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Sharing Torrent and Peer-to-peer (P2P) Downloads

Peer-to-peer (or "P2P") and torrents are the newest, but fastest growing sources of downloads on the Internet. In fact, if measured by the pure quantity of data, torrents are the most popular source.

If you do not recognize the terms torrents or peer-to-peer you may know the name of some P2P software such as BitTorrent, µTorrent, Kazaa, Morpheus, FrostWire, LimeWire, iMesh, Gnutella, or the application that got it all started, Napster.

P2P software allows users to share and exchange information dynamically and with little or no central control. Unlike the process of uploading and downloading data to the web or Usenet, P2P applications allow users to search and download files directly from a distributed network of computers, very often seamlessly in the background. The whole process is made even more flexible and easy by the powerful torrent search sites that index downloads available on literally thousands of computers at the same time.

Of course, this has some security implications, but there are great benefits of peer-to-peer file sharing if it is used correctly.

What Can a P2P User Do?

Hackers are using the popularity of downloading movies and music via torrents to their advantage all the time and are continually using them as a way to trick you into downloading malicious software to your computer. Even apart from the serious security risks, some people would simply rather keep their P2P downloading habits private.

Either way you can keep your torrent downloading safe and private if you know a few key concepts and techniques. You can download your torrents via a proxy service that acts as an intermediary connection, keeping your IP address secure from hackers or anyone else. Free software utilities are available that let you double-check how your computer is connecting to others, including to verify that your proxy is functioning properly and protecting you.

There is also specialized free software that will protect your computer from connecting to known unfriendly connections which helps make sure that you never hook up with the hackers. More fundamentally, understanding and adjusting some of your P2P software settings will also help shield you from risk. By tweaking the settings in your P2P software, this will help keep your P2P traffic as hidden as possible whether from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or snoops.

The book, Complete Guide to Internet Privacy, Anonymity & Security, takes you step-by-step through all these concepts and techniques including with easy-to-understand screenshots.