To talk about the history of the bit torrent protocol and P2P file sharing, you cannot just simply start off with the P2P protocol, but rather like many stories, you have to start at the beginning.

1972 marked the birth of the file sharing revolution. This first form of peer file sharing was aptly known as Sneakerner due to the lack of interne access at the time. Sneakernet was exactly as it sounds, one would place a file on a floppy and deliver it in person or via mail.

It would be 6 years latter at the birth of the internet era that the first BBS would become available in 1978. Although back then the sharing of actual files was harder than it is today, the concept was there. It would not be until 2 years later that the BBS would evolve into the Usenet thanks to the development by Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott at Duke University.

1985 however, marked an important year to the file sharing idea. It was this same year that the File Transfer Protocol or FTP would be developed allowing people to share files via a centralized server.

Three years later the Internet Relay Chat was developed and replaced the MultiUser Talk protocol allowing for faster communications with others, starting the need for faster communications, this eventually led to the development of what is known as the World Wide Web today as it was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990.

The next big thing in the file sharing arena was not PC, but it was Mac. Hotline was the file sharing network as it was introduced at the MacWorld Expo in 1997 and became the number one file sharing vehicle for the various Mac users around the world.

1998 marked the birth of MP3.COM as well as the release of the world’s first MP3 player which led MP3 Newswire to become the first digital media sharing website. It was with the birth of the MP3 and the need to convert music tracks to MP3 that would lead to the birth of the digital copyright infringement.

A year latter, Napster was to take the central stage as a completely illegal website that allowed someone to make a MP3 file of their favorite song and share it with others, this led to not just lawsuits, but several teenagers now have criminal records due to their downloading habits.

It was not until 2000 when the first decentralized file sharing network was developed. This decentralized network was the Gnutella-network and led to the birth of a new idealism in file sharing around the world.

Two years later, the bit torrent protocol would be debut to the world, and eventually take a choke-hold on the file sharing technology around the world.

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The first generation of peer-to-peer file sharing died leaving room for the second generations to come forward and take its place in the world of P2P file sharing networks. Originally, the first generation of P2P networks focused on a centralized server that maintained the data to be down load, while the second generation made room for a decentralized structure in which the files would be maintained on the clients personal computers then transferred others through a redundant virtual network.

The first such attempt to decentralize the network was done by the Gnutella right after the fall of Napster. Gnutella was developed by Justin Frankel who was part of the Nullsoft development company. The fist working model ended up being an almost complete failure as the entire network would bottle neck due to the onslaught of ex-Napster users who came looking for a place to share their files.

The main reason why Gnutella, at first, bottle necked was due to the simple fact that Gnutella made all the nodes equal. Soon FastTrack would create a new development that allowed certain nodes to be more equal than some of the other nodes on the network.

Gnutella picked up this development and implemented it into their own system which then created the Gnutella network that we all know of today. It was this development by FastTrack that allowed for the true decentralized peer to peer networks. In the network, some nodes become super nodes and have higher priority over others. They do this because they then become basically indexing nodes that maintain a track of the less than equal nodes attached to them.

Later, the second generation peer to peer networks also added the Dynamic Hash Tables to allow for file transfers without the need of the tracker file even further decentralizing the file sharing networks.

With over 10.3 million users, not including the bit torrent protocol, world wide, the FastTrack developed method of file sharing in the second generation has grown a quite respectable reputation.

The bit torrent and various other file sharing networks are not going anywhere, nor are they just going to disappear. As long as there is a need to share virtually any type of file with a complete stranger on the other side of the world, the file sharing networks are only going to grow in size.

The file sharing and especially the bit torrent network is quite literally the largest community in the world with hundreds of million members in virtually every county world-wide. How do you join the world’s largest community? You can simply download any bit torrent client software for free. Sit back and let the program bring the file you want directly to you. The faster your connection and the more you share, the faster you can get your files. It basically that simple!

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It was 2005 when Gnutella was the third largest file sharing protocol in the world. Even today, Gnutella maintains their rank as the third largest regardless of the fact that FastTrack has declined and the bit torrent protocol has taken over. Gnutella was first developed back in 2000 right after Nullsoft was bought out by American Online. When the program was finished, its release date was announced on Slashdot and the first day it was available, people swarmed the site to download he client applications which were open source.

Due to the fact that AOL now owned Nullsoft, the day after the public release, American Online stopped the project completely due to the possibilities of legal implications. Thanks to the fact that this was released as an open source program, that one day was all that was needed. Within a matter of weeks, the program was reverse engineered and re-released as open source clones. All maintaining the original protocol developed for the Gnutella network.

It was in 2001 when Napster was hit for legal issues, many people left Napster as soon as they found out and chose an alternative. The number one alternative they chose was to use the Gnutella cloned clients. It was because of these Napster refugees, that the Gnutella network discovered its weakness when the entire network began to bottleneck, but thanks to the newly developed FastTrack, Gnutella was redeveloped to include their ultrapeer protocol which prevented future bottlenecks in the network.

By 2001 and 2002 both LimeWire and Morpheus were using the open source Gnutella protocol in their networks as it allowed for a semi-centralized network versus the fulle decentralized bit torrent protocol.

The difference betweek Gnutella and the bit torrent protocol, is that when a client side node is booted up, it searches for ultrapeers. Ultrapeers are nodes that maintain the information of other clients in the network. Basically an Ultrapeer is a client that is never shut down and therefore has a complete list of nodes in the network. It will then try to connect to a certain number of these nodes in the network until it reaches its quota of connections.

Once it makes those connections and compiles it own list, it then takes over the position of the ultrapeer, but only to those node in which it is connected to. Basically a first come first serve basis. The fist node online helps the other nodes connect to each other. From there, in order to build up the database of files, one client would d a search. In this search function, their client contacts only the nodes that they are connected to requesting that file, the nodes it is connected to then forwards the search to the nodes in its connection. Eventually the search goes through the entire network and the number of available sources is slowly reported back to the requesting client application.

Gnutella has come a long way and still maintains its standings in the peer to peer file sharing networks. P2P is here to stay and it is not going anywhere, so regardless of the program and protocol you choose, you are bound to find what you want.

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