A A. Dan Glickman, and announced that he had 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.040 agreed to prevent his own bit torrent website from linking 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.639 to torrents pointing to illegally available movies. Now, before that point, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.520 their policy was that if they were alerted to a 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:37.000 torrent that linked to those pointing to they would take 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.720 it down. So that was there, that was their policy 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.800 all all along. But they said, well now we're just 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.880 going to make sure that that's much more streamlined. Which 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.840 if you've followed these kind of these kind of cases 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.920 not just with bit torrent, but with other providers, other 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:55.440 platforms like YouTube for example, there are examples of takedown 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:00.560 notices that were improperly um yeah, in probably dealt with 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:05.080 or improperly submitted people who didn't actually have the rights 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.560 to something demanding they get taken down and then it 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.280 gets taken down, um. And then there then there's some 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:14.480 embarrassing ones I think Microsoft just recently issued a takedown 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.840 request to itself. Yeah, so sometimes these sort of things 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.600 can end up being kind of embarrassing, but he was 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.320 saying that we want to, you know, we don't want to. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:33.080 So um, today you can find bit torrent on lots 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.960 of different platforms. In fact, bit torrent today allows you 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.359 to do things like produce content and then distribute it. 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.160 So it's designed more now to help, like I said, 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.119 the small businesses, the independent artists to create content, and 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:52.600 then even to to enable it so it'll perform properly 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:57.760 on things like smartphones, tablets, consoles, creating a huge distribution 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.280 network that people wouldn't have had access to, you know, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.600 ten years ago. So there are many reasons why it's 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:06.560 a very useful tool. So let's talk a little bit 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.480 about how it actually does what it does now. First 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.520 of all, it's open source, which kind of tells you 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:18.880 that Cohen wasn't necessarily looking to create like a a 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:23.359 uh multibillion dollars a commercial venture. No, he wanted he 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.040 really believed in this. An open source means you can 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.040 see the source code. You can go and get the 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.560 source code for the bit torrent, play around with it. Yeah, 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.440 you can change it, you can make your own product 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.320 based upon it. It's open source UM. And then there 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:44.040