Lesson on Creating torrent and seeding

Talking a lot of topic about downloading, and now we will talk about how to be a seeder and share your file online using Bt. To create a torrent, we need trackers.

Here is an example of BT trackers:

http://tracker.prq.to/announce
http://inferno.demonoid.com:3389/announce
http://tracker.phogotorrents.com:2006/announce
http://altimit-dev.net:6969/announce
http://privatetracker.limitedivx.com:2710/announce.php
http://tracker.torrentbox.com:2710/announce
udp://tracker.bitcomet.net:8080/announce


and a lot more, where we can find from the torrent we downloaded or just do a search on google



Usually to create torrent, from the BT client go to File -> Create new Torrent (or CTRL + N).
Then select the files to seed and put on the tracker that's all. We can use more than one tracker at the same time. The more tracker we put, the more effective for other peers to track the seed. Many trackers are used because in case if one tracker goes offline or down then other tracker can still help to maintain the linking between the peers.



For further information: http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-create-a-torrent/



One more thing before I end my post is to talk about super seeding.

What is super seeding?

Super seeding is a feature that allows seeders who are the only seed in the swarm to solely seed pieces that are found nowhere else in the swarm . It is also known as initial seed in utorrent(To enable it just right click the torrent go to Properties and tick Initial Seeding). The super seeding client pretends not to be a seed, but pretends to be a peer with an incomplete file. Then the client shares with one peer only, usually the one with the fastest upload to others and that peer can then share that piece with the swarm. This allows the super seeding client to maximise the efficiency of the upload by only sharing those pieces nobody else has.


In conclusion, I think super seeding should be used only depend on the situation. Due to some other things about the behaviour of super seeding, this function does not work well in swarms with one peer and one seed only. So it is only good when the seeder is the only seed, and there are more than two peers. Therefore, it is bad and ineffective to leave it on all the time. Most good clients should switch it on only depend on the situation. Or else it may cause degradation on speed for everyone.



Internet Resources:
How to create a torrent TorrentFreak, [Doc, Online], 30 June 2007
URL: http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-create-a-torrent/


Super-seeding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, [Doc, Online], 30 June 2007
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-seeding

Windows Worm spread through BitTorrent

An emergent news come from torrentfreak saying that there is a Windows worm that infects WinXP is probably Vista also that spread through BitTorrent.

"The worm, W32/Impard-A, is a highly sophisticated program with multi-lingual support that can effectively spread itself, delete and send other, rival malware present on the computer back to its creator, and utilise BitTorrent in achieving its goal."
(Article from torrentfreak)

This worm will try to find BitTorrent client from the computer such as bittorrent.exe and if it finds the client it will then copy itself to a specific location and then start to seed itself through Bt. This make senses as:

"Why should the malware author waste bandwidth downloading his worm to thousands of Windows computers around the globe, when he can make his army of zombified ones redistribute it for him, free of cost?"
(Article from torrentfreak)

In conclusion, Bt technology now can even be exploit to help the virus maker to spread his virus anywhere while also SAVING his bandwidth. It looks very convenient for them with the help of Bt technology. If they still continue exploit the advantage of Bt, maybe one day all ISP will ban BT forever for sure. Let's pray that wouldn't come through.

Internet Resources:
Windows Worm Uses BitTorrent to Propagate TorrentFreak, [Doc, Online], 29 June 2007
URL: http://torrentfreak.com/windows-worm-uses-bittorrent-to-propagate/

Beware when BT!!

Regarding some news information from Cnet News, I found out that nowadays BT is becoming more dangerous. Especially there is adware, spyware and worse virus is hiding inside the torrent files. Since, BT now is used widely around the world in sharing files. Some people exploit the use of BT technology to spread virus to BT peers.

Files like videos and music now may have adware and spyware hiding inside without notice by Bt leechers when they download it and it is globally distributed over the Bt web sites. Actually, BT is a virus free technology compare to P2P which is worse because it has no central search technology exists where the P2P software itself such as Kazaa have been already associated with adware and spyware. Therefore the only way to spread the adware and spyware is through hiding inside the torrent files.

In conclusion, the simple way to avoid these problems is to avoid download torrent sources from untrusted web site. We must also always check for the files that we have downloaded whether the file is in exe format or not from the torrent before we start downloading because it is obviously an executable virus. For example, if we are downloading movies, the extension must be in avi or rmvb those video format instead of exe. We must also not forget to scan for virus with anti-virus software after the download complete for safety purpose. It may be troublesome but for our computer safety wasting one or two minutes may save our computer from the evil adware, spyware or even the virus that may bring harm to our computer.

Internet Resources:
Spyware and adware hide in BitTorrent downloads, News at CNET.co.uk, [Doc, Online], 28 June 2007
URL: http://news.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029694,39190147,00.htm