How Torrent Works: Friends, when it comes to downloading Illegal Pirated Movies, TV Shows, Web Series, or Mod App, torrent comes first in our mind. Be
What is Torrent: Torrent Case Study
How Torrent Works: Friends, when it comes to downloading Illegal Pirated Movies, TV Shows, Web Series, or Mod App, torrent comes first in our mind. Because torrent does not cost us money. Most of you have used torrents at some point in your life, and a lot of people are still using them.
By the way, let me tell those who do not know that torrent is a strong file distribution system, where it is almost impossible to stop piracy. Basically, files on torrents are not downloaded from anyone's central server. Instead, the files are downloaded from the mobiles and computers of thousands of millions of users who have already downloaded those files on their devices.
Any website related to torrents does not host any kind of data itself. Now in such a situation, even if the government closes these websites, then the website owner can create a new website by using a new domain. Because on this new website he will not have to upload any data but just links to torrents.
Now you must know that using torrents is illegal in many countries. But friends, have you ever wondered who has created such a huge network of piracy? And most importantly, where is that man at this time. Friends, in today's article, I am going to answer these questions related to torrents. So, let's get started.
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Today there are hundreds of people in the world for whom torrent is no less than a boon. Because with its help, people are able to access exclusive and premium content for free. However, doing so comes under the category of piracy and, piracy is a criminal act. But the truth is that despite this people still use torrents.
Who is the Founder of Torrent
By the way, let us tell you that the name of the person who has given this gift of torrent to people is Bram Cohen. Now when, why, and how did Bram make the torrent, let's know about it from the beginning.
Bram Cohen Biography
This torrent story begins on 12 October 1975. Because on this day Bram Cohen was born in Manhattan city of America. His father was a computer scientist and his mother was a school teacher. So, he didn't have any financial problems in his life.
Bram was different from other kids since childhood. Because while other children used to enjoy only sports, Bram's interest was in things like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Even at the age of 5, he started learning computer programming.
Bram Cohen's Education & Work Life
Imagine the time when most people did not even know the meaning of a computer, at that time Bram was learning coding at the age of 5. By the way, apart from coding, Bram was fond of different brain competitions. Bram completed his early schooling at Stuyvesant High School in New York.
And after that, he took admitted to the State University of New York at Buffalo. But as soon as he started getting job offers, he left his studies in the middle of the job. Friends, this was the period of the '90s when Bram worked for different tech companies. Although he was a brilliant student from the beginning, still why he could not get a job in any top tech company.
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Whatever the reason for this, working in different small companies like this proved to be very beneficial for Bram. Because of this, he got to learn such unique concepts of the tech world that he did not know before.
Especially his last job, which he did in a company named Mozonation, proved to be his biggest inspiration for making torrents. Actually, the Mozonation company was trying to make a decentralized method for file sharing and distribution.
The idea behind this method was that instead of a single central server, the file would be broken into different parts and saved on many different computers. Now in such a situation, whenever a person tries to download this file, he will need the cooperation of all the computers simultaneously.
And at the same time, the hacker cannot steal the entire file by hacking a single computer. Now it is not known whether Mozonation ever created this decentralized file-sharing system, but it is sure, that this idea inspired Bram to create a file-sharing protocol.
Bram also felt that this method was perfect and secure for file sharing and that is why he thought that he would definitely create his own file sharing protocol by doing this method. And to turn this idea into reality, he quit his job.
After this, he spent a year programming this protocol. And finally, after this hard work, he was able to create this protocol, which he named BitTorrent. Today this BitTorrent is what we call Torrent in simple. Bram previously programmed the BitTorrent client in the Python language and released its beta version on July 2, 2001.
Now Bram had made this protocol, but he knew very well that its real success is not to make it but to connect people to it. And so he created a tech conference with his roommate Lane Sassaman to promote it, which he named CODECON.
