Ever since it was introduced, torrents have flourished into one of the world’s most widespread file sharing protocols in use today. It was introduced as a method of sharing huge files without the worries of heaving one source or having to consider the varying bandwidth’s people are linked to the internet through all the world’s providers ( different providers offer different bandwidths and speeds and they vary from country to country). The system is a no-fuss file transfer protocol that does not rely much on bandwidth. Another advantage is that there is no spy-ware or pop-up advertising on bit-torrents.
The system has a server that hosts the bit-torrent file sharing system and all the users have a client side program that connects to that said server facility. When a user conducts a search, the server provided the user with the most likely source of the said file and allows the user to get the said file from those sources that are mirrored or specified in the server’s database. The future of bit-torrents is to eliminate the need for centralized servers running the host applications and to get both server-side and user or client side programs installed onto a pc without a need for the remote server.
Now for the dark side, the said ongoing improvement of eliminating the server side of the system is to eliminate the need for toughened security at the server end where one can get the history and IP addresses a user has gone through. There is also growing concern for the said file sharing technology has now being used as a propagation grounds for pornographic materials over the internet. Do a quick search on torrents sites and you’ll se what I mean. Also, being a straight-forward file sharing system, as the data travels through the internet anyone intercepting the said file can easily get any information they want for the simplified processing and file transfer is accomplished by taking away most of the security features other systems employ. The elimination of security makes transactions (file transfers) faster but less safer and vulnerable to attack.