A

SEMIMAR REPORT
ON
BITTORENT
PROTOCOL
Outline
 1 Introduction
 2 Overview of BitTorrent
 3 BitTorrent protocol 1.0
 4 New features
 5 References
1 Introduction
 30% of all Internet bandwidth was used by BitTorrent at
the end of 2004.
 popular ways of sharing and downloading files.
 BitTorrent is used for legal distribution of files and to
illegally share and download of copyrighted material.
 Due technology within the protocol large amounts of data
can be distributed without the need of a high capacity
server, and expensive bandwidth.
 Bittorent is decentralized.

2 Overview of BitTorrent

 BitTorrent is a file sharing protocol,

implementing peer-to-peer technology.
 A file is divided into smaller pieces.
 A piece downloaded by a peer is then
shared for uploading by that peer.

 COMPONENTS OF THE
PROTOCOL
 Metainfo file. Describes metadata about the sharing
file(s), and the tracker, and has the file ending
.torrent.
 Tracker. A central server keeping track of peers and
seeds sharing and downloading the file(s).
 Peer. A user on the network downloading the file(s),
and sharing the parts that have been successfully
downloaded.
 Seed. A peer that has the complete file or files
available for sharing. At least one seed is needed in
the beginning for the sharing to be possible.
 Client. An application implementing the BitTorrent
protocol.

BITTORENT WORKING
1.DOWNLOAD THE TORRENT FILE
2.Contact the Tracker
3.Tracker Response
4.Peer Connection
5.Peer A downloads a piece
from the network.
6.Piece exchange starts.
7.Peers periodically contact
tracker.
3 BitTorrent protocol 1.0
 designed
by Bram Cohen.
3.1 Metainfo file structure:-

 .torrent file is bencoded.

 Bencoding -way to organize data. Types
supported : byte strings, integers, lists
and dictionaries.
 A metainfo file can be in one of two
modes: Single-file mode and Multi-file
mode.



Keys in the dictionary
 length: The length of the file in bytes
 · name: The name of the file
 · piece length: The piece length in bytes
 · pieces: A 20 byte SHA1 hash file.
 md5sum: 32 byte string file.
 announce-list: list of tracker URL.
 creation date
 Comment
 created by
3.2 Tracker protocol

 implemented on top of HTTP/HTTPS.

 client sends a GET request to the tracker
URL+CGI variables.
 E.g.http://some.url.com
/announce?var1=value1&var2=value2&var3=
 tracker responds with a “text/plain”
document, containing a bencoded
dictionary.
 client then sends rerequests, either on
regular intervals, or when an event
occurs, and the tracker responds.
 4 New features
4.1 DHT (Distributed Hash Table)
 Problems: centralized services,(query
flooding broadcasts a message over
whole network).
Merits of DHT:

 provides lookup service.

 Any participating node can retrieve the
value associated with given key easily.
 Maintenance of mapping keys is
distributed to nodes.
 Highly scalable.

4.2 Multi trackers

 To avoid interruption when a tracker

fails, multiple trackers is used.
 [‘announce-list’] = [ [tracker1] ,
[backup1] , [backup2] ]
 [ [tracker3,tracker2,tracker1] ]
[‘announce-list’] = [ [tracker1,tracker2] ,

[backup1] ]

4.3 Encryption
 Due to high BitTorrent traffic of 30%
bandwidth, some ISPs block BT traffic.
 encryption of BitTorrent traffic was
implemented in some clients to fool
the ISPs blocking system.
 encrypting and recognition of BitTorrent
traffic, takes up resources.
 That’s why ISPs don’t implement this
kind of blocking.
 It is known as traffic shaping or
bandwidth throttling.

 5 References
 http://www.cachelogic.com/research/2005_slide06
 http://www.bittorrent.com/protocol.html

 http://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentSpecification

 http://home.elp.rr.com/tur/multitracker-spec.txt

 http://www.cs.rice.edu/Conferences/IPTPS02/174.
 http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1083


The Pirate Bay Raid
 2004: MPAA pressured the U.S. and Swedish
government to shut down The Pirate Bay
 May 2006: Police in Sweden raided The Pirate
Bay, shut down their website, & confiscated
their servers
 The Pirate Bay
 BitTorrent search engine & tracker server
 Launched in November 2003 by
Gottfrid Svartholm & Fredrik Neij
 Down for 3 days
 Publicity and +1.7 million more users
The Pirate Bay Trial
 January 2008: Criminal & civil prosecution
in Sweden for promoting the copyright
infringement of others with torrents by
the International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
 Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter
Sunde, and Carl Lundström
 Found guilty
Sentenced to 1 year in prison
Pay a fine of $3.5 million
 SUBMITTED BY

YOGENDRA KUMAR SAHU

(0201IT071089)

PRASHANT KUMAR
(0201IT071049)
IT V SEM
JABALPUR ENGINEERING COLLEGE
JABALPUR