[Lancaster] Take this as you wish!

[Craig Graham]

> As for BitTorrent, its a shame. I can't get access to
> it as it is blocked from the Uni networks. Why do
> people have to use BT instead of normal HTTP or FTP is
> beyond me.
>
> If anyone has a copy on HTTP or FTP sites, let me
> know.

The whole concept is different. When you use FTP or HTTP, there's only a
handful of sites you can get the file from and everyone is getting the
file at the same time as you, thus saturating the uplink bandwidth of the
site and making the download slow for everyone.

When you use BitTorrent, or other p2p software such as (e|ml)Donkey, every
part of the file you've downloaded can be downloaded by other people *as
you're downloading*- so if a hundred people start downloading the same
file at the same time, rather than hammering the one site that's hosting
the file, each person needs only to get 1% of the file from the original
host and the other 99% comes from other people who are also downloading
the file. In the ideal case where each person gets a different chunk of
the file from the original host.

This has obvious advantages both in reducing bandwidth consumption at the
host and in increasing the download speed for the users.

There's probably ways around the res net block, but I couldn't possibly
comment. :)

-- 
Dr. Craig Graham, Software Engineer
Advanced Analysis and Integration Limited, UK. http://www.aail.co.uk/