Why does Bit Torrent have to connect to peers?

[Schwarzd354]

When I try to download files, bit torrent is only able to make progress on the download when it has connected to 'peers' or to 'seeds'. What are peers and seeds, why are they important to the download, and why is my bit torrent unable to find any?

[Phoenix20578]

First of all, this is a stupid question.

Bittorrent is a P2P Conection. You download parts of the file from other people. Those people are uploading, or seeding, to everyone who wants to download it. These people are the peers. They are the ones that let you download the files you seek. That is how the Bittorrent system works. If there are no peers to seed the file, you won't get it.

[Schwarzd354]

Then what your saying is, I have to wait for other people to be online. I figured that much out. So let's see if this question is not 'stupid'. I am a college student, and my school has anti-file sharing software installed on the network. Every computer on campus is connected to this network. It's why I cannot use Kazaa and outher similar systems. My question is whether this soft-ware is affecting my bit torrent downloads.

By the way, there is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. Ignorance is not knowing a piece of information. Stupidity is being unable or unwilling to accept or believe a piece of information. In the future, please do not confuse the two.

[complich8]

I am a college student, and my school has anti-file sharing software installed on the network. Every computer on campus is connected to this network. It's why I cannot use Kazaa and outher similar systems. My question is whether this soft-ware is affecting my bit torrent downloads.

That could be (and very likely is) the problem. It's easy to break BitTorrent pretty badly with relatively simple (albeit draconian) technical measures. Just forcing you through a proxy to get around a restrictive firewall could be enough to do it, as would be filtering traffic that uses the http protocol but is directed at nonstandard ports. Bittorrent is definitely high enough profile that it's not "below the radar" anymore, as far as university IT staff are concerned... in fact, it's been pretty wildly popular for about 3 years now.

And that person didn't call you stupid, so don't be so offended. They called the question stupid. Because "peer to peer" is inherently dependent on the concept of peers.

You may merely be ignorant. Your question, however, was quite stupid, as far as the world of p2p goes. But that's forgivable, because you're ignorant. However, if you refuse to learn from resources available to you, then you qualify for "stupid" yourself. In fact, perpetual ignorance is less forgivable than stupidity, because stupidity at least implies that you don't have a choice about the matter.

Here's some resources to prevent that from happening to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent (BitTorrent Wikipedia article) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2P (Peer to Peer wikipedia article) , http://www.bittorrent.com/introduction.html (BitTorrent Introduction) . Go educate yourself!

Oh, and welcome to the forum [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img].

[Schwarzd354]

Does anyone know of a way for me to get around the issue that is apparently being caused by the schools firewall?

[complich8]

(1) (best answer, if it's possible) move out of the dorms, get an apartment nearby with a nice cable or dsl connection.
(2) (weaker answer) learn more about your school's specific implementation of their anti-p2p system, and see if you can find a loophole to get around it (weaker because it requires technical understanding and may be against the school's AUP. If they're on the ball, and you manage to circumvent whatever they're doing, you might very well end up on disciplinary probation, without a network connection, or even kicked out of school for the rest of the year, so be careful there)
(3) (probably works, but costs money) get a shell (or just a system, whatever) on the outside that you can download to and get from via http. You can find relatively inexpensive shells through hosting providers, though what you are able to run on them may be restricted, and depending on your school's implementation, you might not even be able to use those effectively. Call up dreamhost, see if you can run your own arbitrary stuff on your shell if you get a basic hosting package with them. If so, as long as you can SSH out, you can use your server there to do your torrenting, and then transfer your torrents to yourself via http (again, this requires you to be somewhat technically literate, as you'll probably be working on the command line of a linux shell for your downloading needs). Failing that, $100/month gets you an ev1.net dedicated server with 1TB/month of data transfer. Same deal, just you've got to be even more technically literate, because now you're managing a remote server.
(4) Use social networking to find friends nearby but off campus who are downloading the things you want. Invest in an external hard drive or a laptop, and make frequent trips to your friend's place to leech from them and hang out. (Again, depending on your university, this might be rather difficult ... if you're at a school with mandatory on-campus residency, for example, you'll probably have a hard time getting to know people who aren't in the same boat as you).
(5) Find a nearby Panera Bread, or a nearby coffee shop that has open wifi. Get a laptop. Substitute making friends for sitting in a coffee shop.
(6) Failing all of that: give up, focus on your schoolwork and campus life, and spend your summer and winter breaks (and holidays, etc) at home catching up on missed downloads.

[Schwarzd354]

Thanks for the tips. And yeah, you're right, not many of those solutions are viable. I don't know how to get around the anti-file sharing. And I can't afford a laptop. And my only friends in the area are on a dial-up, as is my parents house. Thanks for the advice though.