Bit Torrent

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Sun, Apr 18, 2004 at 12:32:23PM -0400, Robert La Ferla wrote:
> How does Bit Torrent work?  Is it basically a distributed download where 
> you download from several servers in parallel?  How secure is it?

An abbreviated and slightly inaccurate account:

The primary server publishes a large file. If desired, several other
servers can be pre-seeded with the file. A client connecting to the
primary learns about all the other clients currently connected, and
different parts of the file are downloaded from all the available
sources: the primary, the seeds, and all current clients.

Secure? Check your md5sums. This isn't a covert channel by any means.

-dsr-