The technology, and methodology of downloading things you shouldn't off the internet.

Downloading copyrighted material without permission of the copyright owner is illegal and doing so can result in you being prosecuted by the copyright owner. It also makes you a bad person, as you are illegally cheating honest (and some not so honest) people out of income. The following article does not encourage copyright violation, and certainly does not reflect an endorsement of copyright violation by myself, Newsvine, or its staff.

It's amazing the number of things you can download from the internet these days. Every form of media which is capable of being digitally encoded is, and it's being shared by someone, somewhere. For free. For many, this is a temptation too hard to resist.

This is a fairly in-depth run down on the currently popular technologies which are being used to obtain and share such digital media.

Bittorrent

Bittorrent is a technology which works by allowing a user download a file, at the same time sharing the parts of the file already downloaded. By breaking down a large file into many smaller pieces, bittorrent enables a swarm to quickly and efficiently disseminate a file to a large number of users without stressing any one user. This entire process relies on three core factors; the .torrent file, the tracker and seeders. Without a .torrent file, your bittorrent client is useless. The .torrent file contains information on the file you're actually after, as well as the location of the tracker. The tracker is a server sitting somewhere in the world, often somewhere with lax copyright laws, or enforcement, which maintains a list of the users on the internet who are seeding and leeching the file in question. Seeders are the users who have already downloaded the file, and are now sharing it back to the leechers; users who are still actively downloading the file.

Bittorrent is vulnerable to disruption by removing any of those three core factors. If the site which shares the initial .torrent file is shut down, the process is essentially nipped in the bud. If the tracker goes off line, the seeders and leechers have no way of figuring out who to connect to. Seeders are the least vulnerable to disruption, as they're infrequently targeted by those seeking to shut the process down due to it being far easier to target one computer serving as a tracker than it is to target potentially thousands of computers sharing the file.

Torrents are shared via public trackers and private trackers. Both of which have their positive and negative aspects:

• Public Trackers

  Public trackers are available to everyone, you don't have to sign up, or be invited to be able to download their torrent files, nor are you bound by a ratio requirement many private trackers demand. Google indexes many of the public trackers, and often finding the latest and greatest copyrighted file in torrent form is as simple as searching Google. That being said, it's not all roses on the public trackers.
  
  By downloading files from a public tracker you're basically subjecting yourself to the whims of the masses. Many people are more than happy to download from you and others, but actively stiff everyone by not sharing, and closing the torrent when their download is complete, preventing seeding of the file to others; resulting in slower download speeds. You're also exposing your indiscretions for all to see. Anyone can connect to the tracker you're on and receive a list of the users, and their IP addresses, who are sharing that file. What they do with that information is at their discretion, but it can be used against you. Public trackers are also highly targeted by those who desire to disrupt people downloading illegally with bittorrent. Many anti-piracy organizations will share fake files on public trackers, and will share bad information on genuine torrents.

• Private Trackers

  So you think you'd prefer to get on a private tracker, where you're safe from the prying eyes of the general public? Good luck. Many private trackers operate on an invite only system, meaning you need to know someone in good standing on the tracker to even have a hope of gaining access to their torrents.
  
  If you manage to gain entry to a private tracker, you will need to work at it to keep your status within their community. You will be expected to seed back the files you've downloaded and maintain a positive ratio on the site, failure to do so will result in your account being banned and you'll be shipped back to fighting for downloads on the public trackers. That being said, private trackers have a number of positive aspects to them. Often download speeds are much greater than those on public trackers as the users are expected to seed the files they've downloaded. Private trackers often are a much more reliable source of up-to-the-minute downloads - if you're hot to trot for the latest thing, nothing beats a good private tracker for speed of availability. You're also insulated from the fake files found on public trackers, as torrents are often only entrusted to be initiated by reliable uploaders with a proven track record for sharing quality files.
  
  Conversely, to be able to calculate your ratio, and judge you based on your sharing practices, private torrents keep a detailed history of your activity on their site. In the event of that private tracker being seized by the authorities, your information can end up in the hands of those who wish to prosecute you. While the users, other than the administrators, of a private tracker being prosecuted for their activity has yet to occur after the servers have been raided by the police, it is likely that it will happen one day.

Rapidshare, Megaupload, etc.

Ever since services crept onto the internet which allow someone to upload a file and then share that with others, pirates have been abusing them to share illegal files. Currently there are a few services out there which allow a user to upload a file, the service then provides the uploader with a link to share that file with others and anyone who has the link can download that file.

Increasingly those who want to share copyrighted material on the internet are using services like these to facilitate that. Finding links to these downloads is again a simple Google search away.

The benefit of downloading things you shouldn't from these services is that you can remain fairly anonymous while downloading files quickly and without being burdened by the need to share the file after you've obtained it.

• Free service

  These file sharing sites offer downloads for free, but there's usually a catch. That catch comes in the form of waiting. They'll make you wait a short while in a queue to start your first download, and then they'll make you wait much longer for the second. It can be hours before they'll let you download another file from their servers. With some of these services, files are limited at 100mb. If what you want is 350mb, which is a common size for an hour long TV episode, you can spend all day waiting to download the full file. The free option also doesn't work with download managers, nor do they support resume for cases when your download is disrupted before it's complete.

• Premium Service

  The free service getting you down? Don't worry, these kindly download services have your best interests at heart, and offer a way for you to cut the queue, stack downloads in a download manager and allow you to resume download of partially downloaded files. All they ask is for you to cough up some cash and you'll be on your way.

