Is BitTorrent Traffic Going to Bring Down the Internet?   - 2,537 Views, 4 Comments

Summary: A British web statistics analysis firm has said that file sharing program BitTorrent is responsible for an astonishing 35% of all traffic on the Internet right now. Leaving aside the question of how much of that massive activity involves the illegal swapping of files ...

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A British web statistics analysis firm has said that file sharing program BitTorrent is responsible for an astonishing 35% of all traffic on the Internet right now.

Leaving aside the question of how much of that massive activity involves the illegal swapping of files (BitTorrent, like Napster and Kazaa before it, does have some legitimate applications - really), that is a massive amount of Internet traffic.

Of course this huge amount of traffic is in little tiny pieces, as that is the beauty of the BitTorrent model. Rather than download one enormous file, BitTorrent users download little snippets (”torrents”) of a file, and then the torrents are put back together as a single file on the receiving computer.

One other thing which BitTorrent has going for it is that it really does have plenty of legitimate application, and indeed many are already emerging. This is not only good from a holistic societal sense, but means that BitTorrent will be able to better withstand any legal challenge which may try to paint them as a service whose only possible reason for being is to enable illegal file sharing.

You can read more about this here.

Is BitTorrent Traffic Going to Bring Down the Internet?

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Previous Article « New Phishing Tactic Uses Real URLs, Fake Pages
Read Next Article » Imagine if Email Worked Like RSS

Read more:

»  Bit Torrent Gets Bit by a Torrent of DDos

»  BitTorrent’s Bram Cohen: Diabolical PlotMeister, or Sweet Little Autistic Nerd Boy?

»  How to Get More Online Traffic for Free! BlogRush - It’s Not Just for Blogs!

»  Bit Torrent Takes Legal Hits on Two Fronts

For additional similar stories check out our archives on File Sharing & P2P, Pirates

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4 Comments »

  1. Is BitTorrent Traffic Going to Bring Down the Internet?
    A British web statistics analysis firm has said that file sharing program BitTorrent is responsible for an astonishing 35% of all traffic on the Internet right now. Leaving aside the question of how much of that massive activity involves the…

    Trackback by Lockergnome's Windows Fanatics — 11/9/2004 @ 3:38 am

  2. Please don’t make me click through two or more web pages, just to read one short article, such as the one on Bit Torrent. It’s as bad as what About.com pulls on visitors… and it’s irritating as hell.

    Thanks.

    Comment by Gord B. — 11/10/2004 @ 1:43 am

  3. i read your page on a 15″ laptop screen. the large orange vertical ad band is covering aportion ofthe text .is ther some way to correct this?

    Comment by bob melville — 11/10/2004 @ 7:22 am

  4. Couldn’t read the article - orange advertising band - sigh…

    Comment by Anonymous — 11/10/2004 @ 8:19 pm

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 This article first appeared on 11/9/2004
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