Here for your information, let us tell you that in the 2000 Decade, Codecon was a famous tech conference. People like Elon Musk and Sergey Brin also attended the Codecon Tech Conference.
"The mark of a mature programmer is a willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless" - Bram Cohen
Bram had presented the torrent to the tech world at this press conference, but it was not enough to bring a large number of people to this program. And that's why Bram came up with a new way to attract users. In 2002, he offered to download adult movies on torrents for free.
This strategy of Bram really worked and the traffic of users on BitTorrent started increasing day by day. But Bram did not want to be a distributor of adult films in the public eye. So after building a solid user base, he stopped seeding these adult films.
However, by this point, many users had already learned to seed and share files on their own. At that time, there were no cloud storage platforms like Google Drive like today. Plus the storage and bandwidth requirements make it overpriced.
Due to this no website owner wanted to host large files. In such a situation, with the advent of torrents, this problem of people has been completely solved. Because no one person had to host the file on the torrent. Instead, multiple users host the same file at the same time.
Bram Cohen Controversy on Piracy
And friends, because of all these features, torrents have become a platform for many people to share and download large files. And when things like movies, games, and software started being shared on this platform, it did not take long to become the world's largest piracy network.
Actually now people started sharing copyrighted content. Due to this, it became the main target of prosecutors against piracy. In fact, Bram has already confirmed this thing, that he has not made BitTorrent for piracy, but his goal is to give people a platform where they can share large files easily, and quickly, without spending any money.
Bram said, if users are using this platform of theirs for things like piracy, then it is not their fault or their platform's fault. However, the prosecutors were somehow trying to build a case against Bram on the torrent. But Bram was already aware of all these things and he had also made preparations to avoid it.
In fact, Bram had cleverly encouraged neither himself nor any other person to do piracy. Due to this, the prosecutors could not make any case against him. When Bram was asked how to stop piracy, he said that "If copyrighted content is made affordable and easily accessible, then piracy can end on its own."
And if seen, there was truth in this statement of Bram. You will remember that in the early and mid-2000s, music piracy was very high on the internet, where people used to download songs from different websites and listen to them on their mp3 players and iPods. But later, when people got the option to listen to music for free on platforms like
YouTube, Gaana, and Spotify, then music piracy was almost completely eliminated.
But all these arguments of Bram could not explain to the copyright holders. Now copyright holders could not get BitTorrent closed directly, so copyright holders started taking action against piracy links. And this led to a deal with Bram and 7 different American studios in 2005, in which Bram agreed to delete all piracy-related links on BitTorrent
But as soon as Bram started deleting all those links from BitTorrent, new torrent websites like The Pirate Bay, and RARBG started popping up on the internet. And his plan to stop piracy also failed. In this way, when the copyright holders did not get anything from Bram and BitTorrent, they started targeting the users or seeders hosting the torrent files.
For this, they tracked the IP address of each seeder and started taking legal action against them. And if we talk about India itself, then if found guilty of piracy, there can be a jail term of up to 3 years and a fine of up to 10 lakh rupees. And this is the reason that now all the seeders use VPN to seed.
However, since the advent of affordable ott platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hotstar, piracy, and torrents on the internet have worked to a great extent. But this does not mean that piracy on torrents is completely over. Well, this is the torrent's story so far.
What Happened to the Founder of Torrents
Let us know where the founder of torrent Bram Cohen is at present. Usually, when a person is caught doing piracy, then his future life becomes very difficult. But the prosecutors could never prove any crime against Bram Cohen who created the world's largest piracy network.
And this is the reason why Bram very easily left behind BitTorrent and moved on in his life. In the year 2017, he founded his own cryptocurrency company named Chia Network. For your information, let us tell you that the Chia Crypto Coin was launched in the month of April 2021.
Today Bram Cohen is busy running his company Chia Network by staying away from all kinds of controversies.
So, this was all for today. If you find this article helpful then let me know in the comment section below. Thank you very much for giving your valuable time.
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