IRC, Usenet and FTP

Back before bittorrent, rapidshare and even P2P; IRC, Usenet and FTP were where those who desired free downloads had to go to find their treasures. Just because they're old doesn't mean they're defunct, here's a rundown on each of these options;

• IRC

  Good old internet relay chat, a great place to whittle away those spare, and not so spare hours chatting with people from all over the world on any topic known to man. Downloading files from IRC takes knowledge. The transfer itself is terribly straight forward, but finding what you want can take much longer than actually downloading it. The problem here is twofold, you have to be on the right IRC network (there are hundreds, if not thousands) and then in the right channel (again, thousands. tens of). There are services which index IRC downloads, but their scope is limited as not every bot owner wants every noob in their channel, complaining about this, that, or the other thing. Once you're in the right place, you have to start a conversation with a bot, find what you want, tell it to send it to you and wait for your place in queue to come up. It's not hard, but unless you've got an in with someone who knows where's good, this option is best overlooked.

• Usenet

  Every second of every day everything imaginable is being uploaded to usenet. A veritable cornucopia of random conversation, technical support, political discussion, porn, spam, linux isos and copyright material are floating around in this magical ether. Usenet predates the world wide web by about 10 years, and not much has changed since then. The premise here is very similar to email - on a global scale. You start by gaining access to usenet, often through your ISP, by using a capable client. Often that's Outlook, but there are many better clients out there which have a keener eye towards facilitating downloading files from usenet.
  
  Once you've gained access to usenet, you're going to need to find some groups, which isn't very difficult once you've figured out the naming conventions. Once you have a newsgroup to explore, it's very similar to email- you download all the headers from the group, usually in batches of 1000, explore what's being offered and take what you want, or start downloading the next batch of headers. Due to the sheer size of some groups, upwards of 100,000 headers can be posted in a single day. Finding what you want in that soup can be very difficult.
  
  Fortunately, there's an easier way to locate precisely what you want; .nzb files. There are sites on the internet which offer a searchable database of the latest .nzb files, and the files contain all the information your usenet client needs to find and download the files you want. Downloading binaries from newsgroups varies depending on the client used, but it's relatively straight forward. Once you're up and running with all that, your biggest problem will be incompletions. Due to the nature of usenet, things get lost fairly easily. You'll often find that your server doesn't have the complete file, and requesting fills (the term for the uploader resending the files you're missing) is very hit and miss, often it'll be a miss. Luckly some mad scientist somewhere came up with something called par files. Given a set of archive files with missing parts and sufficient par files, you can repair the archives by magic. Literally.
  
  If your ISP doesn't provide Usenet access, or the access provided lacks all the good binary newsgroups, there are a number of Usenet providers easily findable with Google who will take your money in exchange for access, some even offer an indexed web-interface, allowing searching across their entire repository, allowing you to find what you want in even the most obscure newsgroups.

• FTP

  Using FTP is dead simple. If you've ever used Windows Explorer, or Finder on the Mac you're already up to speed with navigating FTPs. What you're not up to speed on is locating good FTPs for downloading, and you likely never will be. Good FTP sites are like gold, and no one gives away gold for nothing. Unless you have good connections with people who have access and can grant you access, or you're willing to spend months on IRC nurturing relationships, being a general lackey, and kissing the right butts, you're not going to get into a good FTP with recent releases. The FTP sites you can find online are usually transient, and will go away much faster than you'd like.
  
  FTP is also an option when you know someone who downloads a lot of stuff you want access to, and they're willing to share that with you. However, these days there are simpler solutions to this issue making setting up an FTP only really desirable if you'd be downloading constantly.

P2P, DC++, AIM and the rest.

There are hundreds of different ways to share files online these days, far too many to cover in this article, but I will give a short run down on some of other technologies people use to share files.

• P2P

  if everything above sounds too complicated and you're just a simple person looking for a simple way to download something, P2P will appeal to you. P2P networks came into the limelight back with Napster in the late '90s. Since then there are dozens of networks, and hundreds of clients all making it easy to share files. The problems with P2P are extensive, however. Not only are P2P sharers highly targeted by the anti-piracy groups, you're opening yourself up to a slew of fake files, jerk sharers, and a pile of utter nonsense. Many P2P clients are modified to install spyware and trojans on an unsuspecting users computer - you have to be absolutely sure you're downloading the official release of a respected client, before you even begin on this misadventure. Once you're up and running, search for something you want and you'll probably have a slew of adult related content spammed into your results which, at best, will be a grainy video plastered with a website url and, at worst, virus riddled. If you find something you think it is legit, it may not be. Anti-piracy groups love to flood P2P networks with fakes, and that's on top of the 12 year olds who do it for fun. P2P, in all honesty, is best avoided at all costs.

• DC++

  Direct Connect is a file sharing network, which enables you to connect to another user using DC++ software, and that user can control under what circumstances you're allowed to download files from them. It can work well, but to get established you often have to share up front, and there's no guarantee that the server won't just vanish without a trace at any point. It really isn't for someone new to file sharing, but it does serve as a viable option for those who are willing to work at networking with other users to establish themselves on the scene.

• AIM

  You know someone who has something you want? Great, sign onto AIM and have them send it to you. Simple, fast and you're most likely beyond the radar of anti-piracy groups. You're obviously limited by who you know, what they have and their willingness to send you everything you desire, but it'll work in a pinch

Technology aside, the biggest hurdle to downloading things off the internet is availability and retention. Even if it was available at one point, nothing lasts for ever, and it's often a crap-shoot wether you'll be able to find what you want being shared by anyone. You can increase your odds by knowing how you want to get it, where to look for it, and when to look for it, but it rarely is ever a sure thing.

And remember, downloading things illegally can and does lead to very real repercussions.

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Stop Downloading Fakes and Junk From BitTorrent

torrentfreak.com

Wed Dec 5